Live the life that you want, tailor it to your liking and retire at 30, 40 or whenever you wish

How would you like to live your life? What experiences do you want to have? What would you like to change in the world? Do you want to have children? Have you ever thought about what you will do after retiring?

Not long ago, I turned forty-four and I think this presents as good opportunity as any to talk about this topic.

In my case, I have never made many concessions, at least in terms of what really mattered to me.

I have travelled, enjoyed myself, set up businesses in line with my interests and always worked in what I wanted to. I have a wife and children who I live with, I do things I believe in and that make me feel good, I connect with people I love, I have no problems with money—I can even invest and guarantee myself a good retirement.

Needless to say, that I have always been able to do what was important to me does not mean that I have not needed to make any compromises. Of course, I have also had to deny myself things, work hard and do things I did not feel like doing.

All this has enabled me to think differently, to understand that there is not one right way of doing things, that you can change your life at any moment, and that just because the people around you do things or think in a certain way does not mean that you also have to.

I have always felt a foreigner or tourist wherever I have been. Though at first that bothered me, it is something that I have ended up accepting and has helped me a lot in my life.

As a side note, let me be entirely clear here that I would recommend to any person with children to emigrate and give them the opportunity to learn other cultures, and possibly other languages, too. That is in fact what I did.

But education is not what I want to talk about today, nor is my own life (at least, not just for the sake of it). The subject of this piece is how we live our lives and how we can choose to design them according to our liking.

Live a different life

In my case, when I was in my early twenties, I wanted to be a translator, so I set up my own translation agency, looked for clients and got down to work.

I later decided that I wanted to life a comfortable life—in which I would work half the year and the other half travel and do what I felt like. I looked for a business partner who would enable me to do just that and I had a fantastic time.

Then it turned out I wanted to focus more on the business, so I did.

Subsequently I wanted to invest more in my children and give them a good education. We left where we were living and move to the perfect place for that and I transitioned to working only a few hours a day.

A while after that my wife and I decided that we wanted to travel around the world, to be free from a fixed location. We left behind all our belongings and threw ourselves into an adventure…

I was able to do all this because I never believed in the linear idea of life. The notion that life consists solely of going to school, getting good grades, studying at university, finding steady work, buying a car, getting married, having children, working, at some point down the line affording to buy a flat, then continuing to work 11 months a year with just 30 days of holiday until late my late sixties, and, finally, retiring. I would live out my remaining years and die of whatever illness I get.

Just because this is the normal way of doing things does not mean that you also have to do it like this.

For example, in terms of retirement.

For me the concept or retirement does not exist, it is not a part of my life. My objective is not to retire so that I can live again, no. My idea is to live the life I want, and in doing so, attain economic freedom, that is, the point at which I no longer have to work to maintain myself and my family.

In my case, the most likely scenario is that I reach economic freedom before my fifties, and that works for me, because I am content with my job and my lifestyle.

For me it is not a question of stopping working to starting living the life I want, but having the freedom to do what I want without that freedom limiting me financially speaking.

Organising your life

I am not a very organised person. I am not someone who sits down and starts mapping out a detailed plan of objectives, times and so on. However, I do like to reflect on what I do and ask myself from time to time if I am taking the path that I really want to.

This is precisely what, I think, we should all do from time to time.

In the first part of your life, it is not so much that you can organise your life to your own liking, but so that you can enable your children to have a freer and more fulfilled life. So, you could start thinking, if you have small or school-aged children, if educating them for the longest possible time is the most appropriate way.

For example, instead of following the trend of over-protecting them and giving them everything ready-made, you can instead allow them more space and let them take blows (physically or psychologically) from time to time. You do not need to give them everything they ask for nor control everything they do; they can get dirty, fall off their bike and get ill.

You can also let them learn at their own pace. Children learn on their own by walking, talking, swimming, cycling… even by writing, if you are patient enough. I have lived through it with my own kids. Letting them learn unhindered, without parental interference has several significant advantages. Firstly, they learn when they are ready. Secondly, they learn when they are interested to learn, so they do not need to be motivated. And thirdly, seeing that they are able to learn something for themselves gives them a great sense of empowerment, freedom and confidence in their own ability.

Let’s say, for argument’s sake, you have left school and are 18, 19 or 20 years old. It is you who can start to take your own decisions about your life and do not need to depend on your parents. Instead of automatically launching into a degree because your parents keep pushing you and your whole family is proud of you, why not take the money saved during your childhood and teenage years, or if you have none left, work for six months, and go traveling for a year to discover the world?

This is seen by many families as “wasting time” but it is precisely what young people need: time living life, experiencing the real world, away from academia and well away from the family nest.

Work for a period and then go traveling. Keep traveling and working at the same time if you find you enjoy it. Live adventures, do crazy things, waste time, earn your living. Make friends, lose them, create, innovate, see how the world really works. And then, one, two, three or however many years later, if you still want to, you can still go to university or do the training that you have decided that you want to do and which will help you reach your goals.

What I see in many of the interns I have been able to meet through my various businesses is that they have done everything perfectly—they graduate in their early twenties, with a good degree—but no-one wants to hire them. Why not? It is very simple: they are not trusted for positions of responsibility. On one hand, because they are very young, on the other, because they are too immature.

Let’s consider another example: you have finished your degree or your training and you want to become financially independent. Instead of securing a mortgage and buying a flat with the help of your parents or buying yourself a car with the money you have earned after several months of working, why not take a different route?

If I were in this situation the first thing I would do would be to ask myself what are my short-term and long-term objectives. Obviously, I need to work and, from what I see all around me, everyone has unbearable bosses, they do jobs that they often dislike, have awful timetables and are even paid poorly.

Considering that you will work for almost your whole life, would it not be worth thinking a little about how you could change that?

After four years of your degree or however many years spent in training, the expectation is you will have learnt a profession or how to work as something (at least for the most part), but the reality is you have no idea about finances, which is the key to maximising the money earned in your job. That is the first thing I would change.

I would learn about how to invest, in particular in the stock market because what I really like are companies. Then I would try to understand how taxes work. Finally, I would ask myself how I can be my own boss. Not necessarily how to set up a business (nor do you need employees) but it is important to understand how to have a business that allows you to work as you like, choosing your clients and getting the most out of your work.

Being my own boss would allow me to structure my work in a way that I can enjoy or at least which prevents burnout.

One last example. Suppose I am between thirty and forty and have just discovered that these options exist. Rather than continuing as I have up to this point, I would start the ball rolling. I would sit down and think: what things in my life are important and what things are not? What am I lacking and what do I have a surplus of?

Let’s say I have a company that grants me a salary of 150k a year and a million euros in profit before tax. I allow myself, between what the company pays and what I pay, more than half in tax, and despite that, the tax authorities keep bothering me with their inspections and sanctions.

Or perhaps I work for a company that pays me a gross salary of 120k a year. Of course, in this case I am only taking home half of what I earn.

Maybe I would simply pack my bags, put my housing up for sale and go to another country where I could keep more of what I earn. I would leave the business in the hands of someone I trust, and if possible, I would start working to move the business to another country, at least part of it.

Or I would speak to the company that employs me and I would tell them that I am leaving, that if they want to keep me it would have to be as a remote worker or a freelancer. If a company is prepared to pay you 120k a year, be in no doubt that you can find another that will keep paying you well and will let you work from another country. You can of course think about setting up your own firm and offer your services in this way.

In any case, I would go to a country where I pay no (or very little) tax and that would allow me to save enough to obtain economic freedom if I have still not achieved it. Even if I already had economic freedom, I would still leave because I would be tired of being taken from, and to ensure that I hold onto my freedom in the face of threats of new taxes being introduced in my home country.

Lots of people, even after achieving economic freedom, continue to work. This could be because they like what they do, but also because they are unhappy with the rest of their life. If this is the case, why not take a sabbatical, break free from routine and go elsewhere?

What we must find is a balance between the life that we are living, the life that we want to live and the one that (we think) we are going to have.

It could make sense to choose a hard life for a few years to then enjoy a long life full of comforts, but not the other way around. And that is the problem I see with retirement.

Beyond it being a Ponzi scheme in which each passing year increases the chances of the system breaking down and going up in smoke, the problem is that we are trading the best years of our lives doing something that we might not even like, for years of old age retirement that we will most likely not even enjoy.

Enjoying your life

My dad has always said to me: “life is to be enjoyed”.

This is undoubtedly the maxim that we all must keep in mind. We need to stop saving things for tomorrow, putting up with what we dislike. It is time to move past that and run the risk of enjoying life today.

You must not settle for an acceptable or tolerable life. Bear in mind that this is your life, your only life. You have to enjoy it today, yesterday, tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow. You cannot keep waiting for when your retirement comes to start doing what you always wanted. You cannot keep hoping for things to improve just by themselves.

It goes without saying, I am not suggesting that you must like every part of your life, but every day has to contain something that you have enjoyed. If you only enjoy the weekend or you only feel at ease when you have stopped working, then it is time to start thinking about how you can change the elements that are not working.

On economic freedom

The key to living the life that you want is in what we were saying earlier: crafting a life which adapts to your needs, that you can enjoy but, also, which works towards economic freedom.

If the concept remains unclear to you, economic freedom consists of being completely independent from anyone or anything so that you can live the life that you want to live. This happens when your income exceeds your expenses and, in the best-case scenario, when the money you spend is replenished without needing to do very much.

Passive income is one of the keys here: stock market investment, property, crypto, business, royalties… If you are still unfamiliar with this topic, maybe you want to take a look at our ebook about Investing for Beginners.

Another key element is controlling expenditure, ensuring that you can save at least 20% of what you earn. Pay attention here: controlling expenditure does not mean you have to live frugally and you cannot allow yourself luxuries. It simply means you are able to set aside a large proportion of your earning and you avoid engaging in unnecessary spending which serves little purpose. If buying a Mercedes, taking out a mortgage or paying your children through the most expensive school or university will stop you from reaching your saving objectives and prevent you from obtaining economic freedom at a certain point in your life, think carefully about your decisions and whether it is what you really want to do.

The third and last part is, of course, being careful with governments. Avoiding taxes and property expropriation, escaping the clutches of the most covetous jurisdictions and evading the reach of their tentacles can enable you to reach economic freedom in half the time. With that we can help you in our Staatenlos consultancy.

Conclusion

As I hope you are starting to see now, living the life you want is not something you can leave until tomorrow.

At the end of the day, time is unforgiving and as the years roll on, we lose the opportunity to do what we wanted to do. Illness, or even death, could come before retirement and stop you from enjoying the fruits of your labour. It is useless saving up and keeping the best for the end if by that point life amounts to lying prostrate on a hospital bed, bored and having no motivation to live.

If you do not want to live a colourless life trapped inside an office, counting down the minutes until the weekend and dreaming about what you really want to do in a few decades, when you have retired, there is still time to change your direction.

Designing the life you want is the key. Instead of settling and going along with what the majority do, you can consider what is really important to you and structure your life according to that. You can start living the life that you want.

Yes, it is true; you may need to take some difficult decisions now, but in turn all the rest will start to work out as you really want it to.

We must not resign ourselves to conforming to the expectations society tries to force upon us. We do not need to go to school and then university, or get our first job after graduating and work from nine to six every day, waiting for a promotion that makes us work even more. There is no need to live a life that we do not like. We can plead ignorance about what society expects from us. All we need is a change in mentality.

Not long ago, I turned 44 and today I leave this reflection about my life and my journey until this point. Above all this piece is about what anyone can do to live the life they want to.

Personally, I am where I want to be and heading towards the destination I want to. I am determined not to let go of the reigns of my own life. For that reason, I have led a different life to what is expected from a member of society, but who cares?

Because your life is yours!