There are a few major choices in your life that have a dramatically outsized impact on the quality of said life.
But the one that is most often overlooked?
Where you choose to live.
It’s second only to who you choose as a partner.
Hot take: Where you live is even more important than what you choose to do for work.
Your work can shift and change over the years. I’ve reinvented my career multiple times over the last decade.
But both the place you live and the physical space in which you live deeply influence your quality of life.
In 2016, when I chose to leave Texas for the mountains of Colorado, everyone warned me it was a bad business decision.
And they were right.
Being physically close to my industry allowed much better access to deals, and proximity to the source of knowledge gave us an edge.
But living in Texas did not allow me to create the life that I wanted to live.
Whenever I would do an exercise where I would design my perfect day, I would dream of waking up and going mountain biking. My weeks would be filled with hikes, fishing with my kids, and snowboarding in the winter.
No matter how I tried to justify it with mental gymnastics, access to the outdoors was a glaring gap in my happiness.
There were a million reasons not to take the leap.
My parents were there. My kids had friends there. My business was there. My network was there.
And I moved anyway.
Then, in 2020, I doubled down and built my dream house with my dream partner, who later became my wife.
For two years, I poured my heart and soul into creating this space. I painstakingly pored over every detail, designing every square foot with precision.
The combination of these two decisions has yielded a near-infinite Return on Happiness.
Every morning as I sip my coffee and look out at the red rock cliffs that punctuate the view from my patio, I am filled with a deep sense of peace and gratitude. I meditate, and then ride my bike on the 28 miles of exquisite single track out my front door.
And it’s every bit as fulfilling as I imagined it might be when I was dreaming about it all those years ago.
My home has become a gathering place for my community, my family, and the inspiration for my coaching business.
I designed my home with the idea of one day hosting retreats here. Shortly after moving in, I circled a date on the calendar, and a few months later, I hosted 16 founders looking to level up their wealth and their lives.
Had I not made a decidedly bad business decision to leave Texas, and then an equally questionable financial decision to build this house, I may have never uncovered my true purpose.
I may have never found the most meaningful relationships that now sit at the center of my life.
I would have quietly longed for the outdoors while trapped in a life that only looked successful on paper.
So much of what makes my life so meaningful now is a direct result of choosing a path that didn’t make sense on paper, but instead aligned with my values.
Every time I land at the Denver airport and start the drive home, my heart leaps with joy as the snow-covered Rockies loom in the distance.
My wife laughs as I say the same thing every time:
“I love where we live. I can’t believe how lucky we are.”
But of course, luck has little to do with it.
I chose Return on Happiness (ROH) over ROI.
And I’ll be forever grateful that I did.
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