What does it feel like to move out of your old house but not have a new one to move into?

It’s like climbing a staircase and expecting another step.

Or as Laci puts it, “Like when you’re forgetting something, but it’s really big and important.”

“Like where you’re going to live,” I said.

“Exactly,” she replied.

We are officially moved out of our house. Our belongings are in storage, and we each have a backpack which contains everything we’ll need for a year.

We had some furniture to bring to family, so we rented a truck to drive to Dallas.

Near the end of our trip, we pulled the truck over and recorded this podcast to capture our immediate thoughts and feelings on moving out, having no home, and beginning the sabbatical year.

We also talk about how it feels to not yet know where we’re going to live after the sabbatical.

We are just a few days away from moving out of our house and officially beginning our sabbatical year. That means I also have only a few days left to sleep in my own bed with my own pillow. I’ll miss that.

The nerves are starting to kick in. Are we really doing this??

Well, we booked a storage unit today, and our lease on the house is up soon—oh, and our internet, water, and electricity are all shutting down… so I guess we really are!

It definitely hasn’t sunk in yet. Randomly, I’ll feel a little anxious, but I think that makes sense; what we’re doing isn’t exactly normal. I think it’s nervous excitement. Maybe a little restlessness, actually. We originally planned to be out January 1st, so I’ve been itching to go for weeks!

My office is taking a lot of work to pack up. It’s just so complicated with all the gear and wiring. I’m also resisting the urge to shove everything into a box like spaghetti. I’m taking my time and trying to organize things neatly so I’ll actually be able to put it back together in 2021.

I’m super excited for the Dallas, San Diego, and Los Angeles meetups happening in the next few weeks!

Every year, millions of people join a gym. And, every year, somewhere between 2-6 months after joining, millions of people stop going to the gym.

And while this is arguably a boon to the people who own gyms, it isn’t good news for those of us seeking a healthier lifestyle.

Change—whether it’s a change in your waistline or your net worth—takes time, and it takes effort. It takes both.

If you hit the gym today and work out as hard as you can until you collapse… you won’t wake up much healthier tomorrow (quite the opposite).

And if you just dutifully pay your gym fees for ten years, you won’t wake up a decade from now and discover yourself an athlete.

No. If you want to change something, you’ll have to put in the reps, perhaps for years. How do you know if you’re up for that? How do you get yourself to be up for it?

Let’s talk about what it takes to pursue a change for as long as it takes to see results.

I’m excited to announce our official move out date: January 26th! I’m so happy to finally begin our sabbatical year of nomadic world travel, and hopefully get to hang out with you in person.

We won’t have a house or car, and we’ve sold a lot of our other possessions as well. Everything we’ll use for the next year will fit in a backpack.

While we have some specific places in mind we’d like to visit, we also want to connect with people. I’ll keep you posted on any meetups in a city near you.

But beyond meetups, a number of people have reached out to actually offer us a place to stay—which is incredible!

The only problem is, I’ve had a hard time keeping track of the various comments and messages from people offering us a place to stay in various cities. So I came up with a solution:

If you want to have us stay with you during 2020, you can visit the Host Us page to fill out a form so we know how to get in touch. That way, I’ll know how to reach you if I’m in your city.

Laci and I would love to hang out with you!

Lastly, I genuinely want to know: what questions do you have for me?

Feel free to get in touch. What type of things do you want me to share? What are you interested in? What things would you like to see? I want to hear from you.

“Stop being such a weirdo.”

I’m gonna make a prediction: at some point, probably while at recess, someone said this to you—or they said something very much like it.

We are trained from birth to conform with the expectations of others. We are precision-engineered to please those around us. And let’s be clear: there’s enormous value in being able to get along with our fellow human beings!

But if what you want out of life is not the same thing as your parents want, as your friends want, as what society keeps telling you you should want…

You’re going to have to walk an uncomfortable road.

You’re going to have to be… some kind of weirdo.

It’s true. If you want something different from what other people get… you have to do things that other people do not—or will not—do.

For some of us, this comes more easily than for others. But don’t kid yourself: the odds are stacked against you. Forces within and without will try to convince you to “just be normal”. Just try to fit in. Just go along with everyone else. Same clothes. Same job. Same hobbies. Same life. Why isn’t that enough for you?

If it’s not enough, don’t worry, weirdo. You’re not alone. Today we’re going to give you—no. We’re going to get YOU to give yourself permission to be as weird as you need to be.

In this mini-sabbatical episode, Sean tells the story of how he hired Dan to run seanwes in 2020. Hiring the right person is never easy, but Sean gave himself a huge advantage: he created a community of awesome people. We also discuss what it takes to get an unusual job like Dan’s. The secret isn’t in how you format your résumé, it’s about how well you communicate and connect with others.

In this mini-sabbatical episode, Dan asks a question Sean’s been getting a lot lately: “Will you still do podcasts in 2020?” While the existence of this episode makes it clear that he’s not sitting out the whole year, Sean explains that he’ll be creating content—including podcasts—when he wants to, instead of on any kind of schedule; that’s the secret to a restful sabbatical: freedom from obligation.

We also discuss seanwes as a “personality brand”, and what it means for both the podcast and the business as a whole to have Sean McCabe take a step away from center stage. How do you grow a business beyond yourself when the business is so closely associated with… you?

Sean talks about the long game mindset, and how he’s willing to accept change and disruption now to build a better and stronger business in the years to come.

Welcome to the first behind-the-scenes look at Sean’s Sabbatical Year!

Dan quizzes Sean on his mobile recording setup: now that the seanwes podcast studio is in storage, how will Sean produce content? Does he have to give up on quality? We talk about the lessons Sean learned hauling a 4K camera across Kauai, how the camera you have in your pocket is more than enough, and how you can produce the best work possible using the tools at hand.

Look for more bonus sabbatical episodes in your podcast feed soon!

Happy New Year… and New Decade!

But, look: In terms of your goals and aspirations, January 1st is much the same as April 17th, or August 22nd. But that’s not how we tick: we put a lot of stock in the end of the old year and the beginning of the new one.

If nothing else, a “fresh start” is a useful thing. If you didn’t give yourself one a week or a month ago, you might as well do it at the new year.

With that in mind—that this is as good a time as any!—let’s talk about how to accomplish whatever it is we want to accomplish in the coming year.

The system that will take you in the right direction has three parts:

1. The Target: what we usually think of as a resolution (“I want to run 100 miles every month”).

2. The Strategy: how you’ll hit the target (“I’ll run three times a week in the morning, I’ll count my macros, I’ll change my diet in this way”).

3. The Reason: why you actually want to do all this—the change you want to see in yourself (“I want to be a healthy and athletic person”).

We're doing something a little different for this episode. In the seanwes Community, we do a special live show every Monday morning called Fired Up Mondays. This is our community office hours where members can get live answers to their questions right there on the show. This is just one of the many benefits of seanwes membership; to find out more, go to https://seanwes.com.

Fired Up Mondays is members-only, but since Ben and I weren't able to record over the holidays, we're sharing this episode with you. It's a little different in format than the regular seanwes podcast, but I think you'll still find it full of value. Ben and I will be back next week with a great episode called "Setting Your 2020 Goals".

In the meantime, enjoy this look inside Fired Up Mondays! 🔥

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It’s the last Fired Up Mondays of 2019!

We have a big show today, starting with a question about staying sane during the period where you can’t afford to do your passion. It’s frustrating to feel like you aren’t making progress, but the key is to realize that you are: you’re laying a strong foundation for pursuing your passion wholeheartedly in the years to come.

Next we have a question about giving value to your newsletter subscribers. If you can no longer produce exclusive content for them, how do you reward their loyalty? We’ve got a great episode from the seanwes podcast archives that lays out the plan for you.

Finally, there’s a question about understanding the pain points of your podcast audience to come up with topics. You can only figure out so much about your audience before you drum up an audience, so your best bet is to just start with the topics you care about, and, once people respond, ask them what they’re struggling with!

Finally-finally, Dan talks a bit about how much he (hasn’t) changed in the last seven years, and why, just maybe, that’s okay.

See you in 2020!