Hi, there. If you’ve come across this blog and it’s interesting to you, I’m honored. I now write and speak via brianherriot.com. I’m also a financial advisor for entrepreneurs at Herriot Financial, LLC. I hope to see you soon!

It’s a question I have thought about for a long time and a lot lately.

I haven’t suffered.

I first realized it objectively.

I read about suffering in the biographies of great founders and celebrities. The true greats come from poverty or have won battles against personal demons.

That’s not me.

How does my life experience compare to these personal struggles that I read about?

I was born healthy and raised in a strong family by supportive parents. I was a good student and went to a good college. I haven’t put undo pressure on myself. I haven’t experienced anxiety or depression. I have no personal demons. I took a good job out of school in a good economy. I’ve switched jobs and climbed the corporate ladder without stress. I started businesses on my own terms. My personal savings have grown while skating through recessions and down markets. My parents are still living. I haven’t lost anyone who is close to me. I’m lucky.

Next, it was reinforced emotionally.

Over the years, three family members have pointed out that I lead a charmed life. These reminders are particularly memorable to me.

In the family conversations I’ve had, my good fortune was not admired. The frame was negative. The messages I took to heart centered on how I “just don’t get” struggle and how I “couldn’t possibly understand” its meaning.

So I’m conflicted. Is my lack of suffering good? Am I indeed lucky? Or…

Is it a bad thing to not have struggled?

That too could be true:

• Character finds its roots in suffering according to The Road to Character by David Brooks. With no suffering, do I also lose character? I want character.
• Without suffering through the bad, do I not value the good in life? I want to value life and lead one that is examined and meaningful.
• And back to greatness: Success is often rooted in suffering. Will I never be great? I don’t need to be huge or popular, but I want to be great at what I do!
  
  

My immediate reaction is that suffering is a part of life that I’ve been lucky to skip past (so far).

But maybe it wasn’t luck at all. Consider:

• My socioeconomic condition: I am a tall, white, well-educated, male living in the 21st century United States. It can’t get any better. I am privileged.
• My inherited personality: I dislike conflict and stress, and aim to side-step problems. I’m risk-averse and calculated in what I pursue. I’ve designed myself a “safe” life.
  
  

But gliding safely through life isn’t right either. My life needs meaning.

Could I be more conscious in seeking out difficult things, environments, and experiences? Do I pursue something that stretches my comfort zone but risks sadness and suffering?

I don’t know.

Is there a middle ground?

I want to challenge myself. Yet I don’t want to suffer for the sake of it. That seems pointless.

What if I risk a meaningful but painful experience and then manage the suffering?

Frank Ostaseski, co-founder of the Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco, reminds us in “What it Means to Suffer, and Why it’s Important” that pain and suffering are related, yet different experiences.

The familiar adage says, “Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.”

Suffering is the result of a chain reaction: stimulus -> thought -> reaction.

We don’t have control over the stimulus that triggers pain. But we can influence our thoughts about the pain and our reaction to it. In doing so, we can reduce suffering.

To live a well-examined and purpose-filled life, I need to go big and risk some pain. And when the inevitable pain comes, I should think deeply and practice how I react.

Maybe this is the middle ground that I seek.

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What is Fast Follow Investing?

• Start with buy & hold passive indexing.
• Then, 1) expand beyond stocks and bonds and 2) cut off severe market losses at the knees.
• Grow your lifetime savings at 12% to enjoy a 5% forever rate of withdrawal in retirement.
• Fast Follow Investing (based on Tactical Asset Allocation) is finally here for small investors like you and me.

So join me!

Use my slow travel planner to create your perfect getaway. Unplug from work, speed up your retirement travels, and expand your mind too.

This is a two-part blog.

Post 1 makes the case that we Americans should imitate European vacations. We need to take off one full month each year. To do so, you may need to own a micro-business, which I advocate as part of my Idols Framework for building wealth. I lay out a 10-step slow travel planner to get you started! Then, I share my June trip planning to Portugal as an example.

Post 2 dives deep into how to prepare a personal itinerary for your slow travels. I’ll share the detailed itinerary for our trip to Lisbon, Porto, Coimbra, and the Silver Coast in June. I also break down any language barriers that often bring fear. I share a simple method to practice pronunciation and key phrases to help you get around.

Here is a link to my slow travel planner. Please use it to plan your next adventure!

For the first 25 years of my working life, I have been heads down. Only in the last 3 years have I begun thinking bigger: Why do I work hard? Why do I save? What does it mean to live my best life?

Consider this: Wealth brings freedom. Freedom creates choice. Choice offers no excuses. And no excuses means “get on with living a great and full life”.

The world is very big. I am very small. A full life is one of many, varied experiences. So, I intend to travel while I can. At 47 years old, I hope I can do it for a long time.

I have much to make up for. My only true travel experience so far has been a two-week trip to Italy in 2018. Otherwise, I’ve only traveled for work or been confined to a luxury resort.

What is the European philosophy on vacation?

“See you in September.”

I found some statistics about Americans and vacation time. Was it different from my own experience? I have rarely taken more than 2-3 weeks of vacation in a year.

Here is what I found:

• On average, workers in the United States have only ten days off per year.
• Fewer than 40 percent of low-wage workers (in the private sector) receive any paid time off.
• In the U.S., it takes twenty years on the job to reach an average of twenty vacation days per year.
• Each of us works on average 1,740 hours per year. This is almost 25 percent more than our European counterparts.

I’m not so different.

Then, I read Why Europeans slack off in August in The Economist.

I looked into the European philosophy of time off and learned:

• Paid vacation time is mandatory across the European Union, with at least four weeks off.
• The average French worker takes thirty days of paid vacation per year.
• In Austria, people take twenty-five days of vacation, beyond thirteen paid holidays.
• Denmark mandates five weeks of paid leave, with vacation days accruing at a rate of just over two days per month.
• Italians, Spaniards, and Germans also take a lot of time off.
  
  

Slow travel takes time…at least four weeks

Europeans do it right. They embrace what is known as slow travel. Slow travel is counter to how Americans vacation. The typical American vacation is one or two weeks and packed with touristy sights to see. On vacation, our minds are often still at work, because how disconnected can we truly be when only away for a week?

Slow travel emphasizes connections to local people, cultures, food, and experiences. Trips are longer. A four-week vacation is likely the minimum. We experience the trip at a more measured pace. We learn more about the place we’re visiting and at a deeper, more emotional level. Our goal is full absorption within the experience.

How an American plans a European-style vacation

Taking four weeks off to slow travel in Europe isn’t something every American can afford. I understand this. But the limiting factor is not money. Slow travel, due to its pace and focus on local living, can be cheaper that a two-week trip to Disneyworld.

The challenge is time (for the reasons I mentioned earlier).

So you’ll have to first align your life to accomodate four weeks of vacation. Maybe you are a freelancer or digital nomad. Or, a micro-business owner. How does this help you? You take back control of your time.

There is nothing that I recommend more. Americans have to experience a one-month “holiday”. Europeans do this each August. My family will do it in June!

There are ten easy steps to plan one great month of slow travel:

1. State your reason for travel - Your trip should have a purpose. Is it relaxation? Partying? To build your photography skills? Try out a new place to live?
2. Establish travel principles - These guide your planning. With the family in tow, maybe you take in only a single sight per day. Is your trip centered on tasting local food?
3. Study the place, in general - Use online resources (and there are many) to understand the place. E.g., Italy is for cities and its art, while New Zealand is about natural beauty.
4. Determine the basics - Identify destinations, then get airfare and book lodging.
5. Handle administrative items - Address how to handle phone and internet, money, and insurance.
6. Generate big ideas - Always try to meet locals, visit the local markets and festivals, and plan to wander. Seek out local interest groups important to you (e.g. soccer/futbol).
7. Generate ideas by location - What are some “must do” activities by region? E.g. wine tasting in Portugal’s Duoro Valley, the Colleseum in Rome, etc.
8. Prepare a loose itinerary - Combine your general study, big ideas, and regional ideas into a loose itinerary. I’ll provide a sample in my next post.
9. Train yourself for the trip - Learn key pronunciation tricks and several important phrases that respect the locals and help you get around. Pack, watch movies, and read the local news.
10. Go with the flow! - Bring a few things with you each day. And never be afraid to break from your plans to do something interesting.
    
    

My family’s slow travel planner for June in Portugal

Next, I include the slow travel planner for our trip this summer. For each step, you can see what resources I found.

In my next post, I’ll share my detailed personal trip itinerary (step #8) and local language cheat sheet (step #9).

Click here to get my slow travel planner!

A satisficer’s approach to slow travel

Satisficers make a decision once their basic criteria are met. I am a satisficer. It doesn’t mean that I settle for mediocrity. But, once my trip itinerary meets the qualities I’m looking for, I am satisfied.

This is different from maximizers. Maximizers want to make the optimal decision. A decision cannot be made until after every option is fully researched. Only then is the best possible choice guaranteed.

In the excellent book The Paradox of Choice, author Barry Schwartz argues that satisficers tend to be happier than maximizers. Maximizers spend a lot more time and energy to reach a decision. And afterward, they’re often anxious about that decision.

Please keep in mind that I am a satisficer. My approach to slow travel planning is rooted in this approach. If you are a maximizer, you will no doubt want to spend more time planning than I do!

I’ll see you next week.

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What is Fast Follow Investing?

• Start with buy & hold passive indexing.
• Then, 1) expand beyond stocks and bonds and 2) cut off severe market losses at the knees.
• Grow your lifetime savings at 12% to enjoy a 5% forever rate of withdrawal in retirement.
• Fast Follow Investing (based on Tactical Asset Allocation) is finally here for small investors like you and me.

So join me!

Last night, I watched Roadrunner, one of many great Anthony Bourdain documentaries. It is a tragic story. But, strangely, I finished it feeling inspired.

Tony was troubled but intensely driven. He did so much for the poor and underrepresented of the world. And he did it because he wanted to. He traveled the world. But he started first when shooting “A Cook’s Tour” in 2001 when he was 46 years old.

I’m 47 right now. I want to travel. And I want to lead a bigger life.

Steve Jobs said: “When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and … to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family, have fun, save a little money. That’s a very limited life.

Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.”

Great things start small. My post this week is short because I spent much of my time planning an adventure. Our family is spending June in Portugal. Thirty days to experience something completely new.

I’m taking aim at my inner monologue. It tells me that “I’m not the type of person who spends a month in a foreign country.”

It’s the hard things that are worth doing. Let’s see where it leads.

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Subscribe to get my posts sent to your Inbox. Thanks!

What is Fast Follow Investing?
Start with buy & hold passive indexing. Then, 1) expand beyond stocks and bonds and 2) cut off severe market losses at the knees. Grow your lifetime savings at 12% to enjoy a 5% forever rate of withdrawal in retirement.

Join me!