A Letter at Sixty
I did not arrive at this decade gently. I arrived through endings I did not choose.
In 2022, circumstances left me no choice but to sell my business. The pandemic that began in 2020 created conditions that made continuation impossible.
That business had saved me from the ruin of divorce and had been my life for more than twenty-five years. It was my identity, my dream, the proof of what I had built with my own hands.
Letting it go was devastating.
Selling my home followed two years later, not because I was ready and not because I stopped loving it. Without my business, holding the house became financially impossible. That home was my American immigrant legacy. I designed every inch of it. I imagined my children and grandchildren enjoying it and creating memories there. I had planned not just a house, but a future, a lineage, a place that would carry my story forward.
Around the same time, my dog left this existence.
The business.
The home.
The companionship.
They were the pillars of my life and suddenly, they were gone.
I was devastated. I felt lost. I resisted what was happening. I struggled against the reality of it. The dreams collapsed, and I collapsed with them.
There was denial. There was grief. There was this question I did not want to ask: Who am I without the things I built?
Slowly, not heroically, not gracefully, acceptance arrived.
Then something deeper settled in: it was a quiet feeling that I would figure it out.
I realized I was about to turn sixty. I have one life. And even if I could not see the way yet, I told myself there had to be a way. At first, this was not trust. It was an act of will, a decision to believe, even without evidence.
I reminded myself who I was. I came to America with nothing but a big dream. I built a family. I survived major life challenges. I worked for major institutions. I built companies and communities. I served the least fortunate. I built homes. I built a life, a beautiful one. I had done hard things before. I had rebuilt before. I trusted that I could do it again.
In that process, I began asking myself a different question:
What would make me feel alive again?
I wanted my next decisions to feel right in my body. I wanted excitement. I wanted lightness. I wanted to feel good moving forward.
I reflected. Deeply. For a long time.
From reflection came awareness.
From awareness came clarity.
I began to see that the heaviest part of my pain was the load I had been carrying. As the business was already gone and the house was about to be gone, I noticed something unexpected, the weight was lifting. I felt lighter.
Ideas started to appear, quietly at first.
What if I moved to a place that wasn’t glamorous, but gave me financial breathing room?
What if I donated almost everything I owned?
What if I designed a life I could fully manage, without being tied to a single place?
As I asked these questions, I paid attention to how I felt. And what I felt surprised me: relief, space, lightness.
From deep under the weight I had been carrying for years, something began to rise.
Then alignment arrived, quietly, without drama. I felt at peace with these choices. I felt less afraid. I knew that if I designed my life this way, I would have peace of mind. I would not live in fear of the next blow.
From alignment came action.
I researched. I explored. I compared. I made decisions deliberately. Action turned into rhythm. Rhythm turned into a new life.
And from that new life, new dreams began to form.
One principle guided me through all of it, a principle I had learned years earlier and now had to live by fully, not as theory, but as survival:
It is not how much money you make. It is how much money you spend.
I had made money. I had built successful businesses. And still, I had lost certainty.
I understood then that peace would not come from earning more. It would come from designing a life that felt manageable, calm, comfortable, and fully under my control. I spent months thinking, calculating, researching, and reflecting on what kind of life I could hold without depending on systems or people that might fail me again.
Every decision that followed was built on that clarity: the state I moved to, the life I simplified, the choice to donate ninety-five percent of my belongings, the decision to reduce everything to what truly mattered.
I did not simplify to be free.
I simplified to be safe.
And something unexpected happened.
As my life became lighter, it also became larger.
When I finally had the courage to step into the space I had created, the world opened.
I began to travel more, not to escape, not to collect, not to perform. I travel because I designed my life to allow it. I travel because I removed what no longer mattered. I travel because my life is no longer weighed down by excess, fear, or obligation.
I am not interested in glamour. I am interested in people, in conversations, in walking streets, in sitting quietly, in learning how others live, love, endure, and hope.
What I needed next was not comfort.
I had already learned how to survive.
I needed a new goal.
A new dream.
Something that would make my heart beat faster again, not out of fear, but out of aliveness, excitement.
I have always believed that if your dreams do not scare you a little, you are not dreaming big enough. And yet, I did not rush to define the next one. I returned to reflection, into honest conversation with myself.
I asked questions slowly.
What do I love?
What makes me feel excited?
What makes my soul vibrate?
The answers were not complicated.
I love my family.
I love learning.
I am curious.
I love people.
I love hearing their stories.
I love movement, discovery, unfamiliar streets, different languages, shared meals, and quiet moments in places I have never been before.
As I sat with these truths, something happened, quietly, unmistakably.
It was as if a light turned on.
I realized that everything that made me feel most alive had always lived in the same place: the world itself.
And then the idea arrived, not forced, not dramatic, just clear:
I will visit every country in the world.
There are about 196 countries, depending on how you count. I have already visited all seven continents and almost fifty countries. I have a few decades ahead of me. For the first time in a long time, I was not looking backward or merely stabilizing, I was looking forward with excitement.
In that moment, my internal state shifted completely.
The chaos quieted.
The fear softened.
Direction appeared.
I was not overwhelmed by the scale of the dream; I was energized by it.
It did not feel like pressure.
I did not need to do it fast.
I did not need to do it perfectly.
I just needed to begin.
That dream gave my life a horizon again, not a finish line, but a direction.
Years ago, I listened to Roger Federer speak about his career. He shared that he won only about fifty-four percent of the points he played.
Just over half.
And yet, he became the greatest tennis player of all time.
That stayed with me.
Life is not about winning every point.
It is not about control, perfection, or certainty.
It is about staying in the game long enough, awake enough, present enough, trusting that even if you do not win every moment, you can still build something extraordinary.
This dream, like all the dreams I have already accomplished, does not require me to win every shot.
It only asks me to keep showing up.
To move.
To listen.
To learn.
To live.
And that is the kind of dream I want to carry into this decade, one that scares me just enough, excites me deeply, and keeps me in motion.
So here is my commitment, spoken aloud and deliberately:
I commit to moving through the world consciously, visiting seven to ten countries each year, not to collect flags or impressions, but to learn how people live, adapt, find meaning, and carry on.
Some years it may be seven.
Some years it may be ten.
What matters is not the pace, but the rhythm.
I commit to connecting with real people, local communities, ordinary lives, not curated images, or performative experiences.
I commit to returning home each time with insight, humility, and stories worth carrying forward.
I do not go out into the world only to see it.
I go out to expand my own horizon, to learn, to listen, to be changed by what I do not yet understand.
I go out to sit with people whose lives look nothing like mine.
To hear their stories.
To witness how they endure, adapt, love, and hope.
Because I know this: the world is a living classroom.
And I do not travel just to collect experiences. I travel to bring something back.
Insight.
Perspective.
Wisdom earned through presence.
I return home to integrate what I have learned, to translate it into something useful, something human, something that can help others navigate their own lives with more clarity, courage, and compassion.
This is the circle my heart desires.
To move outward and then return.
To explore and then serve.
To learn and then teach.
Seeing the world and helping others are not separate paths for me.
They are one continuous movement.
As I imagined moving through the world, country by country, culture by culture, another realization arrived quietly alongside it.
I am not only traveling across geography. I am traveling across time.
Two thousand years ago, Marcus Aurelius sat alone with his thoughts, writing not for history or recognition, but to understand how to live well as a human being.
Different century.
Different empire.
Different language.
Same questions.
Across geography and across time, the lesson repeats itself.
It is people.
It is people.
It is people.
And so, as I step into this new decade, I choose my stance.
I accept that much of life is not under my control, the timing of events, the turns of history, the losses that arrive without asking.
But how I live, how I respond, how I move through the world, these remain mine.
I choose to live deliberately.
To carry less but live more.
To stay curious rather than certain.
To act even when outcomes are unclear.
I will go out into the world to expand my own horizon.
And I will return carrying what I have learned and offer it in service to others.
This is how I live by design and not by default.
This is the rhythm I choose.
This is how I serve.
And with that, I begin again.
Live by Design, Not by Default.
Until the next horizon,
Coach • Traveler • Believer in Intentional Living
