Rising Tide Blog

We’ve all heard the saying that ‘The simple things in life are often the best’ and whilst I understand the sentiment, sometimes it takes a simple, yet special experience to make me truly appreciate it. 

It’s a wintery Friday afternoon and I decided to work the day from home.  Melbourne is really living up to its name, we’ve had all four seasons in a day, on repeat.   My boys are getting cabin fever and Mel is doing her best to stop them from tearing the roof off.  I finished what I was working on and went into the living room to see the aftermath of two boys under three years old on house arrest…

Earlier that morning, I had squeezed in a few hours of solid work whilst the world was still asleep.  As my workload was under control, I suggested to Mel that we load the kids in the car and go for a swim at the local (heated) pool.  We had two sensational hours of quality time before we decided to hit the showers and head for home.  Once home, I jumped back on the computer for a few more hours before dinner.

Looking back, when I was splashing around with the boys, I had a great sense of gratitude come over me.  I realised how thankful I am that I have created a life for myself and my family that at a drop of a hat on a Friday afternoon we could say Yes, down tools and spend some quality time together.  

Up until recently I was under the illusion that in order to achieve my Yes, I had to be chained to my desk for 8 hours straight.  Now, I’m so much more productive (and happy!) when chunking my days into blocks, rather than the traditional “9 to 5”.  Take a second to think about what illusions you are under that are prohibiting your freedom to say Yes…

As simple as my excursion with my family was, my top three learnings from the day were:

1. Activities with young kids are so much more enjoyable and relaxing outside of peak times
2. Being disciplined with your ideal day/week increases flexibility and productivity
3. Quality time does not need to be fancy or even cost anything at all – but the most important thing is you need to be present 

Often when people first come to see us, they are focusing on building their wealth via things like purchasing property and building portfolios.  Now of course we assist with this, but I do not believe that all that hard work and sacrifice is just to see numbers grow on a page. I want to dig deeper and find out what the real Yes is.  Once we know what we are aiming at, we can design a plan and ultimately our lives in a way that helps us achieve the freedom to say Yes.

Here is my Yes; To be able to spend an abundance of quality time with my family, whilst giving us all the opportunity to try new things and follow our dreams.

What’s yours?