The #1 Thing I Learned at Elite Retreat

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That’s my wife and me to the right just a few hours after arriving in San Francisco for Elite Retreat, and that photo was taken at almost exactly the time that she asked me a question that started giving me a whole new perspective on things: Are you having fun?

Despite the pained look on my face in that photo, I was indeed having a great time. There was just something odd I couldn’t put my finger on, though, and it wasn’t until later that day that I figured it out.

Yes, I was having a great time, but I have a great time at home, too. It wasn’t like I needed a vacation. I love what I do; I wasn’t desperately in need of a break.

That was an enormous realization for me. It was the first real vacation we’d been on since I started working solely for myself, and I had not realized how totally different life had become. I always used every single one of my vacation days when I was working at a “real job” (and borrowed from the next year if at all possible), and always couldn’t wait to be away from the office.

Not anymore. I love my work, and I love my life. The vacation was great, but it didn’t have that old added element of not being at work. That’s why it felt odd.

The next day we went by the Ferry Building Marketplace — a very cool place that I would recommend to anyone visiting San Francisco for the first time.

Easily our favorite part of the Marketplace was Recchiuti Confections — makers of the best chocolate I’ve ever eaten, hands down. So good, in fact, that my wife went back the next day and had a lunch made up entirely of chocolate. (Checking to see if she reads my blog.)

It was at Recchiuti that I had my second big realization of the week — the second half of what became the #1 thing I learned at Elite Retreat.

There was a passion at Recchiuti that was palpable. You could just tell that these people loved making chocolate; that they loved getting out of bed and going into work every day. Sure they love a vacation as much as anyone, but given the choice of retiring on the beach and never working again, or continuing to work at Recchiuti forever, they’d probably choose Recchiuti.

That’s the same boat I was finally in. But where I had always believed that the goal for everyone was to make enough money that they could do whatever they wanted to do, I realized that that wasn’t the case at all. What everyone wants is to enjoy life, yes, but enjoyment takes lots of different forms.

In fact, I’m not sure that you actually could be happy just doing nothing all day. There has to be something that gives life meaning and fulfillment.

The goal is to find what you enjoy doing and figure out how to do it for a living, instead of just spending every day trying to forget that you hate your day job. You don’t have to be independently wealthy to enjoy life to its fullest. I knew that, and I knew that I had no thoughts whatsoever about coming to a place where I wouldn’t be working anymore, yet somehow I had suppressed those two things and was operating on the belief that everyone needed to break away from from having a j-o-b.

I realize now that that’s not the case. For many people, Steve Pavlina’s words are absolutely true. For others, though, there isn’t anything more enjoyable than being at a job where they get to do what they love. I think there was a lot of ignorance (and probably pride) on my part to operate otherwise. I knew better, but it took going away to really realize it.

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