The Compound #19: Technically right, but not quite right

There was nothing particularly wrong with it. It was actually quite good. It had the normal structure, a few observations from Lombok, some thoughts on friction and a running update.

I just didn’t care enough about it.

I read it back and realised it wasn’t what was actually on my mind this week.

So there are no three sections today. No business lesson or training update. I’m basically going to freestyle this one and see if writing it helps me work something out.

You get to come along for the ride.

We were in Lombok this morning and I ordered an iced americano. A hot americano came out.

No problem. I explained that I’d ordered it iced and they happily took it back.

A few minutes later it returned in a glass with one lonely ice cube floating around in warm coffee.

They’d clearly taken the hot Americano and poured it over some ice. Most of the ice had melted immediately.

Technically, I now had an iced Americano.

But it wasn’t what I wanted.

This is where I probably sound slightly ridiculous, but there is a right way to make one. Cold water, ice, espresso. A glass full of ice that stays cold while I drink it.

So I asked them to make it again. They were completely fine about it.

And yes, I’m aware there are bigger problems in the world.

But I’ve been thinking about that coffee all day.

Sometimes you can technically have the thing you asked for and still know it isn’t quite right.

We’re back at our villa in Bali now. It’s 3pm.

We’ve got about a month left here before heading home.

And for the first time, I’m genuinely excited to go back.

I desperately want to see Harvey (my dog). I miss my parents. I want to see friends and family.

I’m excited to walk back into the Toucan office and be around the team again. I know being in that environment will give me a different kind of energy.

Then, about a week after landing, I’m straight back on a plane to the US for Amazon Accelerate and Amazon Ads unBoxed, probably my two favourite work events of the year.

Luke and Sophie are flying over in between to meet Dan and me, and we’ll spend a few days together as an exec team.

I cannot wait.

I’m even excited about stupid things.

Having a shower without consciously keeping the water out of my mouth. Brushing my teeth with tap water. Driving my cars again.

There is a lot about home that I love.

But there’s also a lot I already know I’m going to miss about Bali.

I’m not excited about being indoors again. I’m definitely not excited about the weather.

I’m not excited about going back to David Lloyd after being completely spoilt by the gyms here.

I’m not excited about paying UK prices every time we want to go out for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Here, you can decide to do something and usually there’s a good version of it nearby and it’s affordable enough that you don’t have to think too much about it.

Coffee. Restaurants. Gyms. Recovery. Activities. Date nights.

Life is just easier.

And being outside all the time changes things more than I expected.

You wake up and there’s sunlight. Cody spends most of his life outdoors. Potty training him became fairly easy and he’s now not only fully potty trained but we’ve removed the potty and he’s toilet trained.

He’s thriving.

So are we, to be honest.

I’m spending more time with him & Abby than I ever have.

My relationships with them feels stronger.

I’m sleeping better. Stress is lower.

Abby has more support because I’m physically around more and we have help with Cody here.

We’re doing more things together as a family without needing to organise our entire week around them.

This trip has changed how I think about what our life should look like.

And I don’t think I can unsee that now.

At the same time, I don’t want to live in Bali twelve months of the year.

I know that.

The distance from home is real. The air quality bothers me. There are inconveniences. There are people I love who aren’t here.

Harvey is a big one.

He’s thirteen now. Getting a dog into and out of Bali isn’t simple anyway, but even if it was, dragging him halfway across the world through long flights and potentially quarantine feels completely unfair at this stage of his life.

So part of our life is still anchored to home, and I’m glad it is.

But I also know I don’t want to live in the UK twelve months of the year.

I don’t think either place gives us everything.

Maybe nowhere does.

Perhaps that’s the mistake I’ve been making in my head: assuming there has to be one perfect place to live.

There probably isn’t.

Every option costs you something.

If we live in Bali, we sacrifice proximity to family, old friends and parts of my working life that I genuinely enjoy.

If we live in the UK, we sacrifice weather, outdoor living, affordability, time and some of the freedom we’ve felt here.

So maybe it isn’t about picking one.

Maybe life should have seasons.

A few months in the UK.

A few months in Bali.

A bit of time somewhere like the UAE if that became useful from a residency perspective, although I have no desire to spend huge amounts of time there.

Then travel around that.

That sounds exciting to me.

It also leads to about fifty other questions.

The biggest one is Cody.

He’s two years and three months old and has already taken eighteen flights. By the time we get home in September, it’ll be twenty.

That’s an unbelievable privilege.

We’ll probably have another child at some point, and I keep thinking about what I actually want childhood to look like for them.

School is one of the biggest things Abby and I have started questioning seriously.

Not because I think school is bad.

But because I’ve suddenly become very conscious of how little time you actually get with your children once they’re in it.

Wake up. Breakfast. Get ready. School run. School all day. Home. Food. Bath. Bed.

You get a couple of proper hours together.

And then somehow they’re eighteen.

I don’t love that.

I want to have a bigger role in raising my children than being around for the edges of the day.

I want to be there to teach them things. I want to know what they’re interested in.

I want to travel with them.

I want them to have friends in the UK and friends in Bali and maybe friends somewhere else too.

We’ve started looking very seriously at world schooling.

That raises obvious questions around education, friendships, socialisation and stability.

Stability matters to me.

But I’m also starting to question what stability actually means.

Does stability have to be the same house and the same school every day for fifteen years?

That sounds like my worst nightmare tbh.

Or can stability be the same parents, the same family, the same routines and the same sense of safety, even when the location changes?

There are families we’ve met here whose children come back every year for three, four or even six months of the year.

They have genuine friendships here. Now we have those friendships too. People I know we’ll see in Bali again. Or maybe we’ll see them in another country.

There’s a proper community here.

That doesn’t necessarily feel unstable to me.

At least not while they’re young.

When Cody is twelve, thirteen, fourteen, I might feel completely differently.

I probably will.

A teenager needs roots in a different way to a three year old.

And maybe that is the point.

You don’t have to design the next twenty years today.

You can design the next season.

I used to think success was fairly simple.

Build a business. Make money. Create freedom.

I still care enormously about the businesses.

When I go home, I know I’ll probably enter a different season myself. More office time. More conferences. More travel. More intensity.

I’m excited for that too.

Maybe Bali becomes the counterweight.

A season where the family gets more of me.

Where I still work 8 hour days, because I don’t know how to operate any other way, but where our lives are built around breakfasts together, being outside and actually seeing my children for more than the gaps around a working day because the life admin is taken care of (washing, cooking, cleaning & laundry).

Money matters because it makes that possible.

Abby doesn’t have to work. We have the freedom to travel. I can build Toucan from different parts of the world.

That is an enormous privilege and I don’t take it lightly.

But there is also clearly a point where more money stops meaning a better life.

I’m not interested in being rich in the traditional sense.

I want the businesses to win. I want to keep pushing. I want to build something significant. I still want to be the biggest and best.

I just don’t want to wake up one day and realise I optimised so hard for the business that I accidentally underinvested in everything the business was supposed to give us.

Maybe that’s why the stupid iced Americano annoyed me.

Technically correct isn’t always the same as right.

A life can look right on paper too.

Successful business. Nice house. Good school. Holidays. Cars. Everyone healthy.

Nothing wrong with any of it.

But once you’ve experienced a different version, you start asking whether technically having everything you wanted is enough.

I don’t know the answer yet.

I know I don’t want to live in Bali all year.

I know I don’t want to live in the UK all year.

I know I want to work incredibly hard.

I know I want to be around my children much more than a normal working life allows.

I know community matters.

I know freedom matters.

I know stability matters.

I just don’t yet know what percentage of each creates the life we actually want.

Maybe six months here and six months there works. Maybe that’s not for us at all.

Maybe world schooling works.

Maybe we try it for a few years and decide it was a terrible idea.

Maybe the entire plan changes when the kids get older.

Right now I have more questions than answers.

Which actually feels good and like a perfectly good place to end a newsletter.

If you made it this far, thanks for riding this out with me. Back to usual next week I promise.