Talking It Into Existence

I used to dream out loud constantly. Walk around Chicago, see something I wanted, and just announce it to whoever was listening. "I'm getting a Harley."

That's what I did one night in Lakeview—Scott Kell and some girls, Harley's rumbling past, me declaring I'd own one. Kell called bullshit immediately. Said I was full of it.

And he was right to call it. At that moment, it was just talk.

But something about saying it out loud—especially to someone who'd hold me accountable—made it stick. Once it was out there, my brain wouldn't let it go. The idea kept pulling my attention back. The hows and whys started working themselves out without me forcing them. Eventually I owned not one but two Harleys.

This wasn't a one-time thing. I've done it over and over. The pattern's always the same: announce the thing, lock myself in publicly, remove the wiggle room, then watch my brain figure out how to make it real.

The trick is eliminating escape routes. The more you can box yourself in—tell the right people, make it public, commit in a way that makes backing out uncomfortable—the more likely you are to will it into existence.

I've spent the last few years realizing I need to deploy every tactic I have to make the slow travel plan real. In seven years, my two youngest kids and I are leaving to travel the world full-time. No more school system. Just the framework I'm building, the 10 domains, and a commitment to raise them into capable humans while we're on the road.

I'm not dreaming about ten things anymore. I've pared it down to the few that matter most—the ones that still have a window where they can happen. Slow travel is at the top.

So I'm saying it out loud. I'm writing it down. I'm building it into everything I do. I'm locking myself in.

Because if talking a Harley into existence worked, talking a whole life into existence should too.