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My love affair with Barcelona & why decisions are like doors

Have you ever put serious thought and consideration into where you live?

It’s something I think about often. For me, moving to Barcelona was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

I just got back from a vacation with my parents. We spent a few days in Edinburgh followed by a week in the Faroe Islands. The trip was otherworldly, but by the end, I was ready to come home.

As I was boarding my plane back to Barcelona, I felt the excitement boiling up inside of me. A couple of hours later, the pilot made an announcement that we were making our descent.

I could see the familiar view of my neighborhood outside the plane window.

The wheels touched the ground and immediately a smile spread across my face.

Every time I arrive in Barcelona, there’s a sense of joy that’s difficult to describe.

When the plane lands I think to myself, “Ahhh I’m finally home.” Living here is a dream come true.

The only other thing I can compare it to is when people talk about meeting the love of their life. Somehow they just knew that they were destined to spend the rest of their lives together.

That’s how I feel about Barcelona.

Similar to choosing a life partner, choosing the right location to call home is one of the most important decisions that you will ever make.

Sure vacations are enjoyable, but imagine finding a place to live that offers the same level of contentment and satisfaction.

Type 1 & Type 2 Decisions

Moving to a new city or country is a big decision, but we have to remind ourselves that it’s a reversible decision.

If things don’t work out, you can always go back to where you came from or try a different place.

Jeff Bezos has a great analogy on this topic - he considers decisions like doors. When faced with a decision, he asks himself whether it’s a one-way door or a two-way door.

Once you walk through a one-way door, you can’t come back. It’s irreversible. An example of an irreversible decision is having kids, once you’ve brought them into the world they’re here to stay. But with a two-way door, you can walk through, look around, see if it resonates, and easily come back to where you started.

Bezos wrote in a letter to shareholders:

One common pitfall for large organizations – one that hurts speed and inventiveness – is “one-size-fits-all” decision-making.

Some decisions are consequential and irreversible or nearly irreversible – one-way doors – and these decisions must be made methodically, carefully, slowly, with great deliberation and consultation. If you walk through and don’t like what you see on the other side, you can’t get back to where you were before. We can call these Type 1 decisions. But most decisions aren’t like that – they are changeable, reversible – they’re two-way doors. If you’ve made a suboptimal Type 2 decision, you don’t have to live with the consequences for that long. You can reopen the door and go back through. Type 2 decisions can and should be made quickly by high-judgment individuals or small groups.

As organizations get larger, there seems to be a tendency to use the heavy-weight Type 1 decision-making process on most decisions, including many Type 2 decisions. The end result of this is slowness, unthoughtful risk aversion, failure to experiment sufficiently, and consequently diminished invention.

This is how I approached my decision of moving to Barcelona.

I knew that worst case scenario I could spend some time in a new place, make new friends, maybe pick up the language a bit, and if I didn’t like it I could move back to Florida or try out a different location and see how I like it there.

That’s why I love the concept of Mini-Lives. It gives you a chance to try out different cities and see what fits.

Fellow Barcelonian Kevin Maguire from The New Fatherhood wrote a fantastic piece about how to choose where to live based on your particular criteria. If this is something you’ve considered doing then this is a great exercise to whittle down your options.

So ask yourself: Do you love where you live or are you just living there by default?

My wish is that everyone can find a place that captivates them the same way that Barcelona has done for me.

It’s amazing what a profound impact your external environment has on your overall well-being and happiness.

That which is external shapes that which is internal.

You are who you are because of your environment.

Want to change? Then change your environment.

Until next time my friends.

<3 B