We Bought a Zoo! Creating our new, fully integrated life.
Having spent decades trying to achieve the optimal work-life balance, and failing at it, I now knew for certain that it was a flawed concept. It became clear to me that I needed to rethink my approach to life, and creating a fully integrated life, rather than a balanced life, became my north star. Even though I knew that it was possible to create a fully integrated life as I had vividly experienced during that 60 second transcendental meditation, I had absolutely no idea about how to actually do it.
One very important lesson I had learned throughout my entrepreneurial journey was to START & ITERATE, and that was exactly what I did. Creating an integrated life became all about integrating domains: Self, Family, Community, and Work. Getting creative about coming up with projects, ways of spending my time, and designing activities that would integrate as many domains as possible, such that as I executed an activity, all domains involved would rise up together.
The beauty of this philosophy is that each person gets to define their own domains, and the process quickly becomes a creative act: how many domains can I integrate into a single project/activity? The more the better. The objective of the “game,” or better called “life,” is to align our time and actions such that progress and success in one domain leads to immediate benefits in other domains.
I got started by coming up with ways to integrate Self + Family + Work. I had spent a significant amount of energy building solid compartments amongst these domains during years prior, and it was now time to completely tear down those walls.
One of my passions is spending time in the great outdoors, from ocean to mountain, scuba diving, kitesurfing, hiking, trekking to mountain peaks and getting rescued by helicopters (thankfully that has only happened once and is a story for another day). So, when the opportunity came along to become the co-founder of a company called Outlands, which was all about the outdoors, I immediately jumped on it and brought my family along.
Our first adventure together was Buying a Zoo. Well, it wasn’t exactly that, but it is the easiest way to describe it. We received the state concession to operate a Wildlife State Park, which is home to one of the world’s oldest hippopotamus, a number of alligators, black bears, red wolves, and many more unique animal species. To celebrate, we all took a trip together to visit the Zoo and our kids were completely in awe. The only pet they had until then was a turtle named Spikey, and now they had an entire Zoo.
It was a wonderful and very memorable time together, integrating my passion for the outdoors, celebrating and enjoying it with my wife and children, and doing business all at the same time.
That same year I also brought along my entire family on a business trip to Colombia (my home country), so that my grandmother, Sula, could meet my third child for the first time. Once again integrating self, family, and work.
This became one of the most special trips we ever made to visit Sula. She was incredibly grateful for our visit, overjoyed from meeting little Moi, and we were blessed to be in her company and enjoy her wonderful and unique sense of humor one last time.
Unfortunately, she passed away just a few months later. Thankfully, my wife took the time to interview her about her life in great detail, and we have it all recorded. We will cherish Sula forever, and my children still to this day have a very vivid memory of her.
Creating and living an integrated life has given rise to memories and opportunities that I never thought possible. Simply put, an integrated life is significantly more fulfilling and effortless than a balanced life. Yes, it does take more creativity and effort to create it, but once designed you will find yourself swimming effortlessly with the rising tides.
With Gratitude,
Abi