I recently had a first-ever experience: a meeting in a government office outside of the United States.
To clarify, I’ve been to (too many) government offices—but those were for bureaucratic reasons. This was purpose-driven and creative.
As I sat in the waiting room, having arrived way too early, I looked around the câmara municipal—the Portuguese equivalent of a city government building—and I thought: My life is so strange.
I thought back to the many government buildings I’ve been in all around the world, as well as the ones I avoided. In the Dominican Republic, I never once attended a residency or visa meeting. It was “taken care of” and I didn’t ask how.
In Vietnam, it was the same. I nervously handed over my passport, and it came back the same week with a new work visa.
In Thailand, I had no employer to speed things along for me, so we spent hours and a lot of money navigating the system. Before we decided to leave, my next plan was to sign up for Muay Thai so I could get the visa associated with it (yes, that’s a thing, and no, I really can’t imagine myself practicing Muay Thai either).
And now in Portugal, we have been in and out of the immigration offices, which are often (but not always) truly unhelpful places. For more than a year now, we have been navigating my son’s expired visa—so we likely have more offices and more “please, can you help us?” to go.
But yesterday, I was not in any of those buildings. I was in the city office to pitch a collaborative event to support the arts in our beautiful city. As a seven-year resident, I’ve stopped seeing myself as a temporary visitor, and I see now that Portugal is a long-term home, whether that’s full-time or, more likely once the kids are much older, part-time. And I want to invest in building a city I want to continue living in.
Which brings me to the point of this piece, and why I wanted to share this experience with you: A choiceful life can surprise you.
When we moved to Thailand in 2018, I had no idea that eight years later, I’d be living in southern Portugal, pitching an idea to help establish our area as a literary and arts capital of the country.
As I sat on the porch of our home in Thailand and opened the box of books for Growing Influence, I had no idea that the book I wrote with Ron Price would go on to hit best-seller lists next to Brené Brown and Stephen Covey and win multiple awards—or that I would shift from full-time ghostwriting to coaching authors on the transformative journey of authorhood. I definitely didn’t know I’d be running a writing retreat for future and published authors from around the world.
But each of these opportunities has arisen from choice. Part of that choice is saying no:
No, I don’t want the life that was chosen for me.
No, those opportunities aren’t in alignment with my vision and values.
No, I’m not going to violate my values to fit in or keep with the status quo.
And then the big yes:
Yes, I choose to live a life of my desire and design.
As my wonderful first mentor and now dear friend, Jennifer Wheeler, said, quoting her mentor: “You make a choice and then you make another one.”
Life is a series of choices, whether you explicitly decide or you default to the status quo. And sometimes those choices lead you to surprising places, like living abroad, starting a business, writing a book—or sitting in a government office in a foreign country, pitching an author event.
How have your choices led to surprising outcomes or opportunities? Share in the comments—I love hearing from you!
P.S. This is a genuinely human article. No AI was used to write this piece.
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