Lionhacks

I recently moved to SF on the 1st of March and it’s been the best experience I could have asked for. But before moving here I had to make a whole bunch of tough decisions and was honestly pretty damn stressed out and nervous about the whole thing. As some of you already may know I still own my web marketing / social media company and have 4 employees in asia; however at this point it’s only breaking even so I effectively don’t have income. Below is an overview of my thought process in making the decision, some of the emotions I went through and some tips on how to actually get it done if you’re interested. Making the decision: This is easily the hardest part of the process. To make the final decision you have to come to terms with the fact that you cannot possibly know how things will work out (especially if you don’t have a job lined up). I feel people typically try to plan very linearly. Apply for x amount of jobs, get y number of interviews, get z number of offers and take the best one. While it is absolutely essential to put yourself out there and apply / send out cold emails, it’s likely that you won’t get absolute certainty on how things are going to work out. Unless you are lucky enough to get recruited from out-of-state. But even then, is that lucky? Or would it have been better to just show up in the city and throw yourself out there? I think there is a lot of value in just making the leap at the risk of hitting rock bottom. It requires a very high amount of self-trust and faith in yourself and that’s what moving forward and change is all about. I can say from personal experience that I’ve hit rock bottom many many times. And as “woo woo” as it sounds, I think they’ve all been extremely critical learning experiences. And as my cousin Lauren would say “everything happens for a reason”. I used to think that statement was a passive way of explaining life, but the more experiences I have, the more I see the dots behind me are actually connecting quite well. At some level you just have to have faith that things will work out. Realistically what is the worst thing that can happen? In all likeliness you probably have a 99.999% chance that tomorrow you are going to be alive, have shelter and have food on your table. So how bad can things really be? Back to the point. In terms of what items you might want to consider in the decision, I’d break it down to:

• Why do you want to leave? At its core, I think it’s important to recognize that you want to leave because you want change in your life. You want to see new places, make more money, do new things, experience different cultures, etc. And inherently, change means doing things differently. If you continued to “be yourself” and you did all the same things you’ve been doing, you’d be exactly the same a year from now. If you break off from all the habits and material that you identify with and look forward, you can begin to shape/craft new ones for the person you want to become. And this, unfortunately, means “not being yourself”. Break out of your comfort zone. Change inherently requires you to not be yourself. Change is why you want to leave.
• Why do you want to live in the new city? Even though I’ve traveled around the world and seen a lot of different cultures, I can’t express enough how impossible it is to see the value of living in another city until you’ve actually done it. There is simply no substitute. I had visited SF at least 4 times before but I never truly understood the value of being here until I actually settled in on March 1st. At some level you just have to pick a city that has a culture of what you want to become and make the leap. It’s that simple.
• Do you have friends / connections in the city? I love the city of Seattle and I love the city of San Francisco. And what I truly mean by that is that I love the people in Seattle and I love the people in San Francisco. A city without people isn’t a whole lot. The people make the city. This probably comes down to personal preference but if you want to lessen the emotional shock of moving to a new city, it might be easier to pick one where you know a few people.
• How’s the weather? Just going to be honest, I think it’s much easier to stay positive and upbeat when living in a place with nice weather. Sunshine and warmth just brings out positive and happy emotions. It’s a fact.
• How much runway to you have financially? Everyone has a different requirements on how much money they’ll need to live in a new city. If you have a friend, whose couch you can crash on, it would make things much easier. If that’s not an option hostels, couchsurfing, or airbnb could be temporary options while you just get settled in. In most major cities in the US it’s pretty easy to find a living situation on craigslist. Sublet or otherwise. One factor to consider is that the less money you move with the more stressed out you’re likely to get. Negative stress can be a very bad thing. But even in the worst case, it isn’t that hard to find a temp job such as a server, busser, or bartender where you can make $15-$25/hour while you figure things out.

Handling your emotions: As you may be able to tell, I write to myself a lot. In the months prior to now I was not feeling very confident after winding down my company and I had to convince myself that things would work out. Even in the weeks before moving I felt very anxious and nervous about the move. Again, I think it is a good thing to try and internalize the idea that looking forward your life is not going to pan out very linearly. As much as you might want certainty, certainty doesn’t exist. It’s an illusion. No one knows what will happen tomorrow or next year. So chill out, work your ass off in growing in the areas you want to change and trust that things will work out for the best. That’s about all we can do. Couple things to consider:

• If you ask for advice from your friends/family in terms of whether or not you should leave, understand the frame they’re coming from. If they have an extremely stable situation in the city you’re in and don’t like change, they’re likely going to tell you to stay. Or just give you potentially unhelpful or negative advice. If the friend is living in another city, they may be able to provide better perspective.
• In the weeks prior to leaving I was selling off everything I owned and was busy probably 16 hours a day (I had way too much stuff). It was like a space shuttle taking off and I was burning massive amounts of fuel (figuratively) just to move a couple miles. But now that I’m in the new city, it truly does feel like I broke out of the atmosphere. I finally reached escape velocity.

How to get it done… now now now: I have made a habit to trying to push my friends to try new experiences both in regards to business/career and personal. I often use the term “now now now” to express the fact that action needs to take place now. Not planning. Not action tomorrow. Action today. Today. Today. Now. Now. Now. Here are some tips that I’ll give for how to actually sell everything you own and move:

1. You may want to consider visiting the city first for an extended period of time (a week or so) just to test out the waters. This is what I did but it’s certainly not necessary. I do think it’s important to feel that you can make both your professional/career side work out as well as your personal life. And any experience or knowledge that can help you understand that better I think is invaluable.
2. Set goals and create social contracts with friends. I sat down with a Gar (little) and wrote out our deadlines for the month on blank calendar paper. If I didn’t hit certain goal when I said I would, I agreed to pay him $50. Or donate it to an organization I strongly disliked. It just needs to be enough to incentivize you to get your stuff done on time.
3. In terms of selling all your stuff, I took pictures of everything I owned. I took 121 pictures in total and posted them to Google Picasa Albums. I then tagged each item based on what I wanted to do with it. I tagged 36 items to give to Goodwill or to friends, 25 items to sell on craigslist/ebay, 21 items to give to my mom in Portland, 5 items to give to my grandma in Tacoma, 4 items to bring with me to SF (clothes, blender, 7 sets of headphones, laptop), 4 items to return to stores (which I never got around to doing, I ended up giving them to Goodwill), 4 items to throw away, 3 items to decide later (which I ended up giving away), and 2 items to sell later (this included my car which I only started trying to sell 2 weeks before I left, bad choice).
4. After I had all my stuff tagged and organized, I just went through each tagged section and began taking care of business. I probably delivered 8-10 trash bags of clothes to Goodwill. I rented a U-Haul for 2 days, filled it with my stuff and drove half down to Tacoma for my grandma and half to my mom in Portland. I then dropped the U-Haul in Portland and took an Amtrak train back home.
5. Selling your car can be a chicken or the egg problem. A lot of last minute errands are much easier with a car, but if you want to move without your car, you obviously have to sell it before you leave. I waited till about 2 weeks before I was leaving before trying to sell mine and it made it very difficult to get the price I wanted. It depends on your car and the market in your city, but just plan accordingly.
6. Buy a one-way ticket of some kind (train, bus, plane, whatever) when you make your decision. This I think is one of the most important steps. I bought my one-way ticket after I tested out the city for a week. I bought the ticket on Feburary 2nd for my flight which was on March 1st. This gave me a real deadline which I couldn’t avoid or postpone. This is another great way of incentivizing you to stay on track.
7. Plan time to clean your apartment or house that you’re moving out of. Depending on the size of it, I would probably allot 10-12 hours just to be safe. Assuming all your stuff is already out. It’s much better to have too much time than too little in this arena.
8. Lease? In my case I had a 2-person lease which didn’t end until June 30th (4 months after I wanted to leave). This can be an extremely sticky area, mostly because there is someone else involved. I did not handle this as well as I should have. All I can recommend is that you should try to be as considerate and honest as possible with your roommate(s) and landlord. That said, understanding game theory and their motivations might also be good.
9. Clear up all your banking and mail accounts. Setup your address forwarding. If you need to close any local accounts, take care of it.
10. If you have last minute stuff you need to get rid of, craigslist is still an amazing resource. I posted my scanner on it for free and got 70 emails in 24 hours. There are plenty of people looking to get free stuff.
11. You will likely have more you want to bring with you than can fit in the two luggage. I would suggest moving boxes. Do not go to storage stores to buy your moving supplies. To say they are a rip-off would be an understatement. I went to one where they were selling 20x20x22 boxes for $4.50 and a sign outside said “30% off boxes!!”. Which was only for large quantity purchases. Both home depot and lowes sell the same size boxes for ~$1.30 and no quantity requirements. More than 70% less. Airports and UPS typically prefer you to ship boxes that sum up to ~62 inches (W+H+D). If you aren’t driving the boxes down, you can either send them USPS or get UPS to schedule a pick up.
12. Last but not least, get together with a group of friends and pop a celebratory bottle of champagne. =)