Doing laundry in Kyoto

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Candidate,

In November and December, my wife Cass and I traveled through India and Japan. On the last leg of our trip, we headed from Kyoto to Kurashiki to stay in a ryokan, or a traditional Japanese inn. Then we spent the last few days of our trip on a luxury cruise along Japan's Inland Sea. I shared my highlights over on Instagram, and I wanted to share some of them with you here.

But first, let's talk about LAUNDRY.

In Kyoto, Cass and I had laundry we needed to do. Have you ever done laundry in a hotel? I don't mind paying for a nice hotel, but the prices of laundry make me go insane. But Cass said, "We could go find a laundromat, but do we really want to rearrange our entire day and lug it around?"

She was right. I decided we'd just pay the costs, and I put our laundry in a bag and started filling out the form. But then I calculated the price...

It would have cost $362! Plus service fee and tax!

Some fees are just so outrageous, I'm personally offended. So we packed it up and headed to a laundromat.

We all have a limit. I guess we learned that for me, it's $400 for a bag of laundry.

I wanted to share this because you can spend a ton on certain things and cut mercilessly on other things. For example, we spend a lot on travel, but in NYC we rarely eat out. We have numbers we jointly track on a monthly basis.

Technically, we were already paying a lot to stay at this place, so why not spend a little more for the convenience of not doing our laundry?

I think we would have paid a certain amount to have it done for us. But there's a limit — and we both instinctively knew it wasn't worth the price for us. The laundry was a great example of being aligned on spending with your partner and talking about what's worth it or not.

After our time in Kyoto, we headed to a ryokan in Kurashiki. We wanted to stay at this traditional Japanese inn and experience it.

After arriving, we asked if they would serve dinner in our room.

If you've been following along my trip, you may have noticed that in the beginning, we scheduled lots of active stuff — tiger safari, time with family, market visits.

As we got toward the end, we chose lots of quieter places. Serene ryokans like this one, the upcoming luxury cruise, small towns.

In my early 20s, I didn't think about the emotional experience of a journey. I just maintained everything at the same intensity.

Most recently, I've discovered the beauty of highs and lows, fast and slow, push and pull. And I knew I wanted to end on a quiet note — somewhere where we could collect our thoughts about our entire trip and talk about 2020 together.

Our final stop in Japan was a luxury cruise that launched in 2019. I'd been on two cruises with my family before — Carnival and Alaska — but I'd never seen a cruise ship like this before. I saw pictures of the boat online, but it looked more awesome in person.

One of my favorite things on these trips is being totally awed at so many things — a meal, meeting someone inspiring, or a beautifully designed room. We might forget the feeling in our day-to-day lives, but we never forget what true awe feels like.

I prioritized downtime on this trip because I wanted to take time to think big about 2020. One of the nights, I read and wrote for hours in the lounge and didn't see anyone nearly the entire time. For me this is actually heaven. The ultimate luxury is time. The time to be able to think and reflect.

Another point on the cruise, Cass and I were sitting and the staff came out with this and asked, "What would you like?"

Fresh meats, fish, vegetables. We asked for some sashimi to be prepared, some charcoal-grilled, and whatever the chef recommends.

We would never get this on a day-to-day basis. But that makes it even more special to get it now. We were blown away and felt very lucky to even KNOW that this exists.

This year, my dream for you is to be intentional with your loved ones. For you to spend time and money on the things that are important to you and to create magical memories together.

Please tell me if my travel stories have changed your view of a Rich Life.

I wanted to show you what a Rich Life can be. And that your Rich Life is yours — it's deeply personal and meticulously personalized to you.

I also wanted to show you that money is a small but important part of a Rich Life.

Money doesn't make you evil. It can help you create magical experiences for yourself and the people you love.

Finally, I wanted to show you how to bet on yourself — to ask for what you want, to dream bigger, and to know you can do something different than others.

If these travel stories have changed your views, please DM me on Instagram. I read every one.

Thanks for following along,