Day 18: 35 Moves and Counting – 30 days, 30 episodes

I'm MacGill Hooley, and this is the Life Shift Candid conversations about the pivotal moments that have changed lives forever.

Hello, my friends.

Welcome to day 18 of 30 days, 30 episodes of the Life Shift podcast.

I just realized that my hair looks a big mess, so if you're listening, you can't see that.

Congratulations.

But here I am.

Day 18.

This has been really a wonderful journey of challenging myself to come on every day and address something that's either top of mind or that is a prompt or someone has asked me to address this particular question or idea.

And I feel like it's just like a really cool experience for myself.

And I hope that you're enjoying these.

Some of them are a little off the wall, and some of them are a little deep.

Today I.

I just wanted to share a fun fact, and this is usually one of the fun facts when I started a new place, and I'm like, you know, we go around the room with those terrible icebreakers that I think nobody loves icebreakers.

And my one fun fact for me is that I have moved over 35 times in my life.

And so that is usually surprising to people, considering I'm 43 and I'm not in a military family.

But I have moved a lot.

And a lot of that stems from my parents getting divorced when I was younger.

And so then in some cases I had multiple houses, and in some cases those situations, we moved again.

And then I've moved to, let's see, I've lived in four states, so that contributes to moving.

And then college.

I feel like everyone moves a lot in college.

I'm currently in my third house that I've purchased, so there's a lot that goes into it.

And the reason that I wanted to bring it up today is one, I think I just love change in that way or, like, this ability to start fresh in a new space is really this kind of like a something that I crave.

And if we look back at the longest times that I've spent anywhere, it's about a six year stretch in which, like, that's the longest that I am in one place.

And so I've been back in Orlando now for six years, and I'm getting the urge with everything that's going on in Florida and just the country feels a little bit off balance and for me, at least, and the things that I believe in.

So I've been thinking more about, like, where will I go next?

And I've talked about this on these daily episodes of, like, how I tend to just come Back to Florida because it's easy.

And I don't think I need to do that anymore.

I think in my 40s, it's like whatever, like how much time do I have left?

Probably a lot.

Hopefully a lot.

But why go to what's easy?

So I've been thinking about where I would go next.

There's no actual plans.

Who knows when it will happen, if it will happen.

There's a lot of renovation we need to do at the house before we would be able to rent it out or anything like that.

So it's not like any near term plans.

But I do have myself kind of dreaming about like different places and different temperatures and different seasons and different people around in different environments.

Obviously I would want to be able to be in a place where I could easily travel back and see friends that live here or travel back and forth to just see each other.

And that's just how you do as adults.

I don't think you need to be next door neighbors anymore.

I think that is pre Internet when you were just kind of friends with your circle or the people that were closest by.

But now as adults you can kind of move.

So this is really top of mind for me lately and I just think about all the times that I've moved and the things that I've loved about it.

Sure, it is a pain in the butt to move and packing is the worst.

I am someone though that the day you move in or the day I move in, I have to unpack everything.

Like I have to.

I can't live with boxes and the mess and it just everything needs to be in a place and then I can determine where that place is.

But I am someone that likes to unpack on day one and sometimes it shocks people when I do that.

But it's just kind of how I am.

I'm also the same way with like trips.

When I come back and I have my luggage, like it immediately goes in the laundry, luggage goes away, I don't want to see it.

I just need to unpack and feel like I am set up and settled.

So that has always happened every time I've moved.

I am also at the point in which I will never move myself again.

So gone are the days when I rent a U Haul or a truck and call up friends and say, hey, I'll get you some pizza if you can come help me move.

Those days are gone because yeah, it's not.

It's so much faster and so much more efficient when you have a company that does this every day.

All Day long and knows how to do things in an efficient way without really damaging too much.

Although I've had a few instances where things have been damaged.

But all in all, it seems like a really good way to go is to just hire someone.

So if you're looking to move, make sure you do that.

I'm a pro at packing because I've done it so many times.

One of my favorite ways to move that I ever did was after a really traumatic experience in Colorado.

The end of my time in Colorado, not the whole time, the end of my time.

And I just needed to get back.

And I think I talked about this in day one or two, but I sold everything, like, almost everything that I had.

I think I shipped like 10, 12 boxes to my friend Tracy's house so she could hold on to that until I got back here.

And then whatever fit in my car along with my dogs.

And then I flew my friend Tracy out, I moved with.

And so there was something really freeing about getting rid of nearly everything that I had, because you just learn to figure out, like, I don't really need all this crap, and then somehow I acquire all this crap again.

But I did really enjoy the sense of, like, showing up to an apartment and knowing, like, I had to get everything this time.

And it was brand new and everything was kind of a fresh start, which is what I needed at that particular moment in time.

So I look back on that trying time with some fondness because I.

I found it such an interesting process to really shed yourself of those things.

Naturally.

I kept things related to, like, my mom.

I have a couple of my mom's things, and I kept those and a couple of my grandmother's things.

Obviously anything that's kind of irreplaceable in a way, and then just kept the things that I liked or the things that I needed, clothes that I needed, got rid of all the furniture and everything like that.

And it was.

Was a really good experience.

So I don't know what the next one will bring.

Right now it's a four bedroom house, so there's a lot of stuff here.

So, you know, ideally I win the lottery and then I don't have to worry about it.

I can just do whatever I want and just buy new stuff when I get there.

But we'll see.

It's just kind of this thing that says it's a seed planted in my head right now thinking, where can I go next?

How can I envision my life in a new space?

I think I would really like to live in a More city environment.

Like something like Chicago or something with like walkable kind of city feel.

New York City was always something.

I don't think I can afford to live in New York City.

I might not be able to afford to live in Chicago.

I also like the idea of having winters and having some kind of different weather every once in a while.

I know some places or a lot of places get hot in the summer, but not for extended periods of time, like in Florida.

This last couple years in the summers have just been brutal with days and days and days in a row of like a hundred degrees and 100% humidity to the point that we have a central air conditioning unit in our house, but also two additional air conditioning units in the offices so that it cools the spaces that we're in all the time.

So, you know, there's a lot of.

It's just hot.

And I think I'm ready.

I think I'm ready for something new.

So maybe 2025 will be something new and maybe the Life Shift podcast will be recorded in a different city at some point.

Hell, maybe someday if this show grows to a place where it makes sense, maybe I can actually have a studio or go to a studio.

My friend Matt Labrie, who's been a guest on the Life Shift podcast, his podcast Decoding Success, has now been recording in a studio for like over a year now.

I mean, I think he's way past I, I am on number of episodes, but how cool is that?

And he's able to have these face to face conversations.

I don't know if I'd be able to.

I think this remote thing allows me to kind of have a little bit of comfort and I feel like people open up even more through remote recording.

But who knows?

All this to say I've moved 35 times and I'm willing to add numbers to that.

So maybe 2025 will bring changes.

Maybe 2026, who knows?

Stay along for the journey.

Let me know how many times you've moved in your life.

I'd especially love to hear from someone that's never moved in their life.

Like maybe they were in their or maybe once out of their parents home and then they're in the same place that they moved to from their parents home.

So share that with me if you want in social media.

If you have any questions that you want me to address in these final like 12 days of this little adventure I am taking, please send those to me on social media, the Life Shift podcast on Instagram and those places, and you can email me at Matthew Life Shift podcast.com if you have any other ideas.

So that is it for day 18.

How many times have you moved?

I will see you tomorrow for day 19.

Bye bye.

For more information, please visit www.thelifeshiftpodcast.

com.