Today, I reflect on my experience of moving frequently throughout my life, having relocated over 35 times. This journey of constant change has shaped my perspective on fresh starts and the thrill of new environments.

I discuss how my childhood experiences, particularly my parents' divorce, contributed to this pattern of moving and how it has influenced my craving for change. As I contemplate my next move, I share my thoughts on what it means to seek out different places and experiences, especially as I navigate my 40s.

Takeaways:

• Moving frequently can lead to a desire for fresh starts and new experiences.
• The urge to explore new environments becomes stronger as I age.
• Living in a city with different weather and seasons is appealing.
• I’m contemplating where my next move might be and what that could mean.

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MacGill Hooley: 00:00:01

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:00:18

Hello, my friends.

MacGill Hooley: 00:00:19

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:00:25

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:00:29

Congratulations.

MacGill Hooley: 00:00:31

But here I am.

MacGill Hooley: 00:00:31

Day 18.

MacGill Hooley: 00:00:32

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.

MacGill Hooley: 00:00:48

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

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And I hope that you're enjoying these.

MacGill Hooley: 00:00:55

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:00:59

Today I.

MacGill Hooley: 00:01:00

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.

MacGill Hooley: 00:01:12

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:01:21

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:01:29

But I have moved a lot.

MacGill Hooley: 00:01:31

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:01:36

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:01:43

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:01:50

And then college.

MacGill Hooley: 00:01:52

I feel like everyone moves a lot in college.

MacGill Hooley: 00:01:55

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:02:02

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.

MacGill Hooley: 00:02:19

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.

MacGill Hooley: 00:02:30

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.

MacGill Hooley: 00:02:46

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:02:50

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.

MacGill Hooley: 00:02:58

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:03:00

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:03:05

Probably a lot.

MacGill Hooley: 00:03:06

Hopefully a lot.

MacGill Hooley: 00:03:07

But why go to what's easy?

MacGill Hooley: 00:03:09

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:03:13

There's no actual plans.

MacGill Hooley: 00:03:15

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:03:18

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.

MacGill Hooley: 00:03:23

So it's not like any near term plans.

MacGill Hooley: 00:03:25

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.

MacGill Hooley: 00:03:37

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.

MacGill Hooley: 00:03:47

And that's just how you do as adults.

MacGill Hooley: 00:03:49

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:03:52

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:04:00

But now as adults you can kind of move.

MacGill Hooley: 00:04:02

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.

MacGill Hooley: 00:04:10

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:04:15

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:04:22

Like I have to.

MacGill Hooley: 00:04:23

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.

MacGill Hooley: 00:04:30

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:04:35

But it's just kind of how I am.

MacGill Hooley: 00:04:37

I'm also the same way with like trips.

MacGill Hooley: 00:04:39

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.

MacGill Hooley: 00:04:46

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:04:51

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:04:55

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:05:00

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.

MacGill Hooley: 00:05:10

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:05:14

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:05:19

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:05:25

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:05:28

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:05:36

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:05:39

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:05:42

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:05:51

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:05:55

And I just needed to get back.

MacGill Hooley: 00:05:56

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:06:04

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.

MacGill Hooley: 00:06:10

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:06:14

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:06:17

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.

MacGill Hooley: 00:06:31

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:06:39

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:06:47

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:06:53

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:06:58

Naturally.

MacGill Hooley: 00:06:58

I kept things related to, like, my mom.

MacGill Hooley: 00:07:01

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:07:07

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.

MacGill Hooley: 00:07:19

And it was.

MacGill Hooley: 00:07:20

Was a really good experience.

MacGill Hooley: 00:07:21

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:07:23

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:07:26

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:07:30

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:07:33

But we'll see.

MacGill Hooley: 00:07:35

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?

MacGill Hooley: 00:07:42

How can I envision my life in a new space?

MacGill Hooley: 00:07:44

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:07:49

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:07:55

New York City was always something.

MacGill Hooley: 00:07:56

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:07:58

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:08:01

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:08:07

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:08:14

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.

MacGill Hooley: 00:08:35

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:08:37

It's just hot.

MacGill Hooley: 00:08:38

And I think I'm ready.

MacGill Hooley: 00:08:39

I think I'm ready for something new.

MacGill Hooley: 00:08:40

So maybe: 2025

MacGill Hooley: 00:08:49

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.

MacGill Hooley: 00:08:57

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.

MacGill Hooley: 00:09:08

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:09:14

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:09:17

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:09:18

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.

MacGill Hooley: 00:09:26

But who knows?

MacGill Hooley: 00:09:27

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:09:32

So maybe: 2025

MacGill Hooley: 00:09:35

Maybe: 2026

MacGill Hooley: 00:09:37

Stay along for the journey.

MacGill Hooley: 00:09:39

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:09:41

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:09:45

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.

MacGill Hooley: 00:09:53

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

MacGill Hooley: 00:09:56

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.

MacGill Hooley: 00:10:15

So that is it for day 18.

MacGill Hooley: 00:10:18

How many times have you moved?

MacGill Hooley: 00:10:19

I will see you tomorrow for day 19.

MacGill Hooley: 00:10:22

Bye bye.

MacGill Hooley: 00:10:34

For more information, please visit www.thelifeshiftpodcast.

MacGill Hooley: 00:10:40

com.