I really like the story of a Wall Street CEO who visits Mexico with his family.

The CEO is looking to have a really fresh meal so he goes to the docks in the town and finds a man unloading his fishing boat with his morning haul. He buys a great looking fish and starts talking to the fisherman. The fisherman says “every day I fish for a few hours in the morning, then I eat lunch with my family, take a siesta, visit with friends, have dinner and go to bed.” The CEO says “Well if you fished for a few more hours every day you could buy a bigger boat. Then you could manage a team of fishermen and buy more boats and then move to the United States to manage your company. Then you could build your business until you can sell it to a major company and retire!” The fisherman ponders that for a second. “What would I do after that?” he says. The CEO responds “It would be great! You could move to a tropical village. You could fish for a few hours, eat lunch with your family, take a siesta, visit your friends, have dinner and go to bed.”

I feel like I read this story in either The Four Hour Work Week or The E-Myth, but I love it and there are a few lessons we can take from it.

The Feel-Good Lesson: Do What You Love

My dad told me as I was growing up “if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life.” People say all the time “follow your passion.” I’m going to temper these ideals with some reality and say this instead – “do what you enjoy, what you are good at and what can pay for the lifestyle you want.” That one isn’t as good a sound bite, but it makes more sense.

You may be really good at watching TV in your underwear and you may really enjoy it, but it probably won’t make you enough money to pay for your cable bill every month. On the other hand, finding something marketable that you are good at and enjoy is a great route because your natural affinity will shine through to clients and keep you up to date on the latest and greatest.

The fisherman in the example above may never be able to really “retire” and stop earning money, but that’s probably okay because it’s something he loves and what he’d enjoy doing during “retirement” anyway. In addition, people are encouraged to stay occupied after retirement to stay interested and stave off depression.

“We know that older adults who are active, not sedentary and have things to occupy their brains are less depressed,” said Nancy Molitor, a clinical psychologist in North Suburban Wilmette and an assistant professor of Clinical Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Northwestern who has worked with older retirees for the past 10 years.

This Forbes article points toward the recommendation that having activity and focus in retirement delivers a mental and physical health benefit as well:

In the May 1998 issue of Journal of Business Ethics, Al Gini asserts “work is not simply about trading labor for dollars.” Work is the way we find identity as individuals and how others identify us. As a consequence, retirement can be emotionally devastating.

The point is that instead of putting off the things you enjoy until you retire, consider finding ways to incorporate those things into your everyday life. This could be riding your bike to work, doing passionate work on the side or building a business based on what you enjoy. As humans we aren’t meant to wander and play aimlessly as it detracts from our focus.

The Literal Lesson: Consider Moving Somewhere with a Lower Cost of Living

There are plenty of Americans who have made a substantial chunk of money and then moved somewhere else in the world to make it last longer. While you may need a million (or more) to retire at 65 here in the US, you might be able to retire with that amount much earlier elsewhere in the world. When you factor in housing, cost of living and the basic consumer atmosphere of the US, it takes a lot more to live month-to-month here than it does in a lot of other places. Numbeo.com has a great tool that lets you take a look at the cost of living around the world:

Check it out yourself, it’s pretty fun to click around and compare on the map. The US certainly isn’t the most expensive, but it isn’t near the least expensive either. Some of the least expensive countries to live in are also pretty amazing places. The CEO in the story didn’t account for the fact that someone could make a great living elsewhere by fishing for a few hours and didn’t need a large lump sum to retire.

The Philosophical Lesson: Don’t Accept the Rules of Your Environment

“If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” Put another way, if you’re a CEO everything looks like a company to build. To a corporate employee, the typical life path is to go to school, work for 40 years, take some vacations, retire and then it’s time to play. Those aren’t the rules everywhere, and lots of people are able to lead balanced lives that don’t involve the process of paying your dues before you can play.

In the story, the CEO applied his framework of the world to the fisherman but the end goal was to do exactly what the fisherman was doing today. There are certain commonly accepted “rules” that we apply to the world around us; most of the time those rules don’t apply elsewhere and likely don’t have to apply where we live right now. This idea of ‘lifestyle hacking’ was popularized by Tim Ferriss in The Four Hour Work Week and it’s a fascinating idea. Whether you’re able to pull off a mini-retirement or not, recognizing the invisible rules of the game can be broken is a powerful first step.