From Italy to London: Alan Rhode's Life-Changing Leap

Alan Rhode
00:00:34

So what happened then? I found myself wishing to remain in London.

And it's funny because one person I knew because of his failed business told me your expertise could be needed because many online stores need these tax and legal services. So from the ashes of one business, I was able to start the other business, which proved to be successful.

Matt Gilhooly
00:01:03

Today's guest is Alan Rhode. Alan's journey involves taking risks and the relentless pursuit of his dreams.

Born in Italy, Alan's life took him from the serene landscapes of his hometown to the bustling streets of Milan and eventually to the City of London.

In this episode, Alan opens up about his significant life shifts, including his bold move from a pretty stable job in Milan to starting a business in London and seeing how that went for him and then learning from that. This leap was filled with both challenges and opportunities.

He shares how the lessons learned from a failed startup fueled his eventual success in his new company.

He also shares his passion for writing, which is really a dream that hes nurtured since childhood and how hes managed to balance this with his professional responsibilities.

If youre in the midst of dreaming about a new opportunity or if youre on the edge of taking a chance to pursue your dreams, I think Alan's story will resonate with you. As a note, the audio on this episode was a little wonky due to some equipment issues.

So I hope you'll forgive me and you'll listen through the full episode. Without further ado, here is my conversation with Alan Rode. I'm Matt Gilhooly, and this is the life shift.

Candid conversations about the pivotal moments that have changed lives forever. Hello, my friends. Welcome to the Life Shift podcast. I am here with Alan. Hello, Alan.

Alan Rhode
00:02:35

Hi, Matt.

Matt Gilhooly
00:02:36

Where are you joining us from?

Alan Rhode
00:02:38

London, southwest of London, to be precise.

Matt Gilhooly
00:02:41

Awesome. Yeah, we are recording in the evening, my time, and I'm in Florida.

So I was like, well, thank you for staying up late to be able to do this podcast with me. For anyone that's listening, that's brand new to this podcast because you're on. I really started this podcast because of my own personal experience.

When I was eight, my mom died in a motorcycle accident. And on the day that my dad told me, which was that same day, he said, you know, he told me that my mom had died.

And at that moment in time, everything in my life had changed.

And growing up, I always wondered, do other people have these, like, significant life shift moments, whether they're something traumatic like that happened to me or something that was like more of an internal decision or fire or something like that. And so far I've had the opportunity to talk to close to 150 people now for this podcast.

And it turns out that a lot of people have multiple life shift moments in their lives.

And so I'm just so honored that people like yourself want to come onto the show and share kind of what you've learned from a significant, pivotal moment in your life. So thank you for just wanting to be here.

Alan Rhode
00:03:44

Oh, thank you for having me.

Matt Gilhooly
00:03:46

It's really just such a journey that I didn't know that that eight year old version of me really needed to kind of help with that healing process. So I appreciate it. Maybe before we jump into your actual story, maybe you can tell us a little bit about who Alan is in 2024. Like who you are.

What do you do? Without giving away too much, I think.

Alan Rhode
00:04:06

I have two main endeavors to mention. I run a business in London that I co founded ten years ago. It's in the digital industry. We do tax and legal for online stores.

So it's a bit dry, it's a bit boring for many people. And most exciting, I mostly published zero four.

I published a political thriller called the Eagle and the Cocker here in the UK last year, and I'm writing a second book. So, and this is my lifetime dream to become an established writer.

And I know that most people find this bit of my life more exciting than the other part, which is what brings food on my table right now. So I have, besides my family duties, which are quite demanding, I have these two activities side by side, and your.

Matt Gilhooly
00:05:04

Story kind of leads you through this. It's almost like a full circle moment too.

I'm not trying to give anything away, but we've talked a little bit through email about your story, and it's nice to see that you found this space where you can kind of live out part of that dream that you've always had in a way that is bringing you some satisfaction or some dream check marks, those kind of things. So congratulations on publishing your book and working on a second one. So you must have liked the first version.

Alan Rhode
00:05:34

Yes, yes. My goal is to reach ten books under my belt before the age of 65. I'm 46, so I need to hurry up.

Matt Gilhooly
00:05:44

How long did the first. Before we get into your story? How long did that. Two years.

Alan Rhode
00:05:47

Two years. I mean, it depends if you're full time, of course you can write, you can be faster, but every author has a different kind of speed.

And some authors where you write 3000 words per day, other authors 300. So you're extremely subjective. So I think I can make it before the end of the age of 65.

Matt Gilhooly
00:06:08

I think you can do it.

Alan Rhode
00:06:09

But I'm giving my best.

Matt Gilhooly
00:06:14

I've talked to people that have worked on a book for decades and finally put it out. And a lot of that isn't constant writing, but coming back to it and stuff. So if you did one already, now you know the ropes.

You know what to do, what not to do. You kind of know how to approach it. So I think. I think that's a pretty lofty but good goal.

Alan Rhode
00:06:33

Yeah. I've just one basic rule. I write every day.

Matt Gilhooly
00:06:37

Okay?

Alan Rhode
00:06:38

So sometimes I don't write. I make some research.

But what I want to know at the end of the day before going to bed, is that I've moved forward towards the goal of writing a book. And, yes, I think I enjoy doing it, which is a condition number one. And, yeah, I'm quite driven, I believe. So let's see how it goes.

Matt Gilhooly
00:07:02

Well, I mean, I think a lot of people don't, like, they'll have a dream as a younger version of themselves or whatever, but they don't pursue it because kind of life gets in the way. And I love that you found the space to create something that you've always wanted to do. So, speaking of which, maybe you can.

Let's get into your story. Maybe you can kind of paint the picture of your life leading up to what you feel is the most significant shift in your life.

That kind of made this version of Alan that we're talking to today.

Alan Rhode
00:07:33

Sure. I started my life in Genoa, Italy. As you can hear from my accent, it's not an english accent at all.

It's more operatic, which is a nice, very chilled out city in northern Italy. It's on the coast towards France. It's wonderful landscape. Definitely not a vibrant place. It's more, as I said, chilled out.

I don't want to say dull, otherwise someone might get hurt. But you said it. Yeah, I know. And I studied law there. Maybe not the best decision with hindsight, but I studied law.

And also while I was studying law, I practice as a journalist. So I was writing on an economic and financial newspaper, which is based in Milan. It's very important in Italy.

I was writing more on the local matters. So local businesses, local trends in Genoa, northwest of Italy. And I qualified as a journalist.

So you need to write a certain amount of pieces of articles within a certain time frame. And I became a qualified journalist, but I knew that it wasn't the right path for me.

The reason being that journalists, you tend to be subject to directive, top to bottom. And the most important part of an article, funny enough, is the title. And you don't decide the title. It's the editorial team. And also it takes.

I may sound a bit material, but it takes a lifetime to get, at least in Italy, a good wage. So that was a bit discouraging.

Matt Gilhooly
00:09:20

Were you interested in what you were writing about, or was it just like a check mark?

Alan Rhode
00:09:24

No, I like it. I like it. I prefer fiction. Okay, I like it. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to write so many articles, but I prefer fiction.

So when I got my graduation in law, I decided to move to Milan. And Milan is funny. They call it the Italian New York, because it's all social life, business.

It's very urban compared to other more countryside, kind areas of Italy. So there is no sweet life in Milan? There is sweet life in Milan is more nighttime.

People from Milan, they boast about their productivity, which is true, even, I would say. Nowadays, 95% of the people living in Milan are from outside Milan. So it's quite difficult to find a real person whose parents were born in Milan.

Matt Gilhooly
00:10:20

So it's like a hustle culture, like New York. Like, very hustle. Like, get things done, keep working, work hard. Got it?

Alan Rhode
00:10:27

Yes, yes.

Matt Gilhooly
00:10:28

Never sleep.

Alan Rhode
00:10:29

Yes. And so it was a happy period of my life from a social standpoint, and it was a change.

But I ended up working in, funny enough, american law firms in Milan.

Matt Gilhooly
00:10:43

Interesting.

Alan Rhode
00:10:44

And they were quite top to bottom, vertical, and, of course, tax law. I like it. I still practice it in a way with my business, but definitely it's something quite dry, quite technical. And so I was partially happy.

And funny enough when. When we talk about writing, I must say that writing has always come and gone in my life. So I.

When I was a child, around six years of age, I thought, I want to become a journalist, then a movie director, and then I was the author of a class magazine.

So we had this very basic homemade magazine in the classroom, and I was the author, and I sold it for, I think it was 1000 liras, which is probably, I don't know, nowadays, $1 in us currency. And some of my classmates bought it, and I really like it. And by then, my life, at least for some time, took another direction.

Then I became a journalist. So again, writing was part of my life, but again, I changed direction, and now writing has come back.

Matt Gilhooly
00:12:05

It's very cyclic. Yeah. When you were growing up, did you have.

Was there a reason that you kept getting pulled away from writing because you felt like you needed to do a certain thing or be success. Did you go towards law because you saw that as like could be successful, quote unquote successful or some sort, or is there something you know?

Alan Rhode
00:12:26

That's a very good question and I think I may have an answer. I think I was shying away from my, let's say, intimacy. So, writing, especially fiction, means that you are extremely in touch with yourself.

And it's a long journey, it's something you do by yourself. And probably I was shying away from this and when I got more mature and to write a book, in all fairness, I call it the Marathon of sports.

To write a book, it's a long journey. You need to be mature. And in my twenties, I wasn't probably ready to undertake this task, this experience, but it's a common trait of my life.

Phil Rouge, as I say, in France, writing, probably. And while I was in Italy, I changed various jobs, as I told you. But probably I struggled to find my path, which I believe you never know.

Everything is still in the making I found in the United Kingdom. And you need to consider, my father is English, even if he spent most of his life in Italy.

So coming to the UK, and I think we can discuss this now, I mean, throughout the podcast, coming to the UK in a way, has been a means to find my roots or probably resume the family journey. So I wasn't entirely happy in Italy. I consider myself happy in the UK.

And so the defining moment, I don't know if I can expose it now, is probably when I decided to move to the UK in early 2015. So what happened? I had met a friend in Milan, he's from London, he's still a friend and he's an IT engineer. And I met him in a bar at night.

And when I heard this accent, the english accent, and I said, oh, I was very, I was intrigued. So we began speaking and he was impressed because he's black. And all the Italians thought a bit naively, that he was from the US.

But to me was clear, the accident was clear. And so we became friends and I started to come to the UK very often, many times per year. And he was starting venture in the IT industry.

It was a social recommendation platform, I'm not going to detail. And we started the business together. And it was short life business. I made all the mistakes that you can do as a startupper. I could write.

Matt Gilhooly
00:15:20

You aren't the only one.

Alan Rhode
00:15:22

Yes, I know, I made many of them.

Matt Gilhooly
00:15:24

But you moved it by that time, or were you still just going back and forth back and forth, back and forth.

Alan Rhode
00:15:29

So it was around 20 2012, 2013, but I was moving my way out of the legal world in a way, and especially was setting my foot in the UK without that experience, and my friend lived not far away from where I live now.

Without that experience, London would have remained a large city, which is, of course, a bit scary, a bit intimidating, while living with somebody who is from London and in a very green and nice area such as Richmond helped me to get acquainted and to learn more about London.

And nowadays, London seems a small town to me because when you live in a place for ten years, regardless of how large the place is, you no longer feel it that large. And so we started this business in 2012, and it was a disaster financially and a learning curve. I learned a lot, but it was.

There was no happy handing, of course.

Matt Gilhooly
00:16:41

That can tear a person down. Just in general. Were you broken by that or were you like, oh, I can learn from this and move forward?

Alan Rhode
00:16:49

No, I was disappointed, but I like the vibe, the energy. So compared to staying in a law firm in Milan, even, it was quite a flashy american law firm. It was dynamic and moving from.

I grew up in Genoa, which is a very calm place of being. London was rewarding. So no regrets, really. No regrets. So what happened when I found myself wishing to remain in London?

And it's funny because one person I knew because of his failed business, told me, your expertise could be needed because many online stores need this tax and legal services. So from the ashes of one business, I was able to start the other business, which proved to be successful. And we have now seven people.

So it's a small business, but still seven people working within the team. And because I can delegate part of a job, this allows me to write. It would be.

I mean, I already struggle because I can only write a couple of hours per day, but if I had a full time job, in the sense working for a major organization, if you had two children. I have two boys, three and five years old of age.

So in a period of their life where they need attention and they have a lot of energy, as you can imagine, so I can't. They wake up at 06:00 a.m. so early morning, which is supposed to be the most productive part of the day for a writer, is out of question.

Evenings, I'm quite tired and I don't want a divorce, so I need to stay with my wife too. So the fact that I can delegate part of my daily job, I usually carve out a couple of hours in the early afternoon, when I'm still fresh enough.

Matt Gilhooly
00:18:47

When did you move to the UK?

Alan Rhode
00:18:50

It was February. I took the flight in February 2015. So it's nine years ago. I spent two or three years where I was often here.

But my relocation, if you want to use this expression, took place in early 2015 and I went through the situation. You can imagine sharing the flat with other people. And London is a bit like New York in the sense that there is a scarcity of accommodation.

So you find this pricey flat with so many people living there, so it wasn't easy in that sense. I remember I went to see this flat in Pimlico, which is very central, and it was a basement, and there were the tenants.

They told me, maybe the living room will become another room for another guest. In that case, we will apply a discount.

So I learned in London that many people live without a proper kitchen, which for Italians is unconceivable, is probably blasphemy. But I found a lady and she was the living landlady, and I spent one year then. And then I had met my wife in Spain and she moved.

We started dating and she moved with me one year later. And thankfully the business was growing, so we could. And she was working too, so we could manage to have our own flat.

Matt Gilhooly
00:20:30

That's a true mark of success. If we go back to February 2015, was there something that was like, I'm moving, like this is definitive?

Was there a moment where you were just like, it's time to go officially and quote, unquote, relocate to the UK permanently?

Alan Rhode
00:20:52

Yes. I was sure. I don't know on which ground my certainty rested, but I was sure that I wasn't coming back.

You know when you hear people say, I'm not coming back, worst case scenario, I will start selling cocktails on a beach somewhere and I'm still. This is my feeling to this day. So I wasn't going back to Italy.

I still like to go to Italy three, four times per year because it's just a couple of hours flight. But we have an expression here in the UK, you can try to have a cake and eat it. I'm trying to enjoy the benefits of London. So people are open minded.

There is investment.

I mean, if you look at what I do now, all the publishers, all the filming industry is here when it comes to the UK and still try to enjoy what Italy has to offer. So the quality of life, weather, food, the creativity of people, and people are very sociable. So I'm trying to have both things.

Matt Gilhooly
00:22:04

Seems like a good goal.

Alan Rhode
00:22:06

Yes. At the same time, I'm a bit scared because many Italians who come to the UK, they never really integrate.

I think we are already fully integrated with my wife and the local community. But at the very beginning I was scared that we would end up in some sort of little Italy.

Matt Gilhooly
00:22:25

Oh, I see.

Alan Rhode
00:22:26

I know people with this mindset. Some friends of mine, they still get go out just with Italians.

Matt Gilhooly
00:22:33

And that's a comfort thing, I think.

Alan Rhode
00:22:37

Yes.

Matt Gilhooly
00:22:37

You try to find what's comfortable.

Alan Rhode
00:22:39

Yes.

Matt Gilhooly
00:22:39

So which it sounds like you're not someone that wants to truly find what's very comfortable. Right. You like a little unease.

Alan Rhode
00:22:48

I think my goals imply some uneasiness because I'm ambitious. And if you have ambitions, it's most of the times there is a bit of a struggle or sacrifice or commitment implied.

Matt Gilhooly
00:23:04

All the parts of your story that you shared have this element of unease to them. You went somewhere new, you tried something different, you went into a career that was not your favorite, but wanted to find your.

And all the pieces seem to, like now in your forties, like kind of meld together perfectly. It's like you went to law school because.

And you're doing something that was kind of boring, but now you're able to turn that into your own business and then you could still. It seems like everything's kind of like found itself together for you.

Alan Rhode
00:23:38

You're very right, I think things that are apparently, or moments that are apparently unrelated.

And I like it in general, when you realize that you're doing something now and you are doing it better because you are benefiting of what you've done in the past.

So I remember, I mean, this quote comes to my mind, this reference, Steve Jobs, he took a course about, I don't remember type typewriting or it was the font that you can use typography. Yes, yes. At university, which served the purpose of helping me to develop all the graphics and typography with Mac, with Apple.

So something you wouldn't say, this guy needs typography to become a tycoon in it, but it served so you never know. You may enjoy studying areas of knowledge that in the future brings. Bring you in a completely different place.

So everything in your life, it's like a recipe. Life for me is like a recipe every ingredient is bringing.

Matt Gilhooly
00:24:54

Did you always feel that way?

Alan Rhode
00:24:56

More. More recently, but okay, yeah, because sometimes.

Matt Gilhooly
00:24:59

I feel like reflection helps us. Exactly. You're able to reflect on it and see like, oh, all these pieces make sense.

Like in my case, like, I wouldn't wish certain things that happened to me as a child on anyone else. But I look back at them in a weird fondness because they taught me certain things.

Like, had I not lost my mom at such an early age, certain things about me and my character probably would not have developed in the way that they did. And so now at this age, I can look back and kind of like have this weird gratefulness for certain experiences because of that. But yeah, you're right.

I love that analogy of it being like a recipe and all the ingredients that are coming together. And eventually we'll make some kind of like really delicious meal, which is.

Are you still making that meal or do you feel like you're offering like a good first course or second course in your life?

Alan Rhode
00:25:54

I think it's a work in progress.

Matt Gilhooly
00:25:57

Okay. You're not cooked yet?

Alan Rhode
00:26:00

No, no, no. I feel, and trust me, I feel. I still feel very incomplete as a person.

Matt Gilhooly
00:26:06

Okay.

Alan Rhode
00:26:07

So because in the end I had experiences, yes, in my twenties, thirties, forties. But I think I could have probably have a more fulfilling youth. I was inward, a loner, not sad life.

But I didn't probably express all myself in full until my thirties and forties. So I have some, some, something to.

Matt Gilhooly
00:26:35

Express, I don't know, through writing.

Alan Rhode
00:26:38

Yeah, writing, yeah. My goal is I think that my books can become good movies. So it's another aspect I'm working on.

Matt Gilhooly
00:26:49

Is that so, like screenwriting and things like that are on your, on your.

Alan Rhode
00:26:53

No, no, not yet. And that's, that's a goal. But I think that my first book and my second book, which I'm writing right now, they would make for great series or movies.

So I've been approaching producers. I've been trying to do. It's, it's, it's, it's not easy, as you can imagine, but I think you always have to try. I always been.

I've been contacting people in all my endeavors. I've always been contacting people. I'm not scared about a closed door. I think the more you try.

And I was, for instance, regarding writers, I went to see a famous writer. He was talking at a festival not far from here.

And he said the difference between the successful writer and the unsuccessful writer is that the successful writer keeps writing. So it's often nobody is born singer, a famous singer or an actor. We are all equals in a way.

Of course there is talent in between, but dedication and commitment are very important. And believe in yourself, probably. I like to learn to read memoirs and getting here and there some success cases to learn from.

And in most cases people who had managed to reach great achievements in different fields, they did it, like, from as outsiders, so nobody believed in them at the beginning. It's tough.

Matt Gilhooly
00:28:29

They kept going and keep pushing.

Do you, when you look at yourself before you moved to the UK and now, do you see a difference in the way that you approach life or are you just like a more enhanced version of yourself? Like, are you a little bit different because you made this bigger move, if you will?

Alan Rhode
00:28:50

No, I think I probably have more self esteem.

Matt Gilhooly
00:28:53

Do you think it's because it worked out?

Alan Rhode
00:28:55

Yes, because some things have worked out and then I feel more comfortable because what I like of the UK, I think there are no real prejudices. There is no prejudice as long as you roll up your sleeves and people don't tend to judge. I notice Italy is more a small town kind of approach.

People are scared to death about failure and still we are. It's a country where many jobs are passed from father to from, from parents to children. It's different. It's a completely different environment here.

I think I have more chances to thrive.

And of course, becoming a father also make you more self aware and so, yes, I think, no, I'm not a completely different person, probably is what you said before, an enhanced version of. But it's still a long way.

Matt Gilhooly
00:29:59

Well, hopefully. Right, yeah, you have a lot of time to go. You mentioned that you're father, was he from England or he was born here.

Alan Rhode
00:30:09

It's an interesting story because he was born in the UK, because his parents were already living in Italy, but he was born during World War Two, so they moved here because it was safer. Then he came back to Italy as a child, but he spent ten years in a college, kind of, which was very strict, like a boarding school.

He has hopeful memories about that period and I think because of his poor experience in the UK, when he came back to Italy, was 18 and he started working with his father, they had a family business. I think he cut a bit of ties with the UK. And so I wanted to, how can I say, mend this, bring these tiles back.

So I did the opposite journey and it was not immediate. I'm still thankful about these two or three years when I had a friend here and I was paying frequent visits.

But now when I land in Heathrow, which is the largest airport in London for me, is home, when I land in Milan, still home. I mean, I grew up in Italy, spent a more than 30 years there. But I like to say, people ask me, do you feel more english or italian?

Because I hold both passports. And my diplomatic answer is that England is second to no one. So it's a way to be diplomatic. You don't want to.

I mean, I'm a citizen of both countries.

Matt Gilhooly
00:31:50

Well, I mean, I would imagine it's a challenge, too.

I think that especially if you've spent decades in Italy and then to come here and find more of yourself, I guess maybe like a more comfortable version of yourself, because now you're doing more of the things that you always wanted to do is also probably why. And you have a family there. Now that you've created this family that you created, so that creates more of a home feel. That makes sense.

I think a lot of us, even in the states, you know, I've lived in four different states. Each of them feel differently when I go there.

Alan Rhode
00:32:28

Florida. You currently live in Florida? And where did you live?

Matt Gilhooly
00:32:31

I lived in Florida. I was born in Massachusetts, and so. And then when my mom died, I moved to Georgia, and so that was quite different than New England.

And then we moved to Florida, and then in my thirties, I moved to Colorado. Also very different. That one never, I mean, that felt like home just for a little bit.

But, like, when I go home, which would be where my family is in Massachusetts, it doesn't feel like home because that's not where I became a person. I feel like I became myself here in Florida.

And so this is what feels like home, even though technically all my family and where I was born and everything is up in Massachusetts. So I can.

I can understand how two places or three places can feel comfortable, but I can also understand why this new space for you might feel a little bit more like home.

Alan Rhode
00:33:22

You know, when I'm in Italy, I'm the Briton because of. I live in the UK because of my surname.

When I'm in the UK, of course I'm the Italian, and of course, the more I know person and the more they understand that I'm not entirely italian, not entirely british, but you tend to be in between, in a no man's land kind of situation.

When you spent your life in one country and then another part of your life in another country, you have a surname that is not italian because road, it's an english surname, but still I have a strong italian accent. I'm trying to improve it because. But although english people like the italian accent because it's kind of exotic.

So, yes, I don't know where I will go because when my kids will be at university, which in the UK starts quite early, so it's going to be in 13 years, I don't know what I will do. Maybe I will decide to go in a place where I can swim six or seven months per year, like southern Spain or southern France.

I don't want to go back to Italy, not because Italy doesn't deserve. It's a good place, and you can swim throughout the year, but I like to explore, so. And I love the spanish culture.

And I met my wife, she's Italian, in Spain on a summer course, a very relaxed summer course. Spanish summer course. And so maybe I feel this relationship with Spain and the language is very similar to Italian. I would say it's 70%.

You could probably start speaking Italian and Spanish and you understand each other. French is different. My book is based mostly of. My novel is based in France. So I love Paris.

But Paris is not an easy city to live in because you have huge disparities. So let's see. I mean, it's.

Matt Gilhooly
00:35:32

Yeah, you just sound like, yeah, 13 years.

Alan Rhode
00:35:36

Yes.

Matt Gilhooly
00:35:36

Seems a long time away, but somehow it'll be here really quickly. Exactly.

I mean, a lot of it makes sense to me as you kind of lean into talking about how you've always kind of been a writer and always wanted to write fiction and kind of lean into that space, it makes sense that you would want to wander, that you would want to explore and see other places, especially the fact that you have.

I think there's a lot of people that haven't had the chance to go other places, and therefore, their imagination is maybe a lot smaller than someone like you, who seems to be a little bit more worldly because you've had the opportunities to move different places and try different things. And I bet. I'll ask you, do you think that makes you a better writer?

Do you think it makes you better at what you do and your imagination and those kind of pieces because you've been able to do that?

Alan Rhode
00:36:26

Yeah. I think it's very important because in the end, what you write is what you have experienced in a way or the other.

That's why I try to watch a lot of movies, and I have fights with my wife because we have different tastes. I'm more into vintage movies that she finds very boring. So I'm trying to.

That's one of the reasons why I dream to become a full time writer, because my ideal day would be writing in the morning and then watching movies or reading books in the afternoon. It's like energy. It's like food. For any creature, you need to have experiences. They can be personal experiences, or they can be movies or books.

And one important thing for me about writing, it is true that you write about yourself in a way, subconscious way. But for me, when I write, I want to amplify life. I want to create a dimension which is outside of my daily life. So the stories I'm writing are not.

Are usually plot driven, more of a character driven. And they are stories in very different scenarios, settings than the one I'm living. So I know many authors.

They like to write stories about common people with common struggles. Very kind of realistic. Fiction is never realistic, but more realistic than other fiction in my case. I like to write books set in the future.

So I like to write, but I like to created the dimension, a window throughout my day which doesn't mirror my day. So you need experiences because ideas come from experiences that at least you can conceive, but not necessarily.

I never write something and think, okay, I need to write something that has happened to me.

While some authors, for a cathartic reason, they really like to write about places where they go every day or traumas they had to experience, try to fix.

Matt Gilhooly
00:38:50

Things probably through the fiction experience, they try to fix the things that went wrong in their lives through this fictional kind of journey that they're writing about.

Alan Rhode
00:38:58

No, for me, that you wouldn't want. Not you, because, yes, yours are like.

Matt Gilhooly
00:39:04

Places that don't exist yet or hopefully won't exist. Right.

Alan Rhode
00:39:08

I don't want to say I'm escaping life because it sounds. Yeah, that sounds, I like to say amplify life or make it more colored or, I mean, these places you would.

Matt Gilhooly
00:39:22

Want to live in, what you're writing.

Alan Rhode
00:39:25

No, I would like to live there, but I'm curious about them.

Matt Gilhooly
00:39:29

Okay.

Alan Rhode
00:39:30

So. And I.

It's funny because, yeah, I like writing not in order to, I don't think for a cathartic reason, to make my life richer, in a way, through imagination. And I think writing makes me a better person. Of course, it's a lot.

Matt Gilhooly
00:39:51

Do you feel more full when you're writing? Do you feel more like yourself?

Alan Rhode
00:39:55

I feel more fulfilled, self fulfilled. And it's very good to me.

And of course it's time that you invest on writing and you're not investing on your family, for instance, even if I spend a lot of time and energies and emotions when it comes to my family, but it makes me a better person.

Matt Gilhooly
00:40:16

So is your goal through writing to fulfill yourself?

Or is there like a bigger goal of, like, I'm doing this because I want to be famous or I want to do x, Y and Z or is this more of a self fulfillment project that may end up okay.

Alan Rhode
00:40:34

Both. It's a company. I like the challenge. It makes me feel more complete. But I also like the idea of succeeding in the sense.

In the sense if you play tennis, you want to win the tennis game. So it's like, it's challenging, see where I can go. But I don't like second guessing, so I would.

I don't write what I think people are expecting to read. And my first book is very. It's not just my opinion, what most readers say, then. It's quite innovative. So it's. It's.

Matt Gilhooly
00:41:12

You're not writing in a formula sense just so the book can sell a bazillion copies. You're writing what feels right for you in the path that. Is that what you mean?

Alan Rhode
00:41:21

And I don't write. I want to write what I struggle to find on the shelves.

And so I'm not writing trying to foresee, I mean, to make people happy in the sense that because genre is very popular, I follow the genre. So I'm not aiming to find my book necessarily in a shopping mall, because it's a different kind of genre. It's a bit more sophisticated.

Matt Gilhooly
00:41:54

But if it happens, you wouldn't be mad?

Alan Rhode
00:41:56

No, I've seen it worse. Tragedies.

Matt Gilhooly
00:42:00

Yeah.

Is there any part of you at this version of your life where you look back and kind of, like, envision what your track of life would have been had you not moved, had you stayed in that tax, that american law firm? Had you. Is there any part of you that envisions what your life would look like now if you had done that?

Alan Rhode
00:42:20

Luckily, no, because I. Luckily, I don't see an apprehending.

Matt Gilhooly
00:42:24

That's not possible. Yeah.

Alan Rhode
00:42:26

No, no. I wonder. On the same line of thought, I wonder if I had moved away from Italy when I was 19 and started university overseas somewhere else, maybe.

I wonder what would have happened.

And also, when I graduated, I took two months of kind of holiday in Australia, and it was a one way ticket, but it's very hard to get a permanent visa in Australia. I'm talking about 2005, 2006. So it's almost 20 years ago. So that's another question mark.

What if I had stayed longer in Australia and even earlier, what if I had moved from Italy when I was 19? So, yeah, I think most of us have this kind of question.

Matt Gilhooly
00:43:18

Well, so many of these conversations that I have with people are really, like, these. Life can change with a tiny little decision or a tiny little thing went differently.

Like, even in your story had that business that you started with your friend done well or succeeded, like your life would probably. You would probably be doing something similar to what you like to do now, but maybe you wouldn't have met the people in your life.

Maybe you wouldn't have met your wife. You know, like all these other things, just because certain things are going down a certain path. And it's always so interesting to me.

I don't know if you've ever seen the movie sliding doors.

Alan Rhode
00:43:51

Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly
00:43:52

Where it's like she gets on the train, she doesn't get on the train, and all the things and. But then at the end, how things kind of. Kind of merge themselves back together. So it's just so curious to me if we ever.

If you ever thought about what if I had done this. But it sounds like you're kind of just, like, living in that way, though, in a way that feels right.

Alan Rhode
00:44:12

You can see it in another way. It's true you have episodes in your life, but also maybe there are some driving forces inside yourself that will still steer you in one direction.

So, yes, you don't. Sliding doors, you don't get in the train, but you get in another train, baby. You are still moving without being aware in a direction.

Because if I consider my life, I changed quite a number of jobs, but then slowly, slowly, I moved in the direction that I had seen for myself when I was six years old, when I was thinking to be a journalist or a movie director and a writer is in between a journalist and a movie director. If you think it's a bit the.

Matt Gilhooly
00:44:59

Way you've told your story, it sounds like you always would have found your way here. And you're always going to find your way here.

Like everything, it really, truly, the way you tell it sounds like all the pieces you were just picking up along the way so that you could make. Or I guess we should go with ingredients in this recipe.

You always knew that those ingredients would eventually be part of your recipe, and it just happened to work out in this way. And then you just keep creating, which is so far from my own experience.

I felt like for so many years of my life, like probably like 30 years of my life, I was kind of letting life dictate my next step because I was so afraid of repeating my early trauma. Losing my mom felt like abandonment. So I felt like I had to do everything that everyone expected of me so that they wouldn't abandon me, too.

And it took, like, 30 years for me to pull out of that. So hearing your story, I'm like, he's always been drawn to this and he's just making all the pieces fit together.

So that now your law degree still works and it's still feeding your family and it's doing all those things, but it's also giving you this opportunity to do the thing that you've always wanted to do since you were six.

Alan Rhode
00:46:08

Yeah, but even my business is called, I'm not doing any promotion. It's called Taxman, which is a kind of superhero name. So there was some creativity there.

But have you ever had one episode of your show where you are being interviewed yet or not?

Matt Gilhooly
00:46:26

I did early on with someone. Yeah, early, early on. And that was probably, like episode eleven or something like that. And now we're close to 150.

My reflection on my life has changed through these conversations because certain things I just didn't take enough time to think about. And that's what I love about these conversations, is that you never know what we're going to get into.

You never know where the conversation is going to go, and you never know how much someone else's story will affect yours.

I'm going to walk away from this conversation thinking about some of the things that you've done and the way that you've made your life play out for you. And how can I implement some of those things?

Alan Rhode
00:47:08

You start writing a book.

Matt Gilhooly
00:47:11

Well, maybe someday. I'm just. I hear this show, essentially, I feel like there's kind of two tracks. Someone, external forces, changes their life and then that effect.

And then there's people like you that have this internal fire, this something that's pulling them or pushing them in the direction, and they just have to make these choices, you know, like, I made the choice to move to Milan. I made the choice to go back and forth to London so many times. Then I made the choice to actually move and, like, take the chance and do the things.

And now you've created that. So there's, like, these two tracks. Life happens to us, we make life.

And it's just so interesting how so many of the similarities eventually kind of come together in the middle.

Alan Rhode
00:48:00

True.

Matt Gilhooly
00:48:01

Yeah.

Alan Rhode
00:48:02

Yes.

Matt Gilhooly
00:48:03

If you could go back to that younger child that you said was not really, you know, you were a little bit more introverted, you weren't doing a lot of the things that maybe, looking back, you wish you would have. Is there anything that this version of Alan would want to say to him?

Alan Rhode
00:48:18

Yeah. I would tell him to enjoy more life and be more entrepreneurial and try more things. I started doing things now that I quitted a bit early on.

So, for instance, I spoke about tennis. I was playing tennis when I was a teenager and I quit, and I resume now.

And I notice how you notice, even in tennis details, that when you are a young youth, you didn't notice. So maybe I would do more things. But it's easy when you have a self awareness of a grown up. So it's. It's unfair towards, towards the child, Alan.

But yes, it happens very often.

Matt Gilhooly
00:49:01

And.

But you think about it, too, is if, if childe Allen had known that, maybe you wouldn't be as inquisitive now about certain things, you know, because you had the experience as a child. So again, none of this is possible. We can't really go back and change.

Maybe in your books you can go back and change things, but I, in real life, it's hard to do that.

But I think there's gonna be a lot of people listening to this, that hear your story, not your specific story, but the internal fire and the thing that drove you, that dream of that six year old winding through the roads that you went down to eventually find a way to fulfill that passion and chase it and then see what's next, because you're not done. You have a few, a bunch of decades more to go to see what this world brings to you or with you, or that you can bring to the world.

So thank you for sharing your story in this way.

Alan Rhode
00:49:57

It was very enjoyable.

Matt Gilhooly
00:50:00

Well, thank you. If people want to read your book, tell us a little bit about your book and then how we can find you. What's the best way to, like, get in your world?

If someone wants to reach out to you? Give us all the, all the details.

Alan Rhode
00:50:12

There is my website. I'm on LinkedIn, but there is my website, which is Alan scorerhod.com. and my book. I can show you the COVID because I'm very, very proud of it.

It's called the Eagle and the Cockerel. And the COVID was designed by one of the best cover designers in the UK. And you also have an inner cover, and it can be found on Amazon.

The audiobook. There is a wonderful french actress reading it. She's Anglo French, so she can pronounce the french word properly. And I'm on LinkedIn, I'm on Twitter.

And then if you google my name, you can find my personal website.

Matt Gilhooly
00:50:57

Well, we'll give the links so people don't have to go through Googling. We can just give them the links in the show notes. So if you're listening now or you're watching on YouTube just below where you're listening to this.

You can click on the links and find Alan. Connect with Alan, check out his books. There's a second one coming at some point. Still. Still working on that one, hopefully. Awesome.

Well, thank you for sharing your story in this way and letting me ask questions, even if they sounded a little silly.

Alan Rhode
00:51:24

No, no, no. Not at all.

Matt Gilhooly
00:51:26

If you are listening and there's something that Alan said that might resonate with someone that you know, please share this episode with them. We would love that. And with that, I'm going to say goodbye and I will be back next week with a brand new episode of the Life Shift podcast.

Thank you, Alan.

Alan Rhode
00:51:40

Goodbye.

Matt Gilhooly
00:51:52

For more information, please visit www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com.