← ChooseFI | Financial Independence Podcast
ChooseFI | Financial Independence Podcast
607 | Other Mountains I Want to Climb | Diania Merriam
01:21:33
The skill of spending and living well in FI
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- [00:00]
A
Hello and welcome to Choose a Phi. Today on the show we have my good friend Diana Merriam, the founder of the Economy Conference and one of the deepest thinkers in our entire community. I recently heard her on another podcast. I furiously took notes and wrote down quotes because I was just continually blown away. And I reached out to Diana immediately and said, please come back on Choose a Fire. I just want to have a far ranging conversation with you on all the things on your mind. It doesn't need any more intro than that. You're going to really enjoy this. And with that, welcome to choose that five. Before we get started, I keep this podcast entirely ad free for two reasons. First, this is a five podcast and I don't want to promote products that I don't want you to buy in the first place. And second, I really like the clean listening experience of a show where you don't have to fast forward ads to keep it ad free. All I ask of you as a listener is the next time you open a travel rewards credit card, go to choosefi.com cards and with that, onto the show. Diana, it is so good to have you back on the show.
- [01:08]
B
Well, thanks for having me, Brad. This is great.
- [01:10]
A
I love conversations that we have both online and offline where you just never know where they're going to go. Well, I have an outline for the episode. This could go a million different ways. And that's what makes it fun and exciting.
- [01:20]
B
Absolutely.
- [01:22]
A
I think one of the through lines of the episode might be what have we learned about living well since we first discovered Fi? You and I have been on this path for a long time. I'd like to think I'm a thinker. I know you're a thinker. We think about our lives, we think about why are we doing this, what's the purpose, what's happening here? It's clearly not just about money. This is about health, about purpose, relationships, travel, community. Obviously, for both of us, believe in that strongly. And I think we've discovered massively different things. And I think that's, that's what's so fun about having friends who, who you can talk to and learn from. And one of the things that I've been kind of rattling around in my head is this concept that I'm kind of calling the hidden curriculum. It could be, could be the most important thing that I've, I've come up with. And it's. There's this hidden curriculum of life where you learn all these things in school, you learn calculus and you learn. I mean, history is important. But you learn random things that you just simply never need. But yet we don't learn these essential lessons that are kind of hidden. But you only get them sadly from living a long life and trying to trial and error. Figure this out on your own. I think these hidden lessons really quietly shape our lives. But again, nobody explicitly teaches them. So for an example, one of them that I've learned recently is when a lot of people encounter something new, they often internally think or have this recoil of like, this is wrong. And then they try to come up with reasons for why it's wrong. Whereas I feel like a lot of the people who consistently build extraordinary lives ask, what am I missing? And how could this be useful to me? I think about the things in my life that I've gone through, like travel rewards. Travel rewards changed my entire life. And like, that was really bizarre looking when I first found it. But I didn't say like, oh no, that can't be true, it's a scam. I dove into it. And I mean, FI is another perfect example. AI is the one du jour. Now, is there anything that's looked crazy at first in your life that's actually completely changed your life once you've dug into it?
- [03:39]
B
Yeah, you know, maybe it was a couple years ago when fincon was in Atlanta. I was talking with this guy. You know, we're talking about our businesses and strategies and what the future looks like, that kind of thing. Whenever I talk about the economy conference, you know, and the fact that it sells out over nine months in advance, last year we had over a thousand people on the waitlist. And when I describe that to people, the immediate reaction is like, oh, well, clients, clearly you have to make it bigger, you have to find a bigger venue, you have to do more events, you got to bring it to other locations. Like it is just this natural assumption that if the demand is there, you should always be scaling, you should always be either increasing demand or meeting demand. And I have consistently have to push back on that. And during this conversation when I was describing why I don't want to do that, this guy said to me, people think of business success and like the metrics of business success is like increased revenue, increased audience size, all that kind of thing. But what if you redefined what business success is, is Success is a calm nervous system for you personally, especially when you think about what is a business look like in when you are like on the phi path, right? I, I like to describe economy as a hobby business. It's not like a real business. Even Though technically it is. I have all of the, the mechanics and, you know, I have to think of it as a real business, but to me it's a hobby business because it's like, I want it to fund my life in a way that doesn't consume my life. And so my business success is not how big can I make this? But like, how sustainable can I make it so that I can live with this calm, nervous system that I'm chasing. Like that's, that's this re engineered metric for me. So. So, yeah, I would say, like, growth is not the only metric of success, is just an idea that I've been playing with a lot lately that I think is just so counterintuitive to people.
- [05:45]
A
Yeah, it really is. Because you're right, everything in the business culture is metrics. I think about a podcast that I genuinely like and I don't want to rip on them in any way. But my first million, all they ever ask is, what's your revenue? How many employees do you have? Like, as if that meant something.
- [06:05]
B
Yeah.
- [06:05]
A
Oh, this startup has a thousand employees. Well, you haven't told us how many hours a week the founder works. He might work. He or she might work 120. They might have no life.
- [06:19]
B
Right.
- [06:20]
A
That business might have no actual profit. It doesn't matter if you have a thousand employees if you're losing money every month. These are just obvious things. But we don't ever think about that. Like, what's the market cap of your company? I think about, we've seen recent SpaceX going crazy. And like, is that even real? First off, it reminds me of a Meme coin in a sense. Like back, I don't know if you remember that whole the crypto thing with the Meme coins. It's like, yeah, it's theoretically worth $5 billion, but if the founder went to sell any of them, everybody would realize this is a farce and the liquidating value for them would be close to $0. It's just, I know I'm kind of rambling here, but to get back to your point, it's ultimately what is enough, right?
- [07:08]
B
The enoughness. I mean, we talk about that a lot with reaching your Phi number and like, how much is enough for financial planning. But I think you can also apply that to a lot of things in life. How much is enough, friends? How much is success? However you defined it, I can understand the argument. Sometimes I hear like, well, if you were focused on scaling, you could have more impact, you know, and it's like this altruistic Kind of like the reason to grow is to be able to help more people. Okay, I can see an argument for that. But at the same time, if I lose myself in the process, like, I. I don't know how worthy that goal is. And also, the way I look at this hobby business or this creative endeavor, I'm not looking for followers. I'm not looking for. You know, I kind of cringe at, like, the whole, like, you're an influencer and you have followers and even, like, the metrics around that. The whole reason why I created Economy, it's very much about creative expression. It's an aspect of being able to put out and create something that I want to see in the world, but it's also like a calling card to attract my peers. I don't look at the. I don't look at Economy attendees as, like, my followers or even, like, my customers. I like, really look at them as my peers because, as you know, this community is incredible. They are the most intelligent, creative, generous people you'll ever meet. And so by creating Economy, I get to work with a lot of them, right? Like, I have an excuse for us to do something together, but then I get to interact with them. And with 500 attendees, I. I get down on myself for not knowing everyone's name, which is kind of unreasonable. I mean, I. I think there have. I've read things about, like, back in the day, when we were more tribes, it wasn't really possible for you to, like, know more than 150 people. And so the fact that we can be connected to a lot more than that, you know, how shallow are those connections. And so when you kind of intentionally shrink your pool, I think there's benefit to that. But the impact that you have could never truly be measured, regardless of how many customers or followers you have. You know, there's a lot of free content online on my YouTube channel, and interviews like this. Like, you never know. You never know who you're going to impact. I don't know that that can fully drive every decision.
- [09:38]
A
Yeah, I've heard about that before. I think it's called the Dunbar number. And yeah, it's 150. And it's interesting because you see certain things, like in the U.S. army, a company is about 100 or 150. A lot of people think it's patterned on this cognitive limit, which is basically somewhere in that vicinity of 100, 150. And it's just hard. I mean, we know you can have plenty of acquaintances, but it wears on you. You just can't do. And it's not just people, it's things. You can't do everything. And I think that's actually, to me, one of the big realizations that I've had in life is it's okay to simplify. It's okay to ruthlessly cut things out of your life. Even if at some point in your life they were hell yeses for you, it might just be a no. Right now, in the season of life I'm in. And with the whole growth as a metric and you're not impacting enough people and all these other things, I still think that comes down to vanity at the end of the day. Right. It's like you can delude yourself into thinking like, oh, I just want to help more people, but on some level, it's about becoming bigger and well known. And I just don't buy that. But I can understand where people are coming from. There are times when I think about choose of high, which by any measure has had more of an impact than I could have possibly imagined I would have in my entire life. But yet if you took us to right before COVID in 2019, like we were on a trajectory to be as big as Dave Ramsey, that was not implausible. Covid threw us for a loop. And on the other side of that, I just didn't. I didn't have the appetite for that. I didn't have any. And not only is that okay, I think that was clearly the right decision for me and my nervous system and trying to live a good life. Because at the end of the day, like the whole cosmic insignificance theory is like, we are just monkeys in clothes flying around on a planet and we get a blink of a second here and like, is anybody going to care if I was as big as Dave Ramsey?
- [11:50]
B
Yeah.
- [11:50]
A
Is anyone going to remember that 50 years from now? No, there's no chance. And it's irrelevant. It's totally irrelevant.
- [11:55]
B
Yeah. And I think also we are multi dimensional humans with exactly one life. And so when you do put your full self into a business endeavor, what else are you not experiencing? Like, I have other mountains I want to climb, you know, my husband right now is pursuing standup comedy and I'm going to be the best frigging agent for him, you know, or like, I want to write a book, I want to do marriage retreats. There are other businesses. I want to start by scaling economy, which is working beautifully at its current size. By trying to make that bigger, like, it's just cutting into other areas of My life that I really want to explore. And so I think it is worth asking, like, how much is enough? And like, what is, what is the ultimate goal? And maybe impact is a vanity metric. You know, if the ultimate goal is, I want to have a business that doesn't have a lot of financial risk. As, you know, economy had like a really rocky start. I took a 40 grand loss. It took me three years to break even. I spent years screaming into the void trying to get people interested in this thing. And I reached the goal. Like, I reached what I was hoping to achieve. Why move the benchmark? Why not savor where I'm at, where I have this business now that I don't have to do any marketing for. I'm not trying to get sponsors. It sells out really quickly. It's basically maybe two months of the equivalent of full time work for me. A year, two months, maybe that's just like a rough estimate because essentially it's a lot of rinse and repeat on the logistics. And then it's putting together the speaker lineup, you know, which is a fun, creative endeavor for me. And so when you think about a goal, it's like, I've reached what I'm trying to reach. Why mess with it?
- [13:54]
A
Yeah. And yeah, it comes back to, I think, simplifying and trying to figure out what you want out of life. Like you said, there are other mountains I want to climb and that's fun. And it reminds me of the people who say, like, aren't you going to be bored if you stop working? What could you possibly do?
- [14:14]
B
So laughable.
- [14:15]
A
So if you sleep eight hours a night, you get 112 waking hours in a week. I could probably fill 500 hours.
- [14:22]
B
I feel like, oh, yeah.
- [14:23]
A
To imagine that I would be bored in fi is. Is preposterous. This is going to tie into something that again, I've been thinking about. I'm calling it the Tuesday Project. So it's. This is kind of how I'm thinking about Phi now is like, not in terms of the massive things I want to do, though. They're great too. Like, I still want to climb Mount Fuji. I was just there in Japan. Unfortunately, it was in climbing season. Aaron and I actually went because Eddie Vedder was playing solo acoustic shows there. So we end up seeing him twice, which is awesome. But I didn't get to Mount Fuji. But I think a good life is made by what your average Tuesday is for me. It's. I want to wake up without an alarm. I want to be able to take a nice Walk without having to cross major roads. I want to see some green space and some trees. I want to be able to. I really walk everywhere. I don't want to drive a car. I want to be able to walk to a market and think about what we want to have for dinner that night. I want to spend some time at the gym and see friends and play board games and read outside, sit outside a ton. I want to be outside for hours every day. Those are the rough building blocks. But that doesn't sound like an extraordinary life. But that is a very cultivated day because again, in fi you can live wherever you want. You're not bound by anything. Creating that environment is not so easy, especially not in America. We where can you easily walk? And when I say walk, I mean like sub 5 minutes to think about like a place like Barcelona or London. Like you could walk to a little market in a couple minutes, you could walk to a gym. You can hopefully in certain pockets of it, it's. But it's not just a monolithic. I want to live in the city, it's. I want to live in this micro area to find that area. Like that's a challenge, but a fun challenge. But that's because I, I've designed that Tuesday around that type of life. And I'm not saying that's the laudable way for everybody. I think everybody would think about their own Tuesday project there, as would befit themselves. But yeah, it's something. Again, I'm rattling around and I'm curious, like what comes up for you when I talk about that?
- [16:40]
B
You know, I love that question. What would you do if you weren't working? And it's funny because now, like my husband just retired in December, we laugh about this question because we feel like we don't understand how we ever had time to have full time jobs. And I think this question is so multi layered because I think it would be easy to say that people asking that question don't have creativity or imagination. But that's a little dismissive and it's more nuanced than that. I think the reason why people have that question is because of most people have a list of things that they would love to do or things that like I'll, I'll say to people, like what? Well, how do you spend your weekends? Those are two days a week that you're not working. You know, if you stretch that out over the whole week, like that could potentially be what you're doing. But even then on the weekends, a lot of times you're Cramming in, just like administrative life stuff. Right. When you're working full time, part of the challenge is this idea of intrinsic motivation. Because when you don't have external pressures on you or a need to make money, it's like, I mean, I certainly have had plenty of experience in wasting time now that I have an abundance of time on my hands. Right. And it doesn't feel good. Right. I think that we are conditioned in this like productivity culture to constantly be doing something out of a sense of pressure versus out of a sense of, you know, I like this idea of being pulled, allowing myself to be pulled towards what I'm going to do with my day versus pushing myself to do anything. We do well with structure, we do well with constraints, we do well with routines. I still have that even though I don't have a job. I just had to manufacture it myself in a way that feels really good. And that took a lot of experimentation over. It's now been five and a half years since I've had a job.
- [18:39]
A
Hold on, tell me about that. Where did you start? What did that evolution look like and where are you now and what has evolved for you on that?
- [18:47]
B
Yeah. At random Tuesday, I go through periods of time where like, maybe I have more energy and I fill up my calendar with a bunch of stuff and then I burn myself out. You know, Even though none of all of this stuff is like low stakes, fire attracts a fairly ambitious type, a kind of person. And that doesn't go away when you reach a financial goal. But if you can reorient yourself to like, apply your ambition to things like your health and relationships and that kind of thing, you still get to kind of scratch that itch or like personal projects, things that you care about, things you want to create. I would say for the whole, like overloading my calendar side of things, I've kind of taken a step back. And I have a philosophy now that I call one meeting a day. I'm only going to do one meeting a day practically. It doesn't work out that way all the time. But if I'm scheduling something because I have an abundance of time, if I already have one thing on my calendar that day, I'm going to try to like schedule, you know, for something, schedule it another day. So like today I'm talking to you. I don't have anything else on my calendar today in terms of like scheduled meetings or agreements to like hang out, you know, that kind of stuff. But after this, like, you know, maybe I'll go to the gym. I know I want to go to Costco today, you know, that kind of stuff. But in terms of like practically speaking I am an extremely early riser. Like I really like to start my day at like 4 or 5am, which people think is we text.
- [20:11]
A
I love how we text at 4 or 5am you're the only person I know for sure is still up or is a week when I'm awake.
- [20:19]
B
I love that time because it almost feels sacred, like no one's wants anything from you at that time. And I'm able to just kind of slowly ease into my day and I have a routine. Like the first thing I do is snuggle with my dog. Like good morning, you know, we go over to the couch and have a cuddle, you know, I make coffee. I do this, I'm going to like butcher the pronunciation of this, this key gong or it's like this kind of mobility, you know what I'm talking about? It's like swinging your arms around and like anyway, so I'm swinging my arms around in the morning like getting the blood moving. I have coffee and then I plan out my day on a post it. And the reason why I do a post it is again I just have a history of over committing and being like overly ambitious on what I think I, I should, you know, feasibly get to do that day. And so I also look at my to do list to the day or my post it for the day as like a list of suggestions. There's very little that like done. These are my intentions based on where my energy level is right now and I'll put even things on there like I want to lay down for a yoga nidra. You know, I want to do a non sleep deep rest session today based on, you know, how much sleep I got last night or whatever it is. And typically you know, I'm doing this fitness challenge right now. So there's a lot of time and energy spent on going to the gym and getting my steps in, all of that. So I would say between like 4 and 6, I'm either planning my day or what I like to call getting lost in the recesses of my own mind. I'm just sitting there with my coffee and I'm just thinking and I'm writing and I'm pondering or I'm reading or I'm communicating with people, that kind of thing and just kind of following my curiosity. And then at 6am I typically go for an hour long walk with the sunrise. I do that. And typically, you know, if I'm Going to have my one meeting that's sometime in the morning getting, you know, certain tasks or administrative things done. And then in the afternoon, I'm usually reserved for going to the gym Monday through Friday.
- [22:20]
A
Very cool.
- [22:20]
B
Yeah.
- [22:21]
A
What ambitions have disappeared since you got to that point of fi.
- [22:27]
B
In, I would say, recent years? Like, there was a point in time where I thought I was building an empire with economy. You know, I. I remember I had trademarked the. And my career was in brand extension and licensing, so I had thought, could I model it after TED talks, where it's almost like you have these TEDxS that. And that's kind of like a license, soft licensing deal. And so I have a registered trademark. Like, could I build it up? There was a period of time where I was, like, trying to really build my YouTube channel and that kind of thing. So I think I did, at one point have ambitions for economy to be much bigger than it is. It took a lot of work for me to get to a place where it's sold out and it's profitable. And then once I got there, I'm like, well, this is kind of nice. You know, this is kind of nice where it's at. And then just recognizing that committing my time in certain areas has opportunity costs for opportunities that could present themselves that I'm not even aware of at this moment. So, like, for example, if you would have told me a year ago that my husband was going to quit his job and pursue standup comedy, I would have never seen that coming. Like, that is something that just kind of evolved organically. And now. And what's funny about it and what's awesome about it is that I used to do standup comedy.
- [23:47]
A
Really?
- [23:47]
B
Yeah, for about two years, half of which I was in New York City, and then when I came to Cincinnati, like, it's obviously, like, a totally different kind of environment here for standup, and it just kind of fizzled out for me, But I don't know that I was ever really doing it, taking it very seriously, like, really pursuing it. I think for me, the benefit that I got was it just made me a lot more comfortable with public speaking, which is. Was really the original goal. I tried Toastmasters, and it did nothing for me. And so it was like, I really need to throw myself to the wolves and do something, like, super intimidating and stand up. Was that for me? But I'm in, like, a pretty unique position to be able to, like, support him based on everything that I learned and the connections that I made when I was doing this. I stopped Shortly before I met him. So it would have been 2018. But a lot of the people that, especially in Cincinnati, they still recognize me. I'm seeing them at open mics and stuff, and it's really kind of fun. So, yeah, there is a lot of benefit to intentionally keeping space in your life for what you can't anticipate might come up.
- [24:58]
A
Yeah. And I love how you talked about opportunity costs, and this actually ties back to that. There are other mountains I want to climb. Every choice you make, the opportunity cost is you have foreclosed on doing every other thing you could have done in the entire world during or with that time. And that's not insignificant. It's not to say don't make decisions. It's not to say don't pursue amazing things or not so amazing, whatever it may be. Let's be clear, There is always a cost. There's always a cost of taking that meeting or taking that call or doing whatever. Like, there's a cost. And that's fine as long as you do it with eyes wide open.
- [25:35]
B
Yeah.
- [25:35]
A
FI is such an interesting journey for a lot of us. Mr. Money Mustache talked about this, but it's like the skill of spending. I think on the front side of fi, you need to learn how to be really smart with your money and be very intentional and not just frivolously waste money. But then as you get farther down the path to fi, when you're at fi, a lot of us keep those habits. And you need to learn a different skill of spending, which is spending more money to service a better life. Something that Aaron and I have been doing is getting grocery delivery. So now we get Costco and Wegmans to deliver our food. It sounds like such a simple thing, but. But it's hard because Instacart or whomever it is, they charge like an extra 10% on the products, and then you have to pay for a tip. I'm like, oh, wegmans is like six minutes down the road and it's only a 20 minute shopping. Like, I convince myself, but then I look at the actual number of dollars and I'm like, would I? Because that's an hour. But it's only $15 or something like that that I'm actually spending. And it's really pretty wonderful to just be sitting in your house doing something you actually want to do. And Wegmans or Costco shows up. And again, this is a tiny little example, but it's something that was outside of our comfort zone, even though we're both FI and we shouldn't be worried about pennies, but it was hard. And I think sometimes people are looking. They're looking for examples from people like us who even little examples of just that little permission to spend, to have that skill of spending. As the transition into fi, is there anything in your life that you found you've started spending more money on or something that the Diana of six or seven years ago wouldn't have done?
- [27:26]
B
Diana of six or seven years ago would be horrified at my spending. What's crazy to me is, like, I just don't think about it anymore, really. My husband monitors our spending way more than I do. I think this slowly. Like, I got more confident or relaxed over time. When I think about our personal inflation, all of it is really discretionary. Like, our fixed expenses are still really low. Like, we don't have car payments. My mortgage is $600 a month. Like, who cares, right? And when I think about when he first moved into my house and we were combining finances and spending together, and like, I came up with an initial budget, and I think it was somewhere around, like 60 grand a year. I thought our spending should be. And now we are spending probably over a hundred grand a year. And it's all on, like, health stuff, relationships, being generous, and travel. And I think at a certain point in your financial journey. Now, I'm glad that I didn't think this way seven years ago. The only reason why I have the privilege of thinking this way now is because I had such a strong foundation that I built back then. There is a lot of utility at the beginning of your journey to be super hyper focused on every dollar you spend. It does make a difference in you building that foundation. But, you know, once we surpass like a million in net worth, where we're doing kind of like the Coastify slow FI thing. And I've done a lot of deep thinking around even FI as a goal. I mean, the whole trajectory I've been on is because I found the fire movement. I wanted to become financially independent. Just financial planning or goal setting. The purpose of it is that when you reach that milestone or that target that you've been aiming towards, you make some kind of change. So you're saving for a house, you reach that goal, you buy the house, you're saving for financial independence. You reach that goal, you quit your job and something changes about your life. But my path has been that, like, fi set the trajectory, and then the journey has made the goal irrelevant. I'm not FI now, and I'm not like, poo Pooing the goal of fi. I would not change anything about my life if I reached financial independence. And so what's the purpose of that goal? It's almost like I don't even care anymore. The investments are quietly compounding in the background, and I will reach it eventually. But if I'm not going to make any big shifts when I get there, then why does it even matter? I'm already living the life that I would want if I had this phi status. That whole switch in perspective has made me much more willing to spend because I don't have a date when I'm going to start drawing down on my portfolio. I literally don't know. I have no idea. I have no idea when, like, I'll stop making money. I have no idea when I'll start drawing down. It's kind of made me more open to just, like, taking risks and trying things. I feel a lot more of a comfort level around spending. I've recognized that my risk has flipped from running out of money to running out of time. Because of that, I am much more willing to waste money than to waste time.
- [30:58]
A
Man, that's another good one. That risk has flipped. Yeah, there's no way you're going to run out of money. We're all going to run out of time.
- [31:06]
B
Right.
- [31:06]
A
But it's how you use that time.
- [31:08]
B
Right? And I have a lot of experience in wasting time. And so that now, at this point in my financial journey, that feels worse than wasting money. When we were getting married a couple years ago, I had in my head I could never imagine spending 20 grand on a wedding. And in this day and age, it's just nothing, Right? Like, when I first started looking around, it was like, I thought I was going to have a really lame wedding and I was going to be spending, like, 50 grand. And that really bothered me. I think we netted out at, like, 30 grand or something like that. That whole experience and spending that money, and I thought that it was going to be, like, hard to spend. But then at the end of the day, it made, like, no difference on my life or our net worth. I just dropped $29,000 on a car, and, like, I feel nothing, you know? Like, I mean, I really love the car. Like, I'm really glad that I bought it, but I don't feel any kind of scarcity around it. I just feel abundance that we have all of the resources that we need to do what we want with our time. We have an abundance of time, energy, and money. And so what does that say about us if we're so unwilling to enjoy that? Like, what's the point of it if I'm going to be tied in knots? Overspending money.
- [32:40]
A
I love the psychological safety of it because I think so many of us in the fight community have a natural scarcity mindset. There are so many things in life that serve you well until they don't. That doesn't necessarily mean it was the optimal strategy, but for whatever weird alchemy of what makes up you, that was the strategy that worked for you. Until it doesn't. I think that's where I think about this skill of spending when it comes to frugality is being frugal has served me really well in life, and I think I've lived a great life, but I have now transitioned to a point where I don't think there's any world where I could possibly run out of money. I still have that scarcity mindset. I really, honestly do, which is kind of silly. It's gotten a lot better, but I still haven't gotten over. So, like, when you said you don't really think about money, you don't think about spending, and, like, I'm not there yet. I've gotten so much better. But I'm trying to celebrate these little wins and really lean into things to see, like, is there discomfort? And if there's not discomfort, because I know it's not going to make any material difference on my actual finances. Like, I know ordering my $90 grocery order from Wegmans and having it delivered and it being $105 instead of 90 is not going to make any material difference. I'm not an idiot, obviously, but yet that was something that I needed to challenge myself. I went up to New Jersey to visit a couple of friends from my mastermind group. These guys are both spenders and they're both quite wealthy. They just don't think about dropping money. You know, like, we went to Whole Foods and bought dinner for the night and bought steaks, and it was like 120. I'm like, there was no, like, that's like a week of groceries for me normally, you know, like, there was just no thought. There was no thought to the price of something, which again, if taken too far, is not. I'm not arguing that this is the ideal way to live. It's just. It was so interesting to look at someone who's just living their life and they're not. They're not worried about the price of something all the time. And there was some aspect of liberation there for Me. So again, I'm always looking for like little clues, little lessons that I could take away. It doesn't mean I'm going to go out tomorrow and buy $50 steaks every night. That's not the lesson I'm trying to take for myself or trying to impart here. But you really can try to look at those areas where maybe you think you want to make a change in your life and take little lessons even from more extreme lessons that you see. So talk to me about not really thinking about money. So you're telling me like you go into a restaurant and you order 100 times out of 100 exactly what you want, irrespective of the price?
- [35:17]
B
Absolutely. Because I have these times of in the morning getting lost in the recesses of my own mind, right? Like I ponder this stuff a lot of like, how am I using my money to create a good life and how am I using all of my resources in a way that is like life affirming and stressing about money when there's little utility to that just seems like a waste of energy. I also think about how FI attracts a scarcity minded person because it gives this promise of certainty. When you reach your phi number, you can be certain that you'll always have enough money. A lot of people don't feel that emotional benefit when they get there because they're stuck in the kind of scarcity and like tracking every dollar. But also the promise of certainty is never there. You know, like I had to get comfortable with the fact that like financial modeling is built on assumptions and my life is really dynamic and there's a lot of unknowns and that's not to like create a lot of fear. I think there is a fearful aspect of saying that. I can imagine people listening to this having, you know, tightening of their chest. Like what do you mean? My financial planning is uncertain, but it's also like a good thing that life is uncertain. Like you can't possibly anticipate now the opportunities that present themselves tomorrow. And so becoming more comfortable with uncertainty and saying like, you know what, like a black swan event could wipe me out, economy could go under tomorrow. And that's like what's funding our lifestyle right now. I mean my biggest fear is like a health scare. And so I sit with those fears and the uncertainty around that. And my scarcity type A brain says, let's plan for it, let's pad the numbers, let's go into the spreadsheets and do all these what if models. But the abundance side of me says I can handle anything life throws at me. I think that helps me just relax. It just helps me relax. We're in a financial position right now that we just don't have to worry. And as things present themselves, we're going to figure it out.
- [37:36]
A
You are a very quotable person. You have these really deep, pithy quotes that I've been actually featuring you. I don't even know if you know in my newsletter. Well, here's another quote from Diana. And yeah, a couple of them that I really like tie in here, which is to me, success with money is that I don't think about it anymore.
- [37:55]
B
Yeah. And you know, we just had the economy conference in March and we had this incredible presentation from Roger, who has no last name. He's our Oprah. He's just Roger. And you guys will see his video coming out soon. But when we were talking about what he was going to talk about on stage, one of the things he posed to me, it still irks me a little bit. He asked, are we using Phi as an excuse to have a smaller life? And I've really thought about how that might apply to me in like sneaky ways that I didn't realize. And so it made me think about this interview that I had where someone had asked me, they were asking me about the trajectory of economy. And I took this big 40 grand loss the first year. But what enabled me to do that is that I had a six figure income at the time I was working. That 40 grand loss essentially was what I was going to put into my after tax brokerage that year. So instead I like invested it in my business. That's the way it worked out in the long run. But at the time it felt like, maybe I'll never earn this back. I mean, it took me three events to earn that back. And so there was a lot of uncertainty of like, is that money just gone or not? And I think I found comfort in this income that I had coming in that was able to shoulder that. When someone was asking me like, okay, well like what about today? Would you start economy today where you don't have that income coming in from your corporate career? And at the time I answered like, I don't know if I'd be willing to take that risk because I don't have that income coming in. It's not like I'm gonna like sell investments to pursue my dreams. And I would say, like, in recent months I've even shifted on that. I think I could take another 40 grand loss on pursuing something that I really wanted to do. Especially because again, I don't have this timeline of like hitting a goal and drawing down or a timeline on like when I'm never gonna earn money again. I think that's a scary thought too. People feel like they have to plan around that. But when you quit your job really young to say it's not a blood oath that you're never gonna make any income again. Right. And so I think I've really shifted my position on that. And I've thought a lot about the way that I have set myself up now. Is there any kind of restriction that makes me feel like I can't pursue the things that I wanna do because maybe they cost more than I anticipated? It's not in the plan, It' not in my long term financial plan. And that's really shifted for me. And I think it's this embracing abundance, embracing the fact that money creates options. And I want to explore those options. Like what a waste of this privilege if I don't use these resources to explore my interests.
- [40:51]
A
To kind of paraphrase, pursuing fi, is it, Are we intentionally living a smaller life? Are we living smaller lives than we could have otherwise?
- [40:59]
B
Right. It's an uncomfortable question to sit with,
- [41:02]
A
but does that mean by reaching FI and stopping working and stopping having income or just pursuing five from the very beginning, what's his contention there?
- [41:13]
B
Or the restrictions around your financial planning or the way that you live out your five plans? So the example that he gave was we were talking in the context of phi is almost can be a tool to like help you realize more of who you already are. And so someone who is maybe an introvert or a little bit of a recluse, they quit their job and then they just don't see anyone anymore. Is that a good thing for them or is that okay, they reached this goal and now they've isolated themselves. Is that really them living their best life? That was kind of the example that he gave in his speech. Because you are who you are, whether you have money or you don't. Right.
- [42:04]
A
I view FI as the epitome of living an intentional life and that it's the lead domino for finding space in your life to actually pursue what's important. I feel like that's a strawman. Like the introvert who's just going to sit around and do nothing. That just seems a little far fetched. I can't think of anyone who I've met in the fight community who. And granted, that's self selecting, let's be clear, because the people I've met in the fight. Community are people who are coming out to events, but many of them, you know, just by either how they describe themselves or how they carry themselves, like myself included, are introverts. But yet we're still going out of our comfort zone and we're leaning into community. And I think, obviously both of us feel that community is essentially important. I don't really agree with Roger there. Like, I think all the good things in fi, in life, frankly, in my life, have happened because I've pursued fi. I think so many people delude themselves into believing that their jobs, that these random jobs that they just randomly picked at 22 years old are somehow their reason to be on this planet. No, that is preposterous. No, the fact that of the tens of billions of items of different things you could do with your time and energy and spirit and brain, that you just happen to pick that at 22 or 32 and just fell backwards into the perfect thing, like, it's just ridiculous. It defies any logic. I think a lot of people are looking for excuses to continue doing what they want to do because they're scared of living a bigger life. They're scared of pursuing fi. They're looking for excuses to keep themselves in these limited little jobs and deluding themselves into thinking, oh, if I just have a little more money, I'm going to be able to do bigger things someday.
- [43:57]
B
Right?
- [43:58]
A
Someday in the future. That big thing's coming, but nobody's promised tomorrow. Let's be clear. There is no promise. There's no promise if you stop working at 55 that you're going to live to 95. There's no promise that if you stop working at 25, you're going to live to 27. There's no promise. Which is why I think for most of us in the real world who are stressed from our jobs constantly have no space to do anything, to think about anything broadly. Pursuing FI is the one reliable way. Everything in life is a bet. Yeah, you could win the lottery. Yeah, you could start a startup that's going to make a billion dollars. Or you could just start saving some money.
- [44:40]
B
Right?
- [44:41]
A
What's the most likely path to success? There? This is obvious. It's replicable. Hitting the lottery. That's not replicable. People can come up with stories all they want, but the most replicable way to living a great life is just saving some money, getting some space financially, and then being able to do what you want no matter where you are. Like you said, you're not Fi. You and Brad Are not fi. Yeah, your coast phi is what I'm hearing the definition of. But you don't even care what the definition is.
- [45:09]
B
Right?
- [45:10]
A
That's beautiful.
- [45:11]
B
Yeah, it's like two things can exist at once. Right. We can say that phi sets the stage to live a big, abundant life and do what you want with your time. That is true. And yet you also feel restriction around getting your groceries delivered. Yeah, those two things are true at the same time. So it's like we're grappling with that.
- [45:34]
A
There's always attention. There's attention in everything.
- [45:37]
B
Oh, yeah. It's like, in what ways are you enjoying your freedom and living that full life and spending your money in ways that feel creative and life affirming? And in what ways are you feeling restriction and you're holding yourself back because this decision isn't. Is potentially not financially optimal, or you're afraid of wasting money, or you're just so that groove in your brain of I am frugal and I optimize my finances. That groove is so deep that it is hard for you to even take a risk on wasting money. But I mean, when it comes to spending, here's another framework that I think has really helped me. We all talk about spending money that's aligned with our values. Right? I'm very annoyed by that phrase because I think for the most part, most of us don't know what our values are. We either are so wrapped up in our social conditioning that what we think are our values are really just our social programming, or we've never really taken the time to sit down and like, think deeply about that. What do I value and how do I know that that's true and it's not just social programming or because it sounds good, most people wouldn't say, well, I don't value my family. You should say that because you know you're not going to say, I don't value that. But maybe you value other things more. Maybe you value individuality and authenticity more. Who knows? That's a very individual thing. And there's no one value is greater than the other. This idea that I'm okay with spending money as long as I know it's going to be worth it. There's no way to know that.
- [47:17]
A
No, you can't.
- [47:17]
B
There's so many times where like, I spend money on something and I think it's a good decision. I've been thoughtful about it. I've been intentional about that spending. And afterwards I'm like, damn it, that was a waste. You will not know, until afterwards. And so I think there, there's also that tension of, like, I'm afraid to make a mistake or, like, spend my money in a way that, like, isn't worth it in the end. And I'm going to feel bad about that. But wasting money is not the same as wasting time, because wasting time, you'll never get that time back. But when you waste money, you can always make more.
- [47:51]
A
Yeah. What you just described is also, like a major mental model that people need to figure out in life that would make their decision making so much better. It's like that concept that the poker player Annie Duke has talked about on this podcast and many others called resulting, which is looking at the result. And then if it was a positive result, then therefore it was a good decision. If it was a negative result, then therefore, it was a bad decision. And very simply, life doesn't work that way.
- [48:20]
B
Right.
- [48:21]
A
You make the best decision you have, and you can at the time with the information you have available. And sometimes it turns out great, sometimes it turns out poorly, but that doesn't reflect on the decision.
- [48:32]
B
Right.
- [48:33]
A
This, to me, is one of the most important mental models. And it's so hard to understand because we're just used to, hey, that turned out great. Of course it was a good decision. Or you can make what you know is a terrible decision. Like people who get in the car and drive under the influence just because they didn't get in an accident that time, was that a good decision was a horrific decision?
- [48:53]
B
Horrific.
- [48:54]
A
On a long enough timeline, there's only one way that's ending. Let's be clear. You need to think about. On a long enough timeline, if I ran this, this scenario 10,000 times, did I do everything I could to make this the right outcome? Sometimes it's probabilistic, sometimes it comes out good, sometimes it comes out poorly. But if you make the best decision and you try to constantly update your decision making, that leads to a better life, I think.
- [49:17]
B
Yeah. But it also, I will say the time that I know I spend, and I'm sure listeners spend on grappling with these decisions can drive you nuts and it can be an energy drain. So I'll give you a good example around spending. I Talked about dropping $29,000 on this car last month. I had wanted this car for a long time, the 2023 CX9. They stopped making it in 2023.
- [49:42]
A
Okay.
- [49:42]
B
Now it's the CX90. And, like, that was too big for me. Like, I didn't like that. I knew that I wanted this car, but my 2010 Mazda 3 had 120,000 miles on it. It still had a lot of life left in it. And, you know, my stepson is 13. I thought, well, I should just, like, keep this until he's driving, and then I can give him this car and then get the other car. That just felt like practically that made more sense to me. And I think I have this identity around. Like, I'm not a materialistic person. And that is true. I have a lot of pride in the fact that I'm not a materialistic person. So what does it say about me to buy a newer car even though it's used, you know, a newer car before? I actually really need it. I think the discrepancy with my identity was hard for me to move forward with that decision. But I had identified the car. There were a lot of practical reasons why that car worked for my family better than my current car. I had researched it. I identified exactly the, like, price I wanted to pay. I set up alerts. I. I made a very thought. Like, I was settled on this car, and I was just kind of, like, hemming and hawing on this for over a year. Okay. And then I went to the Slow Fi retreat with the pioneers in May. The people at this retreat, it was all about lifestyle design. I highly recommend it. Like, I already bought my ticket for 2027 because it was a phenomenal event.
- [51:13]
A
And I'll be there in October, actually.
- [51:15]
B
Oh, it's so good. It's so good. And the people at this event are grappling with really big life decisions. Should I quit my job? Like, should I start this business, all of this stuff, and I'm sitting there grappling with, should I buy this car? You know what I mean? Like, it just felt like such a small thing in comparison to, like, the other people at this event, because I had already done the big things. I already quit my job. I already started the business. My husband had already quit his job. It just feels like we should be desensitized to these kind of decisions by now, since we've already made the big ones. The event just really, like, shifted my mindset to become even more of an abundance mindset. And it's funny, like, we made these commitments on, like, what experiments are we gonna have at the end of this? And, like, what things are we gonna test and what things are. You know, they actually had us, like, come up with experiments and action plans around, like, big goals and around life design stuff. This wasn't even, like, one of My big goals. This was just, like, something that has been bothering me for a long time that I have been way overthinking this decision. And so I just decided when I was there, like, I'm gonna go home and buy the damn car. And then 48 hours later, I had the car. I just went home and immediately did it. And it's like, the amount of relief that I felt that, like, it's just. It's done. I don't have to think about this anymore. I don't have to hem and haw about this car. It's just done. There was a lot of relief in that. And, Yeah, I spent $29,000 and, like, same thing, like, with the wedding. I just. I don't even notice it in the grand scale of our net worth.
- [52:55]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's so much there. And so first, Jess from the Finance was on our episode 472 in an episode the Cure for the Boring Middle. For anybody who's looking for an insight into her process on lifestyle design and how circular and iterative it is, that was a really, really good episode. So definitely go back and listen to that one. Diana, this reminds me of, like, there is attention in everything. I have a couple of your quotes. Somebody who's not listening critically could think that Diana's being a fraud here. Yeah, I don't think that at all. And I don't think you're a fraud for buying the car, obviously, or even for wanting the car. A, there's attention in everything, and B, there's the practical reality of life, that it was time for this car.
- [53:47]
B
Yeah.
- [53:48]
A
And that's why you're listening to this. Diana and I are going through these aspects of our lives because while this exact thing might not be applicable to you, the grocery delivery, the whatever, like, the broader meta concepts are, you felt like your decisions were small at this slow fi retreat because you didn't work through the other ones, but it wasn't small because it wasn't small to you. It's where you are in your life, and that's really important. And so these quotes are, it's not enough to not buy the Tesla. In this case, Tesla. I want to not want the Tesla.
- [54:22]
B
Yeah.
- [54:23]
A
And then the second one, which is really interesting, is the less materialistic I am, the more idealistic I get to be.
- [54:32]
B
Yeah, I've been saying that quote for years. I think what it represents is this reorientation away from materialism and appreciating what you already have versus, like, always looking for the next thing. I think is a cure for wanting more is like the appreciation of what you already have. And when you don't want things, you don't have to negotiate with yourself to not do them or not buy them in pursuit of whatever your financial goal is. And I think that applies maybe much more towards the beginning of your journey where you do have this hyper vigilance on spending and like how do you deal with that when you want things, but you also want financial independence and so you're having to make choices there. That framework can be really useful in navigating desires. Just change your desires, right? And you could do that in a variety of ways. Like you can think about what is influencing you, what content are you ingesting, who are you surrounding yourself with and how that influences what you want. I still maintain that I sat for a long time with why I wanted this car. I wouldn't say that it was out of like unappreciation for my current car because it was kind of a beater. You know, it was this 2010 Mazda 3. The like when cell phones became more advanced, like the Bluetooth wouldn't work anymore, so I couldn't listen to podcasts when I was driving. And like it had this sticky dashboard that felt trashy to me. You know, like no one would look at my car and think I was billionaire. Right. Which I actually really like that. I like the self wealth aspect of it. But also I have a, a dog who's 130 pounds that I was squeezing into the back seat. And when we would drive around as a family, whether we were in my car or my husband's car, it's like the dog is all over the kid, everyone's upset in the back seat. And so like practically speaking, there was a lot of reasons for us to get a bigger car. But I also think the other practical aspect of it was being able to control the timing of big purchases really appeals to me. I was a little uneasy about like, yes, I wanted to run my car into the ground, but if I did that, then that could put me in a position where I'm scrambling to like make a financial decision on a big purchase because it's a necessity now. I mean, we did the same thing with our water heater and our H Vac. We replaced them before it was like a thousand percent necessary to avoid that scramble. So like there are practical things outside of the fact that I've had that car for eight years. It served me really well. There were practical reasons, but it was like, it is really nice driving this car, right Now, I mean, it feels like a spaceship. I'm operating a spaceship in comparison to my 2010 Mazda 3. I don't think that it's a problem at this stage of my financial journey to like maybe enjoy some luxuries that I wouldn't allow myself before. And the only reason why this is possible, that I spent $29,000 last month on a car is because I bought my first car for $7,000 when I was 17. And I bought my last car at 31 years old for $6,000 cash. That is what set me up to be able to enjoy this now without having a lot of ramifications on my financial journey.
- [57:54]
A
Yeah, that's a lot of fi. Right? You're front loading. I used to call it front loading, the sacrifice. I don't love that anymore because there's no sacrifice in this. But it's just you're front loading the harder decisions and that enables you to have much more freedom. And that doesn't mean spending money necessarily. It might mean something else because again, the less materialistic I am, the more idealistic I get to be.
- [58:16]
B
Yeah.
- [58:17]
A
Regardless of whether you buy the car. That's the framework. It's the mental framework. There is a cost to everything, even things you own, space, seeing it around, having to store things, just having a big enough house for something, time, attention, cleaning things. There's a cost to all of this. And frankly, the fewer possessions you organize your life around, the more you can actually organize your life around the important things. Relationships, ideas, deep thinking, purpose. And that's not to say be a minimalist for everybody. That's kind of the kick that I'm on now. But it goes back to something else we were talking about before, where my mind went to. For me, I want to get down to my essence in terms of, like you talked about, scheduling. I don't want to be a hermit. I don't want to not do anything. But I want to subtract now and then add back intentionally. And I think that's also what I'm thinking about in terms of owning things. Because where I think of idealistic is I get freedom. I have options. I am at the point where probably when my younger daughter goes to college in four years, I can live anywhere. We're renting this beautiful three bedroom, four story condo here in Richmond in a walkable community. It's great, but I actually go through Diana, every room. There is nothing that I would keep. I'm not attached to any of these things. They're not holding me back. Yeah, there's a nice bed that we spent money on or this table. But like, I would just leave it here. I don't, I don't, you know, I'm going to, I'll donate it or sell it, whatever. But like, realistically, I don't care about leaving this stuff here. I'm at the point where I need a passport, a credit card, and one suitcase worth of clothes and that's it. That feels really liberating to me. That's where my mind goes with your quote. But it, but I'd be curious where your mind goes today with that quote.
- [60:11]
B
This word idealistic, it just, it almost has the negative connotation, right? Like a dreamer lost in the crowd. Like that's, you know, their heads lost in the clouds kind of thing. Like, oh, yeah, it must be nice that you have all this time to like do all this deep thinking. Right. But like for most of us, we have the practical realities of life. We've got kids and we've got jobs and we've got, you know, we've got to be realistic versus idealistic. So I think there's almost like a dismissive connotation to that word. Why that quote is meaningful to me is it's almost reclaiming that word. On the one hand, it means you're oriented towards what's ideal, but it's also like what's most meaningful, what's most true, what's most alive. When you're not so materialistic and your time and energy and money isn't wrapped up in acquiring stuff, you again have that space in your life to question what your values are. Question things like, who am I without all of this stuff? What does success look like if I don't have external markers of just, I think helps you become a little bit more self directed and kind of rooted in your authenticity versus a shallow external marker. If that makes sense.
- [61:30]
A
It does make sense.
- [61:31]
B
Being financially intentional is like the mechanism that makes idealism practical.
- [61:39]
A
Yeah. I think when we sit back and think about all these aspects of our lives, there's an evolution. I am someone who looks at that as, as just a huge positive. I think again, going to how mental models for how to approach life. And I think we need to constantly be updating how we view the world because you get new information all the time. Right. It's like I always think back to like that preposterous, the political like hit job of oh, that person's a flip flopper.
- [62:11]
B
Yeah.
- [62:11]
A
As if that's something negative. Wow. You mean, you mean this person got new Information and they changed their mind.
- [62:19]
B
Right.
- [62:19]
A
Trying to tell me that's bad. That's exactly what we want in friends, in family and leaders and everything.
- [62:26]
B
Right.
- [62:26]
A
If you are not changing your mind when you get new information, there's something dramatically wrong with your brain functioning. That's not the way to approach life. Then you're just going on faith or worse, just blindly picking something that's not a winning approach to life. So I don't know how I'm going to come down on some of this stuff a day from now, an hour from now, or six months from now. You talked 45 minutes ago about having time to think.
- [62:49]
B
Yeah.
- [62:50]
A
And how important that is to you.
- [62:51]
B
Oh, yeah, absolutely. I feel like the theme almost is this conversation is evolving frameworks and thinking about money and spending and, like, how this stuff changes. And at the beginning of my journey, I think I was so rigid around thoughts, around spending what was an appropriate thing to spend on? And, like, there was almost like a moral high ground around it that I no longer have. Everybody has different preferences and circumstances and skills that drive them to use money in different ways. Who am I to judge? Like, that's not my life. And that also, it doesn't affect me at all. And what I do, where I spend money on, doesn't affect anyone at all. I bought this car and it's like, was I worried that people would judge me and that I'm materialistic now because I spent $29,000 on a car even though I have a lot of good justification for it? Even if they did, does that change my satisfaction with this car? No. But I think a lot of freedom has come for me. Just holding the goals lightly. Right. Like using the goal to set the trajectory and then loosening the grip some. There's this quote that I sent you from Mark Marin. He has a great newsletter. They're usually pretty short, but he's just like. He's another deep thinker. You know, he's. He wrote that book, the Subtle Art of Not Giving a.
- [64:24]
A
Okay.
- [64:25]
B
I just really enjoy his newsletter. But he had this one coat. What most people don't realize is that the value of goals does not come from achieving them. It comes from what the goal teaches us about what is actually valuable and not valuable in our lives. So set goals, but treat them as experiments, not destiny. The point isn't to achieve your goals. The point is to outgrow them. I mean, that really exemplifies what you're talking about with, like, the flip flopping. Maybe it's not flip flopping. Maybe it's outgrowing your original mental model and that that's a good thing. And just this, it kind of points back to our conversation about values, too. And, like, how hard it is to know what your values actually are by experimenting with goals is another way for it to be revealed to you. Because we all have a lot of assumptions when we set goals and we say, I'm going to do X, Y and Z, and I'm going to feel this certain way when I get there. And it could be a rude awakening when you realize, like, oh, that isn't actually what I wanted. That's what I thought that I wanted. And maybe I was, you know, I didn't have complete information around that.
- [65:36]
A
My friend Keith had This quote from 2017, when I first met him, and it was. I never dreamed past here. When I was younger and I had these limited thoughts, like limited aspirations. It was, I never dreamed past this aspect. And for him it was, hey, I have the house, I have a business, I have married and I have kids. I never dream past here. But yet there's so much. And actually, to see how much he's grown in the last 10 years has been remarkable. And, like, who knows, 10 years from now? And I think that's a really fun aspect of life, is like, yeah, you keep surpassing these things. And whatever way that is, it's. It doesn't have to be metrics. It doesn't have to be something that would impress somebody else. It's what works for you. This is not an external game. Almost everything in life is an internal game.
- [66:27]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [66:28]
A
What do you feel about yourself when you're sitting in a dark room alone? Because that's really hard. I think a lot of us distract ourselves and this is. This kind of segues into something else I wanted to talk about. Like, we talk about buying back time, but attention is so critical too.
- [66:42]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [66:43]
A
What's stealing your attention these days in ways that. That you don't necessarily love? That's not your ideal, ideal state.
- [66:52]
B
I would say, like, maybe interpersonal conflict and certain aspects of my life can be a huge distraction. And that can be hard. Like, I. I try to reorient by saying, like, I don't seek to be understood by those who seek not to understand. I want to shift my attention and my focus on people that I'm compatible with versus maybe forcing something that isn't working. It doesn't mean someone else is necessarily wrong. It could just be like a compatibility issue. And that's fine. But I think our brains are kind of wired to like, focus our attention on what we feel is threatening versus what we feel is working well. I am the most fortunate person that I know. Like, I really am. Like, I have so much to be grateful for. I have so many good people in my life. I really love the work that I'm doing. I love the way that I'm spending my time. I find it very distracting when my brain wants to focus on perceived threats that aren't a big problem in the grand scheme of things. I think it's a natural tendency that we have to have that negativity bias. So to answer your question, like, that is what I find really distracting.
- [68:12]
A
Yeah, I find I've been really good with digital distraction for a long time. I've made my phone as inert as I possibly can. I've shut off essentially all notifications. I don't even have Facebook or Messenger on my phone at all. It's insidious sometimes. I went to Reddit a couple times. I'm a big English football fan, soccer fan. I went up just getting on like the Arsenal subreddit and now the World Cup's here and I find myself just like, oh, I'm just gonna look at Reddit for a couple minutes and that turns into 20 or 30 and it's insidious. If you're not intentional, just applying some intentionality on, like, how you want to spend your days. Is part of my great day. Like is part of my great day spending two 25 minute chunks scrolling on Reddit. It's not. It never will be. Okay, now that I'm aware of that, maybe that reflexive because it's just two clicks. I even don't have it on my home screen. So it is two clicks. But still it happens. That's like a little example. Yours is a much bigger example, but it's still. There are these ways that we do get distracted with those kind of things. Talking about intentionality, something I know you've been focusing on for a long time and I have as well, is is health.
- [69:25]
B
Oh yeah, I know.
- [69:26]
A
You are in the midst of a health challenge in the best way. Not a health negative challenge. But what would be the advice you would give yourself five years ago?
- [69:37]
B
I wish that I would have prioritized it and kept experimenting with like, okay, if this type of fitness doesn't work for me, then what does that kind of keep seeking if something doesn't work? My history with even just working out or like health in general, just eating right or like, like, I think the longest I Went without drinking any alcohol, was like nine months.
- [70:01]
A
Okay.
- [70:02]
B
I loved that experience. And I've never gone back to like any kind of heavy drinking after that. It just kind of like totally reset me. But I like, I enjoy, you know, a glass of wine here and there and I don't think that's problematic at all. You know, there's that theory of like it takes 30 days to build a habit. That is not true in my experience.
- [70:21]
A
Okay.
- [70:22]
B
I almost think that you have to have a very extended period of time in order to change because I don't. I mean, habits sound great, but like what I'm looking for is an actual lifestyle where this is just a no brainer and it's how I live. That's what this better body challenge that I'm doing is really helping me with that because it's a six month challenge. We're like over halfway through now and it has just completely reoriented me. First of all, doing it in community is huge. There's 26 people in this group that are always talking in the chat. There are like certain key things that we have to hit every week. Like we've got to do five workouts a week. Three have to be weightlifting, 30 minute workouts, which mine are typically much longer than that. We've got to walk 70,000 steps a week, so that could be 10,000 a day. Or you know, break it up where it's five one day, 15 the next day, that kind of thing. You gotta hit a protein goal every day or six out of the seven days. And then you've gotta like upload your data. So we all use fitness trackers at my fitness planner to track our, the protein that we're eating. And then, you know, we take screenshots and upload our data. That accountability and structure that was not self imposed. Right. Like I got this resource of having some externally imposed structure and guidelines to work towards has been extremely helpful. And then there's monetary consequences if you don't hit those. So it's a hundred dollars a week if you don't hit those things. And you get like one free week in the six months, which I had to use because I got sick.
- [71:59]
A
One week you pay like a fine.
- [72:01]
B
Yeah, a hundred dollar fine every week if you don't hit them. And it's funny, like, talk about abundance. So I did the rough math in my head and I'm like, okay, I paid a thousand dollars to be in the challenge, so that money's just gone. And then I paid another thousand dollars that sits in escrow that they can pull from so that they're not, like, asking you for the money every time you get a fine.
- [72:20]
A
Okay.
- [72:20]
B
Technically, I can get that money back if I don't incur any fines at the end of the challenge. If you quit the challenge, it's like a $500 quit fee. You know, there's. There's financial consequences to not following through, but in the grand scheme of things, I thought, okay, let's say I lost $2,000 on this challenge. That does not feel punitive enough for me to hold me accountable.
- [72:46]
A
Okay.
- [72:47]
B
Because, again, $2,000 in the grand scheme of my net worth is, like, not much. Now to risk that for the opportunity to do something that really intimidated me, and I genuinely believed I did not have the physical ability to do it. And now to watch me prove myself wrong and rise to the occasion in a way that I was terrified of, I have reason to believe I could win this thing. I really do. And that is like, shifting my identity in a way that is going to be very helpful for me long term. This stopped being something that I was challenging myself to do, and it's like, this is something I really want to do. I've gotten to the place where, like, I want to go to the gym. Of course, you know, there are days where I have to push myself a little bit, but it's never insurmountable the way it has been in the past. So I think it's like, teaching me to show up in a way that I've never experienced for an extended period of time. I cannot recommend it enough. I. I will be signing up for the next round. I'm turning 40 next year, and I started this, like, right after my 39th birthday or, like, right before it. And so I'm imagining being in the best shape of my life on my 40th birthday. That is very exciting to me. So it is about prioritizing it, and it's just like with money, it's reminding me of the excitement that I felt when I found financial independence. I'm in the beginning stages of my fitness journey, just like when I was in the beginning stages of my finance journey and I was hyper vigilant about tracking every dollar. Right now, I'm hyper vigilant about tracking every calorie. And my workouts. I'm in the spreadsheets, but it's for my workout planning versus my financial planning. Again, your ambition doesn't go away when you reach fire. You reach financial milestones. I think you can reorient that ambition to things like your health and your relationships. That to me matters way more than money. And so it makes a lot of sense for me to spend my money in pursuit of those things that are more valuable than money.
- [75:00]
A
Oh, that is beautiful. Yeah. And I guess my quick follow up on that is just simply. And this is a quote that you had said, but I guess you attribute it to Carl Jensen. It's the easiest way to not keep up with the Joneses is to not hang out with the Joneses. It's who you're spending time with. Oh, yeah, we talk about that with money and the FI community and building community. And obviously we have choose of I local groups. You have this incredible economy conference. This is essentially an accountability group for health.
- [75:30]
B
Oh, yeah. And it's crazy to me because even the people in this group intimidated me. And I thought, oh, man, it's like, because a lot of them are in the FI community, but they're just impressive, you know, it just felt like the cool kids of fire letting me sit with them, you know. And this community is also incredibly welcoming and accessible and all of that. So it's just my own hang ups on like. Like physical fitness has always been like a big insecurity of mine. And so to put myself in this group of people that are, you know, really prioritizing it, you know, that is influencing me in that is me changing who the Joneses are so that I'm letting them influence me in the best way.
- [76:12]
A
Yeah, yeah. And it's like environment beats willpower. You always knew that you wanted to go to the gym or work out or whatever, fill in the blank. But that took a lot of willpower.
- [76:24]
B
Yeah.
- [76:25]
A
If you were like me, I didn't know what to do at the gym. I had no idea. And it felt intimidating. And then you get in the right environment, could be the FI community. You're in the right environment for people who want to be intentional with their money and their lives. You want to be intentional about your fitness. My trainer was Dean Turner. He had a group of people and just being with him was the environment that I needed. In your case, it's this accountability group. It's easy. There's very little in life that's actually hard to take that next step. Literally the next step, we build these things up as if they're these massive, insurmountable things. It's just one step.
- [77:06]
B
Yeah.
- [77:06]
A
Try to think of any aspect of your life where that next step was so hard that it couldn't happen. It's just when you zoom out and you say Oh, I have to get from here to super healthy or super fit. That seems insurmountable. But is it that hard to get 10,000 steps that very next day or go to the gym for 30 minutes five times that next week? No, it's not. It's just we get overwhelmed. We allow ourselves to get overwhelmed.
- [77:32]
B
Right. Well, and I think that also the other helpful thing for this is just being in tune with what actually motivates you. People talk about discipline. You need discipline, go to the gym every day. Which I feel like I've solved for that by, like, having this accountability group that does a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of discipline. But I also recognize that the financial consequence wasn't punitive enough to actually motivate me. But you know what is potentially motivating is this idea of public shame. So, like, that feels more consequential than a monetary consequence. And I think about this, like, when I walked the Camino, I posted every day on Facebook, you know, how many miles I walked, and, like, just updates on my Camino journey. And when I had moments that I really wanted to quit, I thought about, am I really gonna go online and be like, oops, sorry, guys, I changed my mind. Like, I went home. There was no way in hell I was gonna do that. That the idea of not following through after I made such a big stink about it was like, there's no way. I, like, very intentionally backed myself into a corner in terms of, like, sharing so publicly, And I'm doing the same thing with this challenge now. So instead of thinking about the financial consequence, I am posting on my stories every single day. Today is Day 95. Today's a rest day. So I'll be posting about, you know, oh, it's a rest day today, but. But doing it every day. And, like, knowing that these people are watching because, like, you can see who, like, sees your story. And then I'm getting all these nice notes from people and people encouraging me and cheering me on and all of that. So, yeah, I think knowing yourself, knowing what's going to motivate you and for, like, a worthy goal, it could be good to consider what would it look like to back yourself into a corner.
- [79:30]
A
I like that. That is a fun way to end the conversation, Diana. So, okay, I want to ask, obviously, where people can find you, but of course, economy conference dot com. So that's economy me conference dot com. I know it's already sold out for 2027, which is amazing. I know you have a wait list.
- [79:48]
B
Yes.
- [79:49]
A
People can just go to that homepage and click on the wait list. And I assume if they're on the wait list, they'll join a newsletter or an email. So they'll get get told of next year of 2028's tickets when they go on sale.
- [80:00]
B
You will eventually get added to the newsletter, but if you want to just join the newsletter now, see them on on the website. There's a link for the newsletter. You can just sign up and that'll just keep you updated on what's going on with the event. With the wait list you will get an email when a ticket comes available and you have 24 hours to purchase. So it is important to jump on that. Last year the wait list was like a thousand people. And I think a lot of people have this idea of like, oh, it's so unlikely that I'll get an offer. But I really encourage you to go on there because I'm telling you for me to resell the refunded tickets I had to offer to every single person on that waitlist, every single of those thousand people had an opportunity to buy a ticket and only 170 of them did. So if you're serious and you jump on it and buy within 24 hours, I am convinced that anyone who really wants to come to Economy is going to get there.
- [80:51]
A
Okay, Diana. Well, as we said, community is so important. You see it in your community, we see it in ours. And again, to join your community, it's economy conference.com econo m e conference.com and to join ours, as always, it's choose a vi.com login or you could go almost anywhere on our site. Just choose avai.com, you'll see register or login. But yeah, if you want a nice quick way, choose a vi.com login and as always, take action, join the community, get involved and keep moving forward on your path to fight. Thanks for being here.