Bias Towards Action: The Adventure List(s) | Ep 572

Summary

ChooseFI Podcast Summary

Episode: Bias Towards Action: The Adventure List(s) | Ep 572
Air Date: November 10, 2025
Hosts: Brad and Jonathan (ChooseFI)
Guests: Emily W. and Emily C.
Episode Theme: Building an intentional, adventure-filled life before reaching Financial Independence (FI), using actionable frameworks: “The Adventure List” and “Little Adventures.”

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Episode Overview

This episode brings together Emily W. and Emily C., two remarkable members of the FI community, to discuss how intentionally bringing adventure into everyday life can supercharge your FI journey—long before reaching “the number.” Brad explores how their “adventure lists,” from large-scale dreams to nearby novelty, add meaning, connection, and growth to the years leading up to FI. The conversation covers overcoming social fears, leveraging constraints, running mini-experiments, and practical strategies for meaningful relationships and unique experiences.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Rapid-Deepening Friendships in the FI Community

• Meetups as Connectors: Brad and the Emilys met at a ChooseFI local gathering in Richmond, realizing how quickly FI-oriented friendships get deep (03:00–04:10).
• Emily W.: "You get so deep so fast...everyone wants more friendships. If you're vulnerable about that, it helps." (04:07)
• Friendship Muscle: Emily C. shares, “It’s a muscle...just dare yourself to ask someone out, even platonically. Everyone wants community.” (06:00–06:35)

Notable Moment

• Emily C.: “I ended up in Iceland with a stranger because of this.” (05:48)

“Be Weird” – The Power of Authenticity and Vulnerability

• Brad’s Advice to His Daughter: “People remember you when you’re unique...show up authentically you...it starts with be weird.” (07:39–08:22)
• Emily C.: Shares her former self-story as “not social” and flipping that narrative: “Give yourself permission to be a beginner.” (08:22–09:17)

Notable Quote

• “You can be whoever you want. You guys don’t know who I am—you only know the version of me that I show.” – Emily C. (10:21–11:35)

Maintaining and Deepening Adult Friendships

• Intentional Networking: Emily W. recommends, “If you meet somebody interesting, invite them once...put yourself out there.” (04:07–05:25)
• Follow-Up Framework: Send people articles or opportunities related to their interests to keep loose ties strong. (12:11–12:52)
• It’s OK to Reconnect After Gaps: “It’s okay to have some time go in between and still pick it up from there.” – Emily W. (13:29–14:06)

Hard Transitions: Shedding and Unwinding Old Identities (Emily C.’s Story)

• Letting Go for Growth: Emily C. describes leaving behind her horses/life on a farm: "Sometimes it's easy to get into something, hard to get out of it...hard decisions lead to new freedom." (16:11–19:53)
• Constraints Aren’t Just Physical: We all have anchors—could be a job, relationship, location—that shape our possibilities.

Memorable Anecdote

• “I spent three weeks in Portugal, three weeks in remote Maine low-key held hostage by a porcupine in a dry cabin..." – Emily C. (18:21)

Importance of Mini-Experiments and “Trying On” New Lives

• Don’t Wait for FI ‘Number’: Emily W.: “We realized we could do what we wanted before hitting a spreadsheet number.” (20:32–22:35)
• Mini-Retirements & Experiments: Try out life changes in low-risk, short-term ways to see if they fit you (e.g., renting a place for a month before selling your house and moving).
• Bias Towards Action: “In the past couple years, I’ve really focused on ‘How can I say yes?’” – Emily W. (22:01–22:35)

Framework Quote

• “It’s about living into a life that you really want to experience—but it takes practice, it takes iteration, it takes as you both said...failure. But failure isn’t failure. You’ve learned something...” – Brad (41:00–42:15)

The Adventure List: Four Levels of Experience (30:11–36:32)

• Genesis: Inspired by a podcast conversation (Retire Often/Jillian Johnsrud) about brainstorming 20 mini-retirement ideas; adapted to be “20 things I want to do” of any size/scale.
• The Four Levels:
  1. Level 1—Go/See/Do: Typical vacation; see the big sight or do the thing (e.g., see the Pyramids in Egypt).
  2. Level 2—Class or Retreat: Structured experience; e.g., a week-long Egyptology class.
  3. Level 3—Longer Stay/Self-Directed: Slow travel, renting an apartment for a couple months and immersing.
  4. Level 4—Work/Volunteer: Deep commitment; working a job, volunteering, really “living” local life.
• No Hierarchy: Important insight—none of these is better; they’re simply different experiences.
• Application: Use these levels to break down big dreams into approachable, testable steps.

Quote

• “It’s just a tool to help you dream and give more context and imagination to dreaming of...really fun and interesting things...” – Emily W. (36:32)

The Little Adventures List (42:15–50:44)

• What It Is: A running Google Doc of small, local things to do—parks, festivals, unusual attractions (Atlas Obscura, local newsletters), etc.
• How to Build One:
  • Stay curious, keep your “ear out”
  • Collect recs from friends/meetups
  • Use online resources (Atlas Obscura, local event calendars/newsletters like Axios, social groups)
  • Log both TO-DO and DONE for a gratifying sense of progress
• Why It Matters: Creates daily novelty and breaks the routine—important for making the “boring middle” of FI memorable.

Notable Quote

• “Having fun and adventure...should not be whatever is left over at the end in terms of your energy. It has to be something you prioritize and budget for.” – Emily W. (50:44)

Stack, Experiment & Debrief—How to “Level Up” Your Adventure Life (50:44–59:37)

• Stacking: Combine multiple goals (e.g., travel + learning a language + trying new activities).
• Measure the Intangible: Use a paper or digital calendar, commit to X social activities or adventures per month, create accountability.
• Give Yourself Permission: “Dream as big as you want...Life will add constraints, but start with the ordering of what you’ll regret not doing.” – Emily C. (55:35)

Real-World Mini-Experiments & Adventures

• Emily C.’s Progress: From a lifetime of “not traveling” to 60–80 days of travel since July, including solo trips, house swaps, hostel stays, and drive-across-country dog weekends (56:58–59:37).
• Emily W.’s List in Practice: Top-of-mind items are what matter (not just ticking off 20). Upcoming—“Going to an intensive on making and aging goat cheese,” planning to run a bookshop in Scotland, slow travel via house sitting, and leveraging credit card points to offset cost/time constraints (60:41–62:05).
  • On Memory Dividends: “How interesting are the people you get to spend a week with...maybe it’s friendships that continue!” (62:54)

Constraints as Gifts

• Take What You Have: If you have 2-3 weeks off, use the Adventure List to prioritize the most meaningful experiences—for YOU.
• Interrogate Limiting Beliefs: Use friends as ‘mirrors’ who can see your strengths/dreams before you do (64:33–66:13).
• Create Novelty: “How can you create differences that...you can remember?” – Emily C. (43:17)
• Invite Others: Don’t just do it solo. “Invite people—that’s when it really becomes fun.” – Emily W. (68:35)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Be weird. Everyone wants more friendships. If you’re vulnerable about that, it helps.” – Emily W. (04:07)
• “Give yourself permission to be a beginner.” – Emily C. (09:17)
• “Constraints can be a gift...” – Emily C. (31:13, 38:03)
• “What gets measured gets managed.” – Emily W. (49:21)
• “Having fun and adventure and friendship should not be whatever is left over...It has to be something that you prioritize and budget for.” – Emily W. (50:44)
• “How can you create novelty in your life?” – Emily C. (43:17)
• “It’s about the memory dividends.” – Emily W. (62:54)
• “FI is better with friends.” – Referenced by Brad (69:04)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Time | Segment | |-------------|---------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:00–03:00 | Introduction and setting up the premise of the episode | | 04:07 | “Be weird.” Vulnerability & building FI friendships | | 08:22 | Changing self-narratives and “permission to be a beginner” | | 16:11 | Emily C.’s story: Shedding old constraints, unwinding a life | | 20:32 | Mini-experiments and actionable steps before hitting FI | | 27:47 | Origin of the adventure list & levels framework | | 30:11–36:32 | The Four Levels of Adventure—building a scaffold for your dreams | | 42:15 | “Little Adventure List”—novelty in everyday life | | 49:21 | Measurement and intentional design for adventure/friendship | | 56:58 | Real examples of mini-experiments (Emily C.) | | 60:41 | Practical use of the adventure list + travel hacks | | 66:13 | Invite friends along—FI is better with friends |

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Actionable Frameworks & Takeaways

1. Adventure List Framework

• Brainstorm 20 experiences you want to try—big or small, no editing!
• Sort each into one of four levels (short/long/deep/shallow engagement).
• For each level 3 or 4, also design a “shift left” version (try on the dream at a smaller scale first).
• Start with what excites you most—this is not a to-do list, but a living, evolving fuel for action.

2. Little Adventures List

• Keep a running list (digital or analog) of free/local/low-cost activities.
• Add “done” items for reflection and motivation.
• Find new ideas via newsletters, friends, Atlas Obscura, social calendars, and serendipity.

3. Bias Toward Action

• Don’t wait—start with what you can do now.
• Stack goals for maximum effect—travel, try new skills, invite friends, keep learning.
• Regularly check in: am I doing what I wanted? Am I stuck in routine?

4. Friendship & Novelty as Priorities

• Budget time and energy for connection and novelty—not just money.
• Be intentional and a bit “weird”—vulnerability is a social superpower.
• Say yes, invite others, and don’t be afraid to reconnect even if much time has passed.

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Final Inspirational Thought

“Create as much novelty and adventure as you can, with the time, resources, and constraints in your life right now. Be intentional, be a beginner, and build your life alongside friends—FI is always better that way.”

Transcript

[A]

Hello, and welcome to Choose a Phy. Today on the show, I have two guests, and their first names are both Emily. So we're going to call them Emily W. And Emily C. I met both of these women at a Choose a Phy local meetup here in Richmond, Virginia, a couple weeks back, and they were both incredibly interesting and insightful, but not only that, they talked to me about some tools they were using to really make their lives better in a very concrete way. And interestingly, you. It was around building adventure into your life. And they have two different overarching themes for this. The adventure list and then the little adventures. And I'm not going to steal the thunder of it here in the intro, but suffice to say, this episode is fantastic. And I do not say that lightly. I take notes during the episodes, and this is the episode I think I've taken the most quotes from, direct quotes from. Of any episode that I can remember in recent memory. It was that good. You are going to love this episode. And with that, welcome to choose that Vi, Emily and Emily, I'm so happy you're here. This should be a lot of fun.

[B]

Thrilled to be here.

[C]

I'm super excited we got this to work.

[A]

Yeah, this is great. So, okay, a little backstory for the audience. So we all met up recently at the Richmond Shuzify local group. There was a case study, and Emily W. You were the longtime admin of the Richmond group, and you did an amazing job. So thank you.

[B]

Of course. It was a pleasure.

[A]

Yeah. And, Emily, say that was the first time that we met for real. And I just loved your energy. And then just in the meetup, I'm like, wow, we think identically. This is crazy. And we met up after because Emily W. Talked about this hike that you two had. And I actually referenced this on an episode recently that I mentioned with Alan and Katie Donegan, and it just sounded so cool. It was extraordinary. And you talked about building out a list of adventures, about really building an intentional life was really the undercurrent of it all. And it started from friendship. And I think that's one of the coolest things about the FI community is you two are not lifelong friends. You met in 2025, which is absolutely crazy.

[C]

Yeah, Emily and I met Emily C. So it's kind of funny. We have Emily's. And so Emily and I met back in January. Then we've just been kind of on this journey. You know, it's. It's different making friends as adults, and so it's been really fun to Figure out what does friendship mean? How can you share more and more of yourself with somebody so that they can be better friends to you and you can be better friends to them? And it's led to this really cool kind of launching place where we know each other well enough, we have mutual friends now that you can kind of challenge each other and encourage you know each other to grow in ways that are really cool. And Emily and I went walking at the tunnel one day, and she's like, I've got this framework. And so we sat on my porch and had breakfast from my garden one day, and she was just kind of putting together. It was really cool.

[B]

This is one thing that I love so much about five friendships is that you get so deep so fast. You know, you're not spending much time on the light, easy stuff. And I've seen this time and again at local meetups, at campfires, at Economy. You know, you just get so deep so fast. And so while we've only been friends for, you know, just this year, we've been able to, like, really talk about a lot of different things and egg each other on in the best possible way. And I know that my life is certainly, like, enriched from this five friendship, for sure.

[A]

Yeah, I love that, Emily. So, okay, Emily W. I want to really interrogate you on this because I think you are extraordinary at creating five friendships. And maybe this is a limiting belief about myself, but, like, I don't feel like I'm that great at this and I want to be better. So realistically, you just said, like, you get so deep so fast. I know you've told me. So me, you, Aaron, and your friend Molly went out to dinner a couple days ago, and you talked about a friend who you met at Economy two years ago. And you text every single day, which is absolutely wild. Like, you have a bunch of. This is not just like a one off for you. There's Emily C. Or this friend. Like, how. How do you do this? How do you get so deep?

[B]

Sure. So. Well, first off, I go to a lot of meetups. Every time my husband AJ And I travel, we join that local meetup and talk to folks. But I've found that the FI community in general, they're just really interested in things. And so learning what people are interested in has helped, and I keep in touch with folks. But yeah, it's really, really incredible how many, like, interesting people and. And everyone wants more friendships. Right. And so if you're vulnerable about that, I think that really helps. I guess my piece of advice would probably be like, be weird. And you know, if you meet somebody, whether it's at a 5 meetup or a yoga class that you connect with and you're like, I really think this person is interesting. I'd like to spend more time with them. I'll invite them to do something and I'll say, hey, I'm getting coffee after this. Would you like to come? And it almost doesn't matter whether or not they can do it that time. What matters is I put myself out there. Hey, you're somebody that I'd like to have coffee with. And so even if they can't do it that time, they know that that's an option. And so maybe next time they'll say, hey, like, do you want to go on this hike or something? But putting yourself out there as a one time invite, you don't need to be creepy. You don't need to do it like 10 times in a row to like, you know, that's obviously not going to work. But to just put yourself out there once, like, hey, you want to get coffee after this? And something that I've done that has worked well.

[C]

And I would say too, like, I kind of have a funny story about the first time I met Emily. So we're at a happy hour and she's like, is it weird if we come over to your house and see your house? She's like, AJ and I are building a house. And like, you did this like, several years ago. Can we come, like, see your house? I'm like, that's not weird.

[B]

We're finalizing our plans. This was the perfect timing. We really. But yeah, that's kind of an extreme example of being weird.

[C]

But yeah, but I guess my point is, is like, I ended up in Iceland with a stranger because of this. I ended up roaming around Portugal with some strangers. I'm down here in St. Pete right now and literally had the same thing happen because I went to poolside yoga and I met somebody else. She happened to put her mat down next to me and. And so I guess all I have to say is, like, it's a muscle. And so I met this woman this morning. We had brunch with her and her friend, her friend gave me a ride to CVS because I was looking for a microphone adapter. And then now I'm going to a soccer game with them tonight. And so it's just this idea of like building community. And on the episode the other week with Alan and Katie, they're like, you know, dare yourself to ask somebody out. Even In a platonic way this week. Like you just. Everybody wants community and connection. And it'll work or it won't, but then you'll know it's just a muscle.

[A]

Yeah. Oh, I love that. And the be weird definitely sticks out to me. So I've had this conversation with my daughter Anna, who is high school senior now, and we were talking about, you know, she was maybe lamenting some high school cliques, you know, the normal, the normal high school nonsense. And Anna, as I've cataloged many times here on the podcast, is a roller coaster enthusiast. This is like, it's her biggest passion in life. Absolutely. And I was talking about really the concept of actually this, of being weird, of being different, of being unique, of being you and showing up authentically you. Right. So like, as opposed to, I think a lot of us grow up with this. Oh, we need to fit in. Right. We need everybody to like us. What, whatever that means. And it doesn't mean anything, but I think that's what the script that runs in a lot of our heads. And I said to Anna, like, that's not the thing that people remember. People remember you when you're unique. They don't remember you if you're just a regular part of the crowd or another sheep in the flock. Right. Like it's when you're in interesting, it sticks out. And also you're able to winnow down, right. Like you're not looking to attract and whether this is in a platonic way or not, like you're not looking to attract a hundred people out of a hundred just by being authentically you and being a roller coaster enthusiast and wearing roller coaster T shirts. Like you're going to automatically probably throw out 95% of people. Then you have a nice smaller pool of people. Like, and you're only looking for what, 10 friends in a 80 year lifetime? Like 10, 20 friends. Like, if you have 10amazing friends, like, that's a really rich life. So that reframe and you know, it's a little, it's a little rough around the edges, I admit. But nevertheless, like that reframe, it made a real difference to her and it really impacted her. And it starts with be weird.

[C]

Yeah. And I, I think about it as identities too. Like I think I was telling you before we hit record where I had this identity that I held for a long time, that I wasn't good at making friends, that I wasn't social, that I didn't, I didn't want all of those community things. And so I started interrogating my life and saying, well, what if I did? What would I do if I wanted that? What if I actually wanted more friends and relationships and things like that? And I think that reframe has been important for me because it gives you permission to be a beginner. And if you think about the number of times you've actually been a beginner at something, and I'm working through this right now, like, I'm working on learning another language. And in the amount of times that I've sat there and I'm like, why can't I remember this word? But if you think about it, you're not going to be perfect at everything. In the beginning, like, the first time I went and tried the slow travel thing, two weeks in, I was like, oh, God, I, like, didn't do everything I wanted to do. And I was like, oh, wait, I'm trying on a new life. I'm a beginner. Give yourself permission to be a beginner, and then you'll get better.

[B]

And I think that's such a great thing about our adventure list, too, because I find it so overwhelming when people say, oh, what do you want your, you know, phi life to look like? What do you want to do with your life? I have absolutely no idea. But to be able to try on all of these different things and have these different experiences, that just feels so much more manageable than trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up, because I don't know. But being able to try on all of these different things and have these different experiences is really exciting.

[A]

Yeah. No, I love that. And we're. Obviously, we're going to talk about all these lists, of course, but yeah. Emily C. I love this concept of the identities and the stories that we hold about ourselves. And it's interesting because when we meet people, we don't know what their baggage is. We don't know what the story is they've been carrying around for decades. And like you, I would have never guessed in a million years that your story was, I'm not social like that. That was shocking to me because you were just extremely outgoing at the case study. And it just. It literally never would have crossed my mind. So whatever energy you're putting out in the world, it is certainly the antithesis of the I'm not social.

[C]

And that's, you know, I was like the math nerd. I mean, I was, like, super socially awkward for the first 30 plus years of my life. And some of this has been my career where I need to, like, have a Bigger personality. I need to make people feel at ease and comfortable. But it never had really transitioned to my personal life, or maybe it had, and I had just been unwilling to kind of accept that. And so that's the thing that I think is so interesting, too, is that when I met Emily and when I met you the other week, you guys don't know any of these things about me. And what I tell people when you travel or when you meet new people is you can be whoever you want. Right. Like, you guys don't know who I am. You only know the version of me that I show you when I'm there. And I'm not saying that I have, like, I'm hiding all of these things or I'm becoming somebody who's, you know, inauthentic to who I actually am, but it allows me to not necessarily need to show you guys my baggage that I may carry along with me. So you guys may not know that, you know, I was insecure about making friends or whatever it is, you know? And so the more people you meet and the more you can think about it as running mini experiments and see what feels good, you know, it's. That's what's been so valuable for me, especially this year. And I just kind of, like. I feel like my life is snowballing in the best of ways, and I just truly have no idea who I'll be in the next six months. And it's that growth has been really fun.

[A]

Yeah. I want to talk about the last year of your life, because I know it's been an extraordinary transformation, but let's hold on for one second. I wanted to go back to Emily w. For one second. So you said. Just very much in passing when we were talking about, like, how do. When I asked you, like, how do you connect with people? You said, oh, I keep in touch with folks. Like, something like that. Okay, but what does that actually look like? So you meet a ton of people. As you said, you and AJ Go to all these meetups. You have a ton of people that you loosely keep in touch with. But, like, how do you actually do it? Because you establish these relationships that are really, really impressive. And I just. I like. I don't know how to get from here to there.

[B]

So there used to be this app that I actually used called fabric that doesn't exist anymore. But what that allowed me to do is set kind of the regularity that I was trying to reach out to people, and so now I just kind of am better equipped to do that. What I try to do is also kind of listen to what people are interested in. And then as I see things that I think they would be interested in, I send it to them. So, for example, I have a new five friend, Aaron, who I just met this week. And. And you know, we were talking about some things this week and then I sent her a follow up because there was an event that was scheduled that we were kind of talking about. And so I sent it to her this morning. And so I think those sorts of following up with people where they are, with what they're interested in is really helpful. Okay.

[C]

The other thing that I want to call out that you do is like, I think you're willing to have somebody tell you no. So like, I don't even remember what it was. You messaged me a couple of months ago and you're like, you want to go to this thing? And I was like, no, like. And so one, it's the confidence on my side to be like, you know what? No, I don't actually think I want to do that. And it was something perfectly normal. It just was like where I was at emotionally at the moment. It just didn't work. And this is what I think is so cool about like the art of building friendships is that we got to learn more about each other. And it didn't mean, hey, I don't want to be friends with you. It meant that this is not something I'm interested in. Let's figure out other stuff that we are mutually interested in that we can be friends around.

[B]

Yeah. I also think that it's not a negative thing if you're not in touch with people all the time. So. So I actually not a 5 friend, but somebody that I had been hiking with earlier this year and I hadn't talked to in a long time. I reached out about something today and that's totally fine, you know, and to be able to pick up these friendships that maybe I dropped the ball. She said her last text was don't be a stranger. And that was in May. And I. I was then a stranger, but today I was thinking of her. I texted her and now we've set up plans to see each other next week. And so it's okay to have some time go in between and still pick it up from there.

[A]

Okay, I like that. And one thing you both have mentioned is being vulnerable. And I think this is something that might not come easy to all of us, but I think all three of us on this call would say it's kind of a superpower in the best possible way, in the sense that, like, it's the way to connect with people, is just to be open, to be honest, to be yourself and to share things about yourself. You're not like, spewing on people, right? Like, you're doing this in a really. I don't, I don't even know what the word I would use to describe it, but, like, just a way that feels authentic. And I've found that that has been a massive difference. Emily say, I suspect very strongly.

[C]

Yeah. And there's a Mel Robbins podcast and she has some work out about building friendships and stuff. And the idea, like, vulnerability really is the difference. Like, you have to be willing to, to share part of who you are and give somebody the ability to reject that or to feel differently about that if you want to make friends. Because, like, you were talking about before with your daughter. Like, not everybody. You're not going to be friends with everybody. Like, there are some people that I just never need to speak to again, and that's okay. But you get to know and it's like by being vulnerable, you open yourself up to rejection and you also open yourself up to friendship or acquaintances that you talk to every so often, but you don't know until you know. And so it's about finding how much are you willing to be vulnerable with yourself. Like, how much rope are you willing to give somebody to kind of hurt you. And in this case, this is pretty low stakes stuff. You can do it in a very low stakes stuff, but it's like the more you get to know somebody, the longer you get to know them, the more that they know about you and the more they could potentially hurt you, which is, I think what people are generally afraid of is rejection and hurt. But that's also friendship. Friendship is people knowing you, is being able to challenge you, is being able to see you as who you are when you may not see yourself the same way.

[A]

So, Emily C. Speaking of not being able to see yourself in the same way, your last year has been transformative. I'd love for you to explain what's been going on and how this ties into what we've been talking about for the last 15 minutes.

[C]

Yeah, I've had a crazy last year. I have grown up in remote central Virginia, had several acres, grew up on a family farm, all of that. And I've had horses since I was a kid. Like I grew up on a horse farm, crawling under and around them my entire life. And I've had this nagging feeling since I was in high school. That I just wanted to roam and I wanted to travel. And I felt like that was this authentic version of me. But I always, as much as I loved the horses, and that's what I want to extrovert is I love the horses and they are a huge reason of who I am. They also kind of felt like an anchor. And specifically owning four horses. And so a year ago or last June, July, I owned four horses at my farm that I took care of on top of all of my day to day job and all of that and any travel I had to coordinate care for them. My life had gotten so busy that I had to pay for me to come and take care of them at my mom's house. And I ended up coming off of one of them last year and getting a concussion. And it was really this just moment of I don't know if the version of the life that I'm living is authentic to who I want. And so it led to a lot of really difficult decisions where I had two older mares that ended up passing unexpectedly in the last year. I rehomed another horse last fall and I just rehomed my last horse in July.

[B]

And.

[C]

And so for the first time in my life, I. It's just me and my dog. And so I don't have horses anymore. I sold my truck, I sold my horse trailers. And so now I've been able to kind of interrogate the what do I want to do without necessarily the constraints that I had put on myself about the expectations I had for myself or the expectations that other people had for me based on who I'd been my entire life.

[A]

Yeah. It's so interesting when, when we've lived a life a certain way and that's. That really is all you knew. And I mean, as you've described, really like having these horses, that was a significant part of your life since the time you were a kid. And obviously I can't relate to that. But for you, that was such an integral part of your life. And now, okay, yes, the horse, we can put even, just put the horses aside and just say, now you have flexibility. Right. Because I think that's what most people can relate to. And I'd love to hear how that now opens up a bigger world to you.

[C]

Yeah. And I guess I called it unwinding my life. For the first part of this year. It was this idea that you make all of these decisions and it can be houses, it can be relationships. Right. Mine was horses, but it can be whatever it is, it can be your living situation, it can be your job. Right. I think this is something that's going to be universally applicable to everybody. And sometimes it's really easy to make a decision to get into something, and it's really difficult to take a decision to get out of it. And I made a lot of really difficult decisions that frankly resulted in me sitting on my couch and crying for a while. But when I came through the other side of it, I had bought myself a Subaru. I went car camping with my dog. I spent three weeks in Portugal, I spent three weeks in remote Maine being low key, held hostage by a porcupine in a dry cabin on a Sunday morning. And Now I'm in St. Pete for a month. And it. It's just, you know, there are the constraints that life can put on you, and then you can remove those constraints and you can still not do the thing that you feel like you're being called to do. And so not only has it been a year of unwinding difficult decisions, it's also been a year of choosing to take risks in a controlled way that allow me to try on different lives that I've had the story that I wanted to do my entire life, right? Growing up, I was like, I want to go work on a dude rancher. I want to go live in Australia. I want to go drive across the country or the world. And so now I'm able to start actually experimenting with that, which has taken a lot of courage, and to be able to say, okay, with the constraints that I currently have in my life, how can I try on different aspects of those in, like, a. A minimally risky sort of way?

[A]

Okay, this is so interesting that unwinding your life, and I think a lot of us can relate to that, but it doesn't by definition mean that you're going to be like me now, who is trying to own essentially nothing and have flexibility in that sense. It could just mean, like you said, with the constraints you have now, okay, how can I think about things a little bit differently? How can I unwind this aspect? But, Emily W. It's not about owning nothing. It's not. I mean, in your case, you're literally. You and your husband AJ Are building a house. Not just like, oh, we designed a house, you are building a house. And that's part of an intentional life as well, obviously.

[B]

Yeah, we are. And one thing that I love so much about our five friends is when we tell people in regular life that we're building a house, they assume that we're having this house built for us. But when I tell a fire friend that we're going to, you know, buy some land and build a house, they understand what I mean. And what I mean is that we're going to start framing it ourselves, like, in a couple of weeks. So, yeah, for us, we realized that we would be able to pursue our fire dream of buying some acreage in the mountains here in central Virginia and building a house to do permaculture and food, forest and all these sorts of things that we've always been interested in before we hit a number in a spreadsheet. And I think that's so incredible when you're able to realize that and do the things that you want to do.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

I do want to add. I love that you guys are doing this because you're Brad. You always talk about taking action. And this is. Emily is the epitome of that. Her and AJ And I love this. Like, one of the hikes we went on, AJ was telling me about how, like, to layer up the cardboard in the backyard. Like, AJ is like a wizard when it comes to plants. And Emily's like, you're never allowed to offer him plants. Got it. And so it's been so fun to, like, watch you guys live this, but it's because you've done all of the. These other mini experiments. Like, you didn't wake up one day and be like, we should go build a house out in the country and have permaculture. No. Like, you guys like the story with AJ and the sawmill and, like, you guys trying to fix that. Like, it's fantastic. And, like, you guys have tried all of these things, and so you already know you like this version of your life, and now you just need to go do it, which has been really cool to watch, too.

[B]

Yeah. I used to spend a lot of time kind of being frustrated about the things that I wasn't able to do. Then we'll kind of talk about some of those restrictions and constraints and how you have to do your life around it. In the past couple of years, I've really focused on, what can I do? How can I say yes? How can I get to being able to say yes to the things that I want to say yes to. And it's really incredible, the position that I'm in. Now I'm really able to do that and say yes to the things that I want to say yes to. And that has resulted in so much fun, so much adventure, and this really big project that we're undertaking right now.

[A]

Nice. And just to be clear, Neither of you are Fi. So lest anyone think like this is, hey, we've reached Fat Fi and we can just go do whatever we want. That is not the case for either of you, right?

[B]

Correct.

[C]

Nope. I'm like coast Fi. Maybe a little better. Another story I told myself was that I used to play in real estate some. I had a rental house for a bit. I sold that and I had wanted to build an apartment in my basement for years. I built my house seven years ago and this is something I've always wanted, but for reasons I just, I hadn't done it. And so I made the decision last year that I was going to put an apartment in my basement and I was going to have an Airbnb and I finished it. And it has been rented out with shortened or medium and long term renters since earlier this summer. And it's been a great way to offset my rent. And it's just another way that like, no, I am not anywhere near five, but I have, you know, I have the mechanisms in place, I've got the machine built and. And this is another way too, that just kind of helps me explore and try it on. Cause I told myself, like I cash flowed it. If I hate it, I won't do it, you know, but I can try.

[A]

It isn't that interesting though. Constraints sometimes make things fun, most of the time it makes things fun. It makes you think differently. You literally think outside the box. You have to come up with novel solutions to something. And. And as Emily W. Said, like, how can I say yes? And I think that's one of the coolest things. So, Emily W. I wanted to come back to you real quick. So it's interesting you mentioned permaculture because I know Jonathan way back when, probably five or six years ago, had a conversation with you and AJ and almost had you on the show to talk about that. And I think that was like when he left, or it might have been less than that, but you were supposed to be on the show for that. You could have been on the show for probably a million different things.

[B]

And I've, you know, I've wanted to for the longest time and I never asked. And the other week when we were at the meetup, I was like, you know what? This was such a fun case study. I feel like Emily and I would have so much fun talking about this. So. So I sent you a text message and I asked for the first time ever. And now it's happening. But yeah, Jonathan came to our house. He saw the permaculture Set up that we told ourselves. The story that we told ourselves is that this would be enough space. And he saw that set up, which we have since outgrown. And we're going from a third of an acre to two and a half acres, so it's getting more chaotic.

[A]

That's awesome. But, yeah, you and AJ just take action. And I love that. I know you. You mentioned to me one time that you, after you finished reading Die with Zero, you booked a dinosaur dig in Montana. What on earth.

[B]

We did. So the day that I finished Die With Zero, I had heard about this dinosaur dig in Montana years ago, and the book Die with Zero, which, of course, you have to mention every episode because it's such a fantastic book. But I realized that the season of Life, where I wanted to camp in a tent in the wilds of Montana for a week while doing this manual labor of digging up a dinosaur, was probably not going to last forever. And so, yeah, we signed up, we did this dig. It was fantastic. It was the first time that the group ever found a carnivore. And so we spent the week digging up allosaurus. It was such an incredible experience. And the book Die with Zero is kind of the thing that made me finally take action on this thing that had always been kind of percolating, that I thought sounded cool and. And we did it.

[A]

That's great. Thanks for listening to Choose a V and for all your support of our mission here. The absolute best way to support Choose a Pie is when you sign up for your next rewards credit card to use our cards page at choose a buy.com cards. I keep this page constantly updated, so it should always be the top resource for you. Thanks for being part of our community and for your support. That really ties into where we're going to spend the rest of the episode, which is adventure and saying yes. And I love how that that's going to stick with me. How can I say yes? Because I think it's easy. Even with unlimited, essentially unlimited time and resources. Right? Which, whether it's unlimited or not, we can argue at the margins. But for most of us in the FI community, we have time, freedom, and we have. We have resources and we can say yes to things. But even still, it's hard to step outside your comfort zone because maybe it's lack of imagination. I think, honestly, that's probably a big part of it. And what I love about what you two have put together, it reminds me of an episode we did so long ago, probably in 2018. It was with someone who went by Mrs. Adventure Rich. I think it was episode 76. She talked about planned spontaneity. And it was something that stuck with me all these years where she basically had. She had a go bag either right by her door or in her car and had a list of, here are the next 10 to 15 places just in my little metro area that I'd like to visit. And if Wednesday at noon rolled around and they had nothing to do, hey, let's look at the list. We have our bag already. We have the snacks planned. We have the whatever for the kids. And I think that was the case. Let's just do it. And I just thought that was so beautiful. And what you two have put together is really what I see is like, you know, now the quote unquote modern version of this. And I. I'd love to get into this, like, okay, I'm just going to throw it to you because you two planned this. You two have figured out, like, what was the genesis for this conversation that you had? I guess, first on the hike, and then it sounds like maybe at Emily C's house.

[B]

Sure. So, yeah, we were hiking and talking about a podcast episode from Retire Often with Jillian and the new Retire Often book, by the way, Fantastic will be the new, you know, book that we have to mention every single episode. But in the podcast, she was talking about brainstorming for 20 different mini retirement ideas. And Emily and I were talking about this, and, you know, we both have. Have some things. We both still work. We both have older dogs that we don't necessarily want to leave for long periods of time. And I was like, well, what if we just had it be just 20 things we want to do? And so we both separately, and we kind of compared notes, but we created a list of 20 things that we just. What would be really cool to do? And in that process, I was actually, I was kind of frustrated with myself because a lot of the things on my list were just places that I kind of wanted to go, places I wanted to see. And I was like, how can I think deeper about the actual experiences that I want to have, the sort of interactions with people that I would want to be having. And that's sort of where I came up with this framework for travel that I'm really excited to talk about and I can go into now if this is the time for it.

[A]

Let's do that. Because actually, that was the thing I meant to ask you a minute ago is. I know. I think you told me you travel something like 100 days a year or Something crazy.

[B]

Like this year it'll be 110. I was looking at it, and, yeah, which is kind of an aside. But the last couple of years I've tried out because I'm able. I work part time and remote, so I'm able to travel. And I've experimented with how much do I like traveling. And turns out my happy number is about 100. And my husband's happy number, because he is not insane, is, you know, maybe closer to kind of 50. So in the last year or so, I've been doing more. I travel with him, I travel solo. I've been traveling with friends a lot. Been doing a lot of different kind of things. But, yeah, I've been traveling a lot.

[A]

Yeah. Emily, that is amazing. So a hundred plus days a year, that is. That's really something. Hopefully we're gonna come back to that. I hate to leave open loops, but the plan will be to come back to that. But, Emily C. Let's talk about the framework for this adventure list and such. Where does someone start on this? Like, at this point in our chat here, nobody really knows what we're talking. Like, is it, okay, write down 20 things. Are these like, hey, I want to take a walk at this park right nearby? Or is it, hey, I want to spend a month in Guatemala doing X, Y and Z?

[C]

I think it can be any of those.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

Okay. So for me, Emily was over at my house one day. We were having breakfast, and she's like, let's make a list, right? And so we each kind of went to, like, our corners, and we kind of sat down, and mine started with, okay, let's write down a list of 20 things. And what it actually turned into was me sitting down for 45 minutes and brain dumping every cool thing that I'd seen on Instagram or every cool thing that I'd seen anywhere. And so I didn't necessarily constrain myself. It was more of just a word vomit, which I think was really helpful. And so the reality is, is like, you know, we talk. Sometimes people talk about the boring middle. And I think the framework that Emily and I were kind of tossing back and forth and after a couple of iterations was constraints can be a gift. And there are versions of everything on our list that you can do at any point in your life, depending on kind of how much flexibility you have and how little you can kind of try on, or what's the MVP version of it. And I think I would love to hear Emily talk about what those four levels are, because I'm gonna bet that even when she sent me this on messenger a couple of months ago, I would love to hear how you even refrained and refined that in the last couple of months.

[B]

Yeah, absolutely. So thank you. As I was thinking about this, there's really four different levels. And what's really important is none of them are better than another. They're just kind of different. And the texture of the travel is kind of different at these different levels. So level one is you go, you see, you do the cool thing, right? So a lot of the things that were on my initial list of 20. So an example would be like I've never been to Egypt. So you go and you see the pyramids, right? That's wonderful. That's a lot of like what we tend to think of like as a vacation. And you can kind of think of like what the memory dividends would be with that sort of trip. But as you go deeper, like a level two trip, that's like a class or a retreat. So you can kind of think if we're going to stay in Egypt, right, I could sign up for a week long Egyptology class. I would learn much more than I would just looking at the pyramids. I would maybe meet classmates who are interested in the same topics as me and I would have a little bit of a different experience than if I had just gone on a level one trip. And then for a level three trip. Now I'm going to stay longer. Now I've rented an apartment in Cairo for a couple of months even. And you're able to, when you're doing that, you can. I'm a real self directed learner. I really love learning. And so I would like be reading books about Egypt. Maybe I get really interested in ancient Egypt. Maybe I'm kind of following more of like the food traditions and I take cooking classes and what's great about that, you know, maybe I go to some choose if I meet ups. I have my favorite coffee shop and the people know me and I know them. And then when you're going home, you have this like map in your mind of the area that you were in. You feel like you kind of knew it a little bit. But with a level three trip, your time is your own. So you're kind of creating this experience for yourself. With a level four trip you have some sort of like work or volunteer component where your time is no longer your own. And so you're kind of, you're really just living life. You know, you have these sort of obligations in this routine and what's really wonderful about that. And also kind of a drag is it's a little bit, you know, just, you know, you have a kind of a Monday through Friday, 9 to 5, you're just living life. You have coworkers. You have coworkers that you really get along with. You have coworkers that you get along with less. You see them, you know, on weekends maybe, but you get to try on a life and try on a life that's totally different than the life that you are living anywhere else. And what's amazing and magical about level four trips is that's where you get invited to weddings. That's where you end up, like, outside some rural area of Honduras, like, clapping tortillas for a day for this wedding that you're preparing for somebody's second cousin and, like, getting to talk with people in Spanish. And so I think thinking about these different levels, it depends on your capacity. It depends on your time, but you can kind of think through. And it gives language to the different types of travel that there are in a way that I think is really neat, and I'm really excited to be doing more. Kind of talking about the different levels and how they can be used.

[A]

Yeah, I like that. I wonder, is it hard to fight the urge to think that, like, the next level, that level three is better than level two and level four is better than level one? How do you think about. Because I think naturally, especially when we hear this, like, numbered order, you think by definition, four has to be better than two. But you said at the outset, like, that is not how you think about it. Talk me through the framework in that sense.

[B]

Yeah. So I've had the opportunity throughout my life without knowing these levels or having this idea, but to travel kind of at all of those different levels, and they're really just. They're different. And I think that to have a really interesting and rich, varied life, you want to be able to travel at all different levels at different points in time. But there is no one that's better than the other at all.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

And I think this is what, you know, Jillian talks about with, like, the mini retirements and stuff. And I think that everything that we're kind of talking about here, I think, runs, like, in kind of parallel with a lot of the work that she does about kind of, like, trying experiments. Right. So, okay, so you extend your career for a little bit, but you have all these experiments along the way. And this is, I think, very much what we're talking about now is that how can you try something on and. And I can't go and, like, live somewhere else right now, like, with some of the constraints that I have. But I can say, okay, what would it feel like to go live in a different state for a month? Because I can do that with my current constraints. Maybe I don't like living in a different state. Maybe I don't like going somewhere where I don't have a community. And so it's this way that you can be intentional, because maybe you want to go see the hot air balloons in Turkey, but you don't want to go live in Turkey. There's no right or wrong. It's a way to help you think about how invested do you want to be in some aspect of your life. And so for me, one of the things that I had on my list was I wanted to travel in South America. And another thing that I had was learning a second language. And so right now, through some work opportunities, I have a community in Brazil. And I was like, why wouldn't I learn Portuguese? And so I can go down to Brazil for a while while I still work, and I do all of these other commitment things that I have. But it's a way that I can think about, okay, how can I scale this? Okay, maybe I can go spend a week in Mexico City, but maybe I can go spend a little bit longer here because my constraints are flexible. And this is something that's important to me, and I've kind of decided ahead of time that it's valuable to me for right now.

[B]

Yeah, it's really. It's just a tool to help you dream and to give more context and ideas and. And imagination to dreaming of, like, really fun and interesting things that you might like to experience beyond. Oh, I'd like to take a picture at the Pyramids.

[A]

Yep.

[C]

Yeah. And Emily is funny. When I. When I first told her I was going to start slow traveling, she's like, what if you did more? She's like, what if you rented out your house? And I'm like, wait a minute. I am not ready to make that level of commitment because I hadn't tried spending a couple of weeks somewhere else. I hadn't tried any of that stuff. And that's where it's like to tie it back to what we're talking to earlier with friends. Emily knows me well enough to be able to push me in these different areas. But then I can say, okay, I'm not comfortable with that now. But now that I've had a couple of good experiences, maybe that is something I'd Consider in the future, you know, and it's like you can think about when trying these. It's building muscles, it's gaining confidence, it's all of that in the different areas that you dream about. You know, there's this saying, and I don't know who said it, but that you don't want the most exciting part of your life to be watching the most exciting part of somebody else's life on tv. And so it's this idea of like, how can you start living now? Like, we are by and large a very privileged group of humans and we shouldn't be complacent, right? Like, we should take advantage of that. We should be intentional about dreaming. And okay, maybe I can't go live in Australia for six months now, but maybe I can go spend a couple of weeks somewhere else and just make friends with somebody at the pool and go to a soccer game tonight. You know, like, you can do those types of things.

[A]

Yeah, I love that. Again, it comes back to the constraints can be a gift, right? And you said the perfect example is learning Portuguese. Hey, I have Brazilian coworkers or clients or whomever that literally speak Portuguese. Maybe I can still work, fly down there and do this. I mean, that's brilliant. That doesn't mean like, hey, I'm taking off work, I'm doing a six month mini retirement and I'm just going to study Portuguese. No, I'm going to live my life and also I'm going to do this.

[C]

And there's value in both, right? And this is what I think, like what Jillian talks about too, with the, like taking a month and stuff. But the reality is, is right now I'm not comfortable doing that with everything kind of going on in the job market and everything. Like, I feel much more confident staying in the job that I have. Like, I have a great setup. And so for me, I can still try on some portion of that light, that life. And perhaps I won't like learning another language. Like, maybe I won't like it, maybe I will, I don't know, but then I'll know. And the reality is I get up early in the morning, I can take a 30 minute Portuguese class, I can practice it, and either it will become a priority to me and something I actually put energy into, or it won't. And then I need to adjust things in my life. But it is a way that's like, I think the other thing we're talking about now is how can you stack these things together, right? So how can I travel to South America how can I also learn Portuguese? How can I also do these different things and kind of mesh them all together and figure out how to do phases and versions of these dreams that you've had for your entire life? And what I'll say is that like I've planned like the next year or so of travel. And all of this started just a couple of months ago. Like Emily was talking, she travels like 100, 110 days a year. I'm going to have traveled, I think like 60 or 80 days since July this year. And that's not something I ever did because you have to remember a year ago I couldn't do any of that. And so I'm trying on this life of what does it feel like to travel more and to live in a walkable area or to just do things differently?

[B]

And what's so awesome about experiments is like, it's okay if it fails miserably. And so if you try it and it turns out that's not for you, you haven't built this whole life around it, you've built this whole life around experiments. And some of them go fantastically well, some of them don't. And that's kind of the whole point. So it really like emboldens you to have this just bias towards action to try it out and see how it goes.

[C]

And Emily, when we're talking about those level three or level four that involve like a real commitment to living somewhere, maybe you shouldn't do that until you've done something similar. And you know, if you like it in kind of a more non committal way, like what is a, a way that's like easy, you know, fail fast, right? Software. How can you fail fast? How can you learn more quickly before you go sell all of your stuff and live, you know, somewhere for six months? And that's where I think, like when I go back to constraints are helpful. It is sometimes easy for us to be like, oh yeah, I'm just going to do this for six months, maybe you'll love it. But while you have constraints, maybe you try something and say, okay, do I like living there? What is something I can do for a couple months? How can you scale those things? And when you have three or four, you should probably do a one or two before you commit to the three or four.

[A]

Yeah, and this is where you said make the boring middle not boring, right? Like that's, this is the whole fun part about those years is you can experiment. Not only can you experiment, you need to be experimenting. It's critical because you are not going to wake up. I promise you, every single person listening to this podcast, you are not going to wake up. And when you hit 5 on some spreadsheet and your life is going to be unicorns and rainbows, it simply doesn't work that way. That might have been our thinking in 2013, and it was wrong then, but at least it was maybe more prevalent. Hopefully we've helped dispel that myth over the course of the last almost nine years here at Choose a Vi. Like, we have to experiment. This is about living into a life that you really want to experience, but it takes practice, it takes iteration. It takes, as you both said, failure. But failure isn't failure. You've learned something critical about yourself. You've learned something about the world. That's not a bad thing, that's a positive. And also die with zero and such. We have seasons of life. Just because you love something at 25 doesn't mean you're going to love it at 55. You may, but you may not, and that is fine. It's not a failure. You have to figure this out and you have to test. And I just think it's so important.

[B]

And it's funny that we call this, you know, the adventure list, because my husband and I have been doing something for several years that we call the little adventures. And it's just a Google Doc of things in our town that we would like to do. And so whenever I hear about, you know, an interesting place place or an interesting thing to do, I add it to this little doc and it's very. I did listen to that podcast episode back in 2018 about the go Bag. I wonder if that's, you know, the genesis of this list. But we've been doing it for years, and it's so incredible and it's really scalable. You know, it used to be that most of our little adventures were free to no cost and just things that we could do in a couple of hours. And, you know, now that it's kind of expanded to include things that might not be free and. But it's a really great way to have adventure even in your daily life, even if you have no flexibility with work and you're working a lot of hours to have just a little adventure list of things that you can do, you know, next week, that would be fun and different. I think it's good for our brains to go new places and see new things. Yeah, we don't have to wait until we're able to travel for a month to do that.

[C]

Yeah. I was talking to a friend the other day, and he was like, you know, if you look back on the last 10 years of your career, right, you get up in the morning, you go to work, and then you get home at night. And then it. And so you fall into this routine and there's no novelty in it, right? Like, your job may be stressful, it may be whatever it is, whatever your thing is that you do every day. And so then the 10 years just kind of blur together. But it's like anytime you go on these adventures, and it doesn't have to be something that costs a lot of money, it doesn't have to be something that's extravagant, but it's like, how can you create novelty in your life? And I think that idea of how can you create differences that, like, are things that you can remember. Like, when I went to Maine, I stayed with a friend who has a dry cabin, and it didn't cost me anything. Like, I just drove up there with my dog. And sure, that requires a certain amount of flexibility, but I think that there's a way that you can apply this to everything. And I will say Emily C. Is like some sort of wizard when it comes to finding cool things to do. Like, it is genuinely a superpower of hers. And it's. It's so inspiring. And I think this is another thing too, where I feel just privileged to be your friend and, like, feel so inspired every day of, like, how can I find cool things? Like, this is where I'm at. What do I look for? How do I do that?

[A]

And Emily W. That is exactly what I was going to ask you next is how do tips on finding cool things. So I know it's funny because you shared that document with me and Aaron earlier, your little adventures list. And I noticed something like Atlas Obscura, which I know I always look for when I go to a new place just to see, like, what wacky things are in. In this area. But that is but one of. Of many. Like, are there ways that people who are listening to this. So, okay, I feel like also we. There's so much that we're throwing at the listener here. So let's just distinguish. We're talking about the little adventures list now. So we're going to go back to the bigger list, the list of 20, the one with the four categories. That's the adventure list. But this is the little adventures, which are the day to day. And also, Emily W. You is part of your list of this Little adventures is you also write down the ones you've done. So you can look back on a year, two years, five years, and say, oh, wow, look at all these amazing little adventures we took. So I think that's really neat. But my question to you again is, how do you find these things? Emily C. Just said you're great at it. Tell us.

[B]

So Atlas Obscura is definitely fantastic. Love Atlas Obscura. I think I also, I just have my. My ear out for it. This morning, I went to a persimmon festival at our favorite place, Edible Landscaping. And then I went to a book event where they did a foraging walk and then talked about this incredible new book. And so, you know, you can look at Facebook, you can look at things online, you can let your community know the sorts of things that you're interested in, and they'll let you know about things. And then I do rely a lot on my little adventure list, because I will forget Emily, you know, will tell me something interesting that she did. And if I'm not going to do it in the next week, it is out of my brain. But having it on this Google document, it takes the mental load out of finding things. For in that moment, you have this kind of curated, personalized list of things that you're interested in doing that you can pull from as you have time and capacity.

[A]

Okay. All right. That makes sense. So, right. We're constantly looking for new things. We're also aware of recommendations from friends reading Internet sites. Like, I'm thinking about. I subscribe to, like, Axios Richmond. I know there's a. It's a great newsletter. There's a Axios. Axios. They have free newsletters in a whole bunch of cities across the U.S. i don't really subscribe to a ton of newsletters, but that's one I absolutely love. It just tells me what's going on in the city. And it's really pretty neat. So that's. That's a cool way. If you're lucky enough to live in a place that. That has that email, I would definitely recommend it. So we have this list, and then we also have the list of places we've gone, which is cool. But in essence, this is for that planned spontaneity. Okay, so that's the little adventure list. Now, I think everybody, Everybody listening definitely has that. I think we should all do that. It makes sense. I know I'm looking at Emily's list right now, and I love it. And it's just, it. It emboldens me because frankly, Emily, I think my bias. I. I know you said A bias towards action. I generally have a bias towards action in life. But, like, there is something about just relaxing at home sometimes and it, like, it maybe lulls me into this sense of just, oh, wouldn't it just be easier to take a walk around here as opposed to going and taking a walk at that new park or something? But there is something fun about being able to catalog this, I think.

[B]

Yeah. And I think the answer is, you know, to do both. Right. But another way that we kind of find these things, as, as you're doing new things that are fun, you realize that that category is interesting and then you can look it up. So, like, I did a bungee fitness class in Richmond and it was the most fun thing. And I was like, you know, I really like weird, like, physical stuff. What are other things like that we can do? Oh, well, we went to the trampoline park, the rage room, ax throwing, a ropes course, another ropes course. And so as you start looking for, like, these are, you know, areas of interest, then you can kind of find it from there. Ariel Silks class that I was talking to Emily about, and now she has signed up for one. There's just so much incredible, interesting things to do, and if you just look for it online, plus your town.

[C]

But Brad, I'm going to go back to what you said, because, Emily, this is definitely a superpower of yours. And I think this stuff kind of fits into that, like, category one we were talking to with, like, the broader overall. But this is where it's like, I think being friends with you has made me take more action. And this is where it's like, I think that that friendship and intentionality, like I talked earlier about complacency and about habit. And if you have a habit of not doing things, you can decide if you want to do that or if you don't want to do that. And in the last chapter of Gillian's new book, she talks about this kind of weekly check in where you kind of evaluate how have things gone. And that's something that I fell into when I was in Maine for three weeks. The first two weeks I fell into, I was physically in a different place, but I was doing the exact same thing. And so then I got annoyed with myself. But it's like, if you reevaluate, say, okay, wait, I'm a beginner at doing this. I want to intentionally do this. And the thing that I hadn't done is I hadn't checked in with myself and say, am I doing the things that I want to do? And So I think part one is finding the things you want to do. Part two is actually doing the things that you want to do. Yeah.

[B]

And I think it's so valuable. I love the saying what gets measured gets managed. And I think in the FI community, we're so good at measuring our finances. Right. We have that dialed in, we're checking, we understand our numbers and that's wonderful. But by doing, you know, a little adventure list and keeping track of when you're doing things or setting intentions and in terms of how often do I want to have an a new experience? If you're able to measure those things, then you can manage them and prioritize it just like you're prioritizing understanding your financial picture.

[C]

Yeah. And I, earlier this year I went back and actually bought a physical calendar again because I found the same thing. Like, I definitely believe in measurement and that's what I think. You know, a lot of people like about five is like, do you have a number? You could track it. You just know. But it's sometimes the intangibles. And I think what you're talking about is creating a way to measure some of the more kind of intangible experiences. And that can be as little for me as having it written on a calendar. And so now where I'm at, I brought my calendar and I'm going to plot out and I've made kind of a commitment to myself of like, I'm going to do X amount of social activities and kind of like sit in the potential discomfort of going somewhere by myself in a potentially awkward situation because I want to have those experiences. And the art of writing it down and seeing a four week calendar of that has been really helpful for me to say, okay, you know, I'm going to the soccer game tonight because they're not having another one and the rest of the year. Right. And so it's like I'm going to choose to take action on that.

[B]

And it's all about our priorities. Right. You know, having fun and adventure and friendship should not be whatever is left over at the end in terms of your energy. It has to be something that you prioritize and budget for. Just like you would budget, you know, your finances, you have to budget your energy. And by prioritizing fun and fitness and adventure and friendship, then you're able to actually do those things because you're, you know, paying yourself first to do an analogy with 5.

[A]

Yeah, I like that. And I also like something you mentioned earlier, which was basically stacking some of these things together. Right. So each individual thing we do in life does not have to be a discrete item. Right. Like, I recently met up with my friend Chris, who has been on the podcast a number of times, and we grabbed coffee at a new coffee place, which was fun in and of itself, but then we decided to walk around this really nice walkable community that I'm in. And after the fact, he sent me a text and he's like, how about next time we just skip the coffee and we go someplace new and just walk around? It was great. And that way we can walk for an hour and a half, we can explore somewhere new, and we can still have the great conversation, and then we're probably, what, five miles into a walk at that point, 10,000 plus steps in. That was a really cool. That was just a neat text. And we wouldn't have learned that, really, until we decided, hey, all right, we're done with coffee, but we don't want to be done hanging out. Let's just walk around for another 15, 20 minutes. That was just a cool way to stack things together.

[B]

Yeah. And honestly, I think that a lot of that sort of stuff has come up for me. I stopped drinking alcohol, like three years ago, and it used to be it's so easy in our social lives to do such boring things. We're just going to go and sit at the same brewery and have a beer. And now that that is less appealing to me. That's, I think, really, when some of, like, being so excited about all these different, interesting, more fun experiences happen because you have just more energy to do more interesting and novel things than just sitting around.

[A]

Yeah. Okay. I love this. We're going to go back to the main adventure list, and I'm trying to. To distinguish here between little adventures, which we've covered. Now, going back to the big list, the list of 20 that we talked about, or really the adventure list, I'm going to call it that. So, Emily say, at least as I'm understanding the story, Emily W. Came up with these four categories, and then you worked off of that. But first, I want you to correct me if I'm wrong on that, but just to touch again real quick on these four levels. So level one is essentially go do the cool thing, like tours, for example, see the pyramids. Level two is classes or retreats. Like Emily said, take an Egyptology class in for a week in Cairo. Level 3 is longer stay slow, travel perhaps with some learning or experiences, but no outside responsibility. Your time is yours. And then level four is a work or volunteer commitment so, for instance, take a job with an archeological dig for three months. So I'm cribbing here off of Emily W. Sheet, so I'm not doing this on the fly. So those are the four levels. So if you're listening to this now and you want to sit down and brainstorm this list, that is really the starting point, these four levels to get as. As a framework. But Emily C. Okay, now you have this as a framework. You just went through this whole concept. There are going to be obviously tens upon tens of thousands of people listening to this podcast, probably hundreds of thousands who are going to say, hey, I'd like to try something like this. But, okay, I now know roughly where to get started. But you just did this. How did you do it? Where did you go from there? You had these levels, but what did the next couple of hours look like to you?

[C]

Yeah, so for me, it started with just brain dumping. Like, how can I get the creative juices flowing? Because like. Like, we've been talking about constraints. You can create these artificial constraints in your head or the one day or the some days or things like that. And for me, it was super helpful to brain dump all of those out. And then you can kind of stack rank them, you can kind of order them, or you can put them into the categories and say, okay, I want to go work on a dude ranch for three months in Montana. Okay, that's not in the cards right now. What is something I can do that is like two or three levels back for that? And so for effectively each of these things, you can create some columns and you can kind of slide them around. And if something sits in category three or category four, you should probably have something to the left of that for category one and category two to see how you can try it on for size earlier and see if you can learn faster. If that is something like, you know, the case study the other week the gentleman was talking about he wanted to be a teacher, and he's like, okay, well, I taught a little while ago and I didn't love it, right? But I think I'm going to like it more now. And so the conversation we were having back and forth was, how can you learn faster before making a major career and lifestyle change to see if you still like that. And so that's what this is. It's brain dump. Everything. Put them into categories, shift left.

[A]

Hmm. Okay, got it. So now, how much of this at this point is. Is it purely dreaming or is there any editing going on? Or is it just straight like brain.

[C]

Dump for me, I. We're all so good at telling ourselves no. And I don't know if it was the financial feminist or one of these podcasts, but somebody said don't be the person to tell yourself no. Right. And so give yourself permission to dream as big as you want to dream. Life will have a way of adding in constraints. You can map out constraints around these things, but start with the ordering of what are the things that, like, you know, when you're 80 years old, everybody talks about the regrets that you'll have. You're not going to regret the things that you did, you're going to regret the things that you didn't do. And I think you put included in your newsletter episode this week. It's like these prompts about what are the things you think you're going to regret not doing. Put those at the top of your list. And how can you shift left some of those experiences to start trying them on and see if these long held dreams or aspirations or things that you've had are in fact things that you think you're going to like? Because what we all talk about with Phi is you hit this number and then you get to start living maybe the life you thought you wanted to live, you don't actually want to live. Or to Emily's point, maybe some sort of like really cool physical activity, like acro yoga or bungee workouts or something is really cool. And you actually do want to do more of that. And so how can you, how can you experiment more? How can you order and then just try it?

[A]

Yeah. This is great. So talk to me about. I know you, Emily C. Are undertaking a bunch of mini experiments or certainly have been talk about something you've done.

[C]

Yeah, so I grew up going to the beach every summer. We'd go down to like Nags Head. Like that was what we did, which was great. Like, it was a really cool way to spend time with family. But I had always kind of like had this like traveling bug. But I was always afraid, right? Like, as I didn't have a partner that could go with me solo, traveling wasn't something that people did around me. And so again, it's like who you surround yourself with is kind of what your normal becomes. And I've slowly been kind of expanding my network. And really this year it's just like you always just stayed in a hotel. And so I was like, what if I stay in a hostel, right? Like, some people have had really great hostel stories, some people have really bad, hostile stories. But I'm like, you know, at this point in my life, I'm in my early 30s. Like, I don't care about staying in a hostel. It's like a great way to meet people. And I was like, what if I try that? And so I put kind of out into the world back in January, I was like, I want to go to Portugal this year. I'm probably going to go ride horses. Anybody want to go? And not three weeks later, a friend posted that she was going to a hot yoga retreat in Portugal. And I was like, I mean, same, same. I should just go do that. So, mind you, I don't do hot yoga. I am not a yogi. And so I ended up reaching out to my friend that I haven't seen in 10 years who lives in Florida. And I was like, you care if I come? And she's like, no, this would be great. She's like, do you want to travel on either side? And I was like, sure. She's like, let's go to the Azores. And I was like, what's that? So the Azores are the Hawaii of the east Hawaii of the Atlantic. And so we ended up spending five days in the Azores staying in a hostel. The only issue we had was adjusting the thermostat was because the Spanish girls were warmer than we were, so we were sweating. But I had this, like, incredible experience. Went to the yoga retreat, and then kind of roamed around Portugal for another four or five days with two other complete strangers and a rental car. And so I've just been more willing to just kind of expand and send it. And I was at Camp 5 this summer, and my friend that I ended up going to Portugal with messaged me, and she said, hey. She's like, do you know anywhere I could stay around the area for two weeks with my dogs? And I was like, what if you stay at my house and I go stay at your house in Florida for two weeks? And then, long story short, I was like, well, what if I stayed for, like, four weeks and just got an Airbnb? So that's where I'm at. And so I. I've just been kind of willing to say, okay, like, yes, and Right. How can I make this more of an experience? What is something that fits within the current constraints that I have? Both, you know, physical constraints, like things that are actually real about your job and mental constraints. Right. The stories you told yourself about traveling solo or whatever it is. And so I've been kind of building this muscle of driving 12 and a half hours with my dog. I'd never traveled with him before. And so I've just been kind of practicing for the last few months.

[A]

This is great. I absolutely love the idea of just. Of practicing, of experimenting, of just doing right. As you said, like, the constraints make it fun. And why not just say yes? It's so easy. It is so easy to reflexively say no to everything. And I think what you both have spent the last hour telling us is we can not only dream, but we can do. We can actually make this happen. And it's not that hard. You both are living normal lives on the face of it, but really extraordinary lives because you've been intentional about it. And I think that's. That's just so cool. So, Emily W. I wanted to double back to you as we kind of wind to a close. Here is. Okay, so you came up with this list. You have these levels. Can you give us some? I know you gave one or two examples, but, like, what are the next things for you? Like, which springs to mind. I don't want to get too down in the weeds to list everything, but, like, give people a little more flavor for, like, how are you thinking about using this? Because you've been doing this for a while now. Like, how are you thinking about doing this? As you think about the hundred days you're going to travel in 2026. Sure.

[B]

So I think for me, what's really great about the list is not that it's 20. I think it's important for you to brainstorm 20, but then it's what rises to the top. What are you most excited about? So there's like five or six things that came up that I've taken action on. And so the one that is the soonest is I'm going to a intensive on learning about goat cheese and making an aging goat cheese. Was. I leave for that next week, which will be really fun. But there's lots of, you know, different kind of approaches that you can take to it. And it's also, this is not a to do list. I am in no way committing to doing all 20 of these things. It's just what is coming up and then what am I really excited about and how do you kind of go from there? The level four trip that I'm most excited about for next year is running a bookshop in Scotland. And I did some ancestry work. I have a lot of, like, ancestry in Scotland. So I'm going to run this bookshop for two weeks and then go to the different places where I have different family and do some hiking and Stuff. So I'm really excited about that trip in terms of how I'm thinking about travel. It naturally kind of divides up where I'm staying about 25 nights for free in a Hyatt, which is incredible. About 25 nights for free in other ways. So I joined trusted house sitters this year and spent two weeks taking care of a dog on the Upper east side, going to Broadway shows. I had a wonderful time. And then about half are stays that I'm paying for.

[A]

So, okay, if I'm listening to this, I'm saying, this is awesome. I love it. But I feel the constraints too much, which are, I have some flexibility, I have some resources, but I still feel like, okay, I can only travel for three weeks a year. I want to go to Disney World or I want to go to Hawaii. I want to do the traditional stuff. I don't like. I love the idea of the goat cheese and the archaeological dig. But, like, I guess, Emily W. You're not trying to convince anybody. Obviously, that's not the question I want to ask you. But you've done all of this. You've traveled for years, you've done the traditional stuff, and now you're doing, certainly over the last number of years, you're doing more of these adventures. Can you compare in your own life? Because you know that there's someone out there listening to this saying, like, yeah, I've only got two weeks. Like, how can I spend three to five days of those doing goat cheese?

[B]

Right? So I think it's all about the memory dividends, right? And so it's about the experiences that you're having and the people that you're meeting. And one of the things that I'm excited about for goat cheese is it's at this folk school that has. They have all of these different craft classes, and you can take blacksmithing or painting or basket weaving, all these different things. And they have a cafeteria, and they. They provide all of your meals. So you don't have to worry about your meals, but how interesting are the people that you're going to meet that you get to spend a week with? And, you know, maybe it'll just be interesting people to talk to, but maybe it'll be these friendships that continue on through that. And that's a different experience than what you're having as you're doing the go to Disney World and see it things, which is also really fun. So it's all about your priorities. But I would say that as you're. You're able to create that in Little adventures, too. You don't always have to do the bigger things. You can do the smaller things locally to have those sorts of experiences. But the more you say yes, the more you'll want to say yes because it's so fun.

[A]

Yes. And clearly that was no disrespect to goat cheese. I actually went to a. When I was in Maui, I went to a goat cheese place, and it was awesome. And this also ties back to, like, be weird, do fun stuff, do something different. Right? Like, it doesn't always have to be, I'm going to go to the Atlantis in the Bahamas, or I'm going to go to London this year. Maybe I can do something different.

[B]

And we haven't really talked about my job much, you know, but the restraint that I have with my job is that I need to check in every day so I'm able to travel, but I need to do a little bit of work. And so I used to be frustrated by that. But, you know, you don't need to, you know, be jealous that I have this flexibility. You can think about, well, what are the restraints that you have? Maybe you have when you're able to be fully off, you're able to be fully off. So, you know, it kind of all evens out.

[C]

Yeah. And the thing that I want to add, too, is, like, the things that we're talking about right now all have massive time commitments. Right? Like, and, Brad, I think that that's what you're getting at is that, like, okay, you get three weeks. You get to choose how you spend that three weeks. And, like, going to Disney is not the wrong answer, Right? Like, whatever you want to do is the right answer. But I still think that there's a lot of value in sitting down and, okay, writing out your dream list, like, your life list, and then shifting things left. And how can you learn more of that? But then I think the other piece that has been this just, like, underlying theme is how can you interrogate the beliefs that you hold about yourself and the beliefs that you hold about your constraints and review that with some five friends or with some friends who see you sometimes better than you can see yourself? And I call it the gift of awareness. As I have some friends last year in October that I was visiting, and they're like, that's weird. Like, why do you do that? You know? And at the moment, it was one of those things that, like, I was shedding identities and something was really difficult to hear. But now I look back and I think that was actually one of the massive Catalysts that allowed me to make some really big decisions in the coming weeks and months. And that's where it's like, okay, maybe you're not at the point where you. You have a job that doesn't have location flexibility, right? Maybe you're not at some of those points. Maybe you don't have the disposable income. That's fine. I think the thing that we're talking about is how can you take action? How can you confront the things now? How can you go for a walk on the weekends with friends, but walk somewhere new, Right? Don't walk in the same place. How can you put yourself in these places to have these experiences with different people that create novelty in your life and not just another day has gone by that is going to blend in with itself for the last 10 years. And I think that is something that is approachable to everybody anywhere, wholeheartedly.

[A]

Agree. And it's funny because I told you both, I jot down a ton of notes when I'm recording a podcast. I have more direct quotes from this episode than I think any other one that I've had in many, many, many years. And, yeah, I mean, we've said, how can you create novelty in your life? Right? Like, that is critical. Like the bias toward action critical, Right? And you're learning more about yourself. And I think that's. That's the fun part. And I think that's the distinction that I hope really everybody leaves here with, which is, yes, it would be lovely if we all had unlimited time off and unlimited resources and we could do everything we wanted. But there are constraints, as we've talked about many, many times this episode, and I think those make it fun. And they also let you experiment in small ways, which both Jillian talks about and Jess from the Fine Ears has talked about on the podcast also. Sometimes you just need to try and you learn things about yourself, right? We've talked about multiple yogas here, right? The acro yoga and hot yoga. Like, I did something crazy with my daughters when I went to London. We did a trapeze class, and it was fantastic. It was one of the coolest things ever. And it wound up that of the 10 people in this class, the three of us were probably the three best in the class. And, like, we were able to do this fun, advanced technique that they only let the three of us try, basically. And now my daughters want to try another class. There's one in Washington, D.C. where you can do, like, the level two chapes. And it's like, this is something I never, I'm a 46 year old guy. Like I would have never thought I'd do trapeze but it was really great and it was, it was that fun adventure that. What's the downside? I forget what it cost, but let's say $50. It was $50 and a couple of hours. That's the same thing. You can do an almost unlimited number of things in your metro area, your state, your region that are going to take you under a day. It doesn't have to be I'm going to fly to Egypt and stay here or I'm going to fly to Montana and do an archeological thing. Those are amazing things. Those are absolutely. Those would build a wonderful life. But you can test small and then when it comes time to having a week long adventure, you have a little more information about yourself. Right. Like self knowledge is really critical in life. And I think you both have painted this beautiful picture of, of both doing this as a self learning process but also living life with friends. And I think it can be both. And that's the beautiful thing.

[B]

Absolutely. And as you come up with all these really fun things, invite people, invite people that you've already hung out with. Invite people that you haven't. Because as you have these really fun ideas like what I did today was with a five friend. Robin came to the gather book and foraging walk thing and that was just such a fun way to spend an hour or two on a Saturday. That's beautiful. But do it with your five friends. I think there's a quote about that from some economy thing. Five better with friends.

[A]

Oh, Diana's famous, famous quote you hear many times at economy and it is true. FI is better with friends. And I think that's why it was great. We met up at a local choose a VI event. There are local choose a VI events going on all across the world. So if you are not part of a group, go to choose a buy.com local and it's free. Of course, it will always be free. Please join and reach out and be vulnerable. Be open, maybe step outside your comfort zone and you're going to be amazed at what comes on the other side of it. I think all three of us are a testament to that. So Emily and Emily, thank you both for being here. This has been extraordinary. I said to you before we hit record that we could probably talk for five hours and do three to five different episodes. I suspect we're going to do a follow up or two, but this seems like a perfect place to close out episode one. Part one of our chat. So thank you both for being here.

[B]

Thanks, Brad.

[C]

Yeah, awesome. Thank you.

[A]

All right, well, thank you for listening. Thanks for being part of the Choose a Fight community and use this as a call to action. That bias towards action that Emily mentioned. This is so important in life. This is the time they just gave you this amazing framework both for the little adventures, but for the bigger adventures with those four levels. Really take the time after you listen to this podcast and think about this and write them down. I've seen them now on digital paper and it makes a difference and it emboldens you to take action. Thank you for being part of the choose of a Community and until next time, thank you for listening to today's show and for being part of the choose of I community. If you haven't already, the best ways to get involved are first subscribe to the podcast. So you're listening to this on a podcast player. Just hit subscribe and then subscribe to my weekly newsletter. I actually sit down every Monday and write this by hand and I send it out Tuesday morning. So just head over to choosefi.com subscribe and it's really, really easy to get on the the newsletter list right there and I would greatly appreciate it. It's the best way to get in touch with me. You can actually just hit reply to any of those emails and it comes directly to my inbox. So that's the way that I keep a pulse of the community and how we keep this the ultimate crowdsource personal finance show. And finally, if you're looking to join an in real life community, we have choose a VI local groups in 300 plus cities all around the world. So head to choose a vi.com local and you'll find a list of all of Those cities in 20 plus countries all across the world. And if you're just getting started with VI or you have a family member or friend who you think would be interested, two easy ways choose a VI episode 100 is kind of our welcome to the FI community and even though it's a couple years old at this point, it still stands up and it's a really great just starting point to get an understanding of what is financial independence. What are we doing here? Why are we looking to live a more intentional life where we save money and use it as a springboard to live a better life. And then choose a VI created a Financial Independence 101 course that's entirely free. Just head to choose a vi.com/fi101 and again thanks for listening.