← ChooseFI | Financial Independence Podcast
ChooseFI | Financial Independence Podcast
Mini-Retirements: Test Driving Financial Independence | Ep 561
00:50:16
Brad Barrett welcomes Jillian Johnsrud, author of Retire Often, as they delve into the transformative concept of mini retirements. Jillian shares her insights on how taking intentional breaks from work can enrich life experiences, enhance...
Loading summary
Transcript42 lines
- [00:00]
A
Hello and welcome to Choose a fi. Today on the show we have our good friend Jillian Johnsrud, who's back with a new book. The book is Retire Often, and she's been on the show previously talking about mini retirements. And this is a concept that has really taken hold in the FI community, largely because of Gillian's tireless work of bringing this to our attention. It's really critical and I think it'll help us design a better life generally, especially on our path to fi. It used to be FI was this one monolithic thing where we would just save, save, save. We'd wake up, we'd hit a number and that would be that. And what next? Was the question that a lot of us asked. And I think what's really cool about the concept of many retirements is this helps you practice. It helps you practice all along the journey of what is next? What do I want my life to look like? I think this is really critically profound and I think you're really going to enjoy this episode. And with that, welcome to choose fi. Jillian, welcome back to the show. It is always good to see you.
- [01:07]
B
It is always so lovely to see you.
- [01:10]
A
Yeah, this should be fun. So we, you and I talk quite often offline. Yes. So I was going through, I think the last time you were on the show was episode 451, where we actually talked about many retirements, unsurprisingly. And I listened to that episode this morning and A was great. B, it was a nice overview of the whole conceptual framework of mini retirements. But you actually floated. Oh, I'm thinking about writing a book. I think I'm in the early stages of it. And lo and behold, that book has now come to fruition. It's publishing. Isn't that amazing? Oh, man. So it's coming out September 9th and it's called Retire Often. Yeah, very cool. So, yeah, it was neat. Kind of hearing the blast from the past. So for everyone who's interested, I think I'm not going to give you a ton of homework, but go back and listen to episode 451. It's absolutely fantastic. Mini retirements, thanks to Jillian, have really become a central piece of the modern financial independence movement. I think to me, two of the biggest changes in FI have been the concept of coast fi, which our friends over at the Fine Ears have helped coin and popularize, and many retirements, which. Or the brainchild of Jillian in our community. And yeah, it's really neat to see these two concepts evolve and become essential and really become things that people are thinking about and then implementing. Okay, enough preamble, Jillian. So episode 451, people can get a real good overview, but let's give them the quick 2 minute or 5 minute overview now. So what is a mini retirement? What are the absolute fundamental underpinnings of mini retirement?
- [02:48]
B
So I have kind of three, three elements that make up a mini retirement. The first one is that it's a month or longer and a month can be really powerful. So like I always encourage people, if you're scared of like a year or something, like let's just try a month. So first up, a month or longer, stepping away from your nine to five, stepping away from your primary career. Obviously there's lots of other cool things you could do, but. But having that break from the regular way you earn money. And then the third one is to focus on something that's meaningful and potentially enjoyable for you. So that does distinguish it from like I was laid off for a month and I was miserable and sat around the house and like watched Netflix and bemoaned my existence. I might not count that as mini retirement. It sounds depressing.
- [03:36]
A
Yeah, that doesn't sound great. That doesn't sound great at all. Okay, so mini retirement is a very intentional decision where instead of basically as you talk about, instead of waiting 40 years, right, instead of a 40 year working career and then hopefully getting maybe 20 years of retirement, maybe hopefully, hopefully in good health instead of doing that, this ultra delayed gratification, you are taking these small one month or hopefully longer. So maybe not so small, but very intentional breaks intra career.
- [04:10]
B
Yeah. And the reason I called the book retire often versus take one massively epic, wonderful mini retirement is that it can be a mindset that we practically implement throughout our careers. If people in their 20s or 30s say, you know what, instead of working insanely hard for the next 18 years and hitting Fi and then retiring forever, what if I sprinkled in a one month break here, a three month break there, a six month break and then by the time you got to Phi, you have this handful of incredible experiences that you were able to have along the way and hopefully lean into those seasons of life when you did take them. Because life changes and can be really unexpected and those things might not hang around until you become Phi.
- [05:05]
A
Yeah, that phrase, seasons of life, that's something that you've brought into my own life, frankly. And I think of it quite often because yeah, there are these seasons of life that some we know about. Okay. My youngest kid is 13 and she's not going to be 13 forever. It's literally one time ever, and that's that. Or even just she's under 18 for one time ever, and it's five more years and she's still in the house. Right. And then there are some that you don't even know maybe at the time that it is a season. And I think you need to be cognizant of those. How do you think about the latter version of those seasons of life and how you would describe that to somebody? Because I think it's hard sometimes to see it in the moment and you only recognize in hindsight. But I suspect this is actually something that plays into many retirements more than some people would necessarily consider.
- [06:01]
B
Yeah. And you're right. There are some that we logically know. Our kids will be young, our health, our preferences will be in one kind of state. Our parents will be young enough to hike across Ireland with us. And we know this won't last forever. And then there's other things that we have perhaps an artificial sense of permanence. We think, well, of course this thing will always be here. Of course I'll always have this opportunity. And life can be very unexpected, can be very unpredictable. And it's tough to say, well, I, maybe I should do these things now, because life might take a left turn in the future and I might not have this chance again. But the reality is life might take a left turn in the future and you might not have this chance again. And it was something. It was a really deep, profound, difficult lesson I learned when our oldest passed away because I had taken a mini retirement. It was emotionally one of the most difficult mini retirements I took because it was in between jobs and I'd kind of gotten laid off and I had this weird energy and, like, just wasn't feeling excited or optimistic about, you know, doing a cool adventure. But we did. And, you know, we were living in D.C. we took our kiddo to Glacier. We had this amazing trip. Honestly, it was the best. It was the best trip that we've had that we had ever had with him just being in the park and seeing mountain goats and biking through Apgar and kayaking and hiking, and it was just really lovely. And then we moved here eight years later. And it can be easy to be like, oh, my gosh, well, now you live here and he's going to be visiting all the time for holidays. And you would have a hundred more opportunities to take him into Glacier. And he passed away two months later just with no warning. And I was like, you have that moment of, oh, that was the only chance we had. That was the only opportunity. And I had no idea at that moment that this is. This is the only opportunity. And, you know, and I've, you know, me and you have talked about this a lot offline. But even with the ending of my marriage, I thought that there was a permanence. I had no idea when we were taking all of these incredible trips with our kids and they were little and, like, being so in love, I thought, I'm going to have this forever. I'm going to have a thousand opportunities. And we had a thousand dreams and a thousand plans. And I didn't know in that moment, like, this is, this is the moment to give my kids this incredible experience of, like, being with both of their parents and being on these fun adventures and these wonderful memories. And I'm so glad I did all those things. Like, those mini retirements are even more special because I know I can't. I'll be able to give them cool new memories in the future, different ones. But I didn't know that that Season of Life was also going to end. So I think it. Sometimes we're more motivated by loss than we are upside. You know, that's a more driving factor. And it's, it's easy to perceive that loss of, like, I'm going to lose time at my job or I'm going to lose income or I'm going to lose my savings, but you might also be losing opportunities that aren't going to come again. And it sounds strange, but sometimes I try to leverage that fear of regret as powerfully as, like, the fear of, like, disaster. You know, what if I can't find another job? Or what if I, like, retire later? Because while one is a possibility, you know, maybe you do retire a year later. There's also this other very real possibility that the Season of Life that you thought was very permanent might come to an end.
- [09:52]
A
Yeah, that is, that is deeply profound on so many levels. And I think leveraging that fear of regret, it's, it's interesting, right, because it's funny. We actually talked about the human operating System on episode 451, and we know loss aversion is something that's deeply embedded in humanity in that we fear those losses of X more than we. Much more in many cases than we think about the upside of something. And like you said, just kind of reframing it from, okay, it's easy to focus on what I can tangibly lose, what's clearly in front of me. Right. The Job, the savings, but you're not considering in many cases most of us aren't that very real loss of opportunity, right? And you said, I'm so glad I did all those things. I'm so glad I did all those things. Right. And Gillian, it's interesting because I think we, especially to the financial independence community, we need to be clear that we are balancing sometimes contradictory things. If not contradictory, there's an intersection of that fomo, the fear of missing out and also the very real necessity for long term thinking and the very real necessity for saving a significant amount of money. Now neither you nor I think those are mutually exclusive, right? Like it's not one or the other, but there is an intersection here because you can't just say yes to everything, right? Because like I'm so glad I did all those things. So I did a hundred x those things and I have no money left over and know then I can never get to five. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on this intersection because there is a very real intersection that people need to consider. But I'm falling more on, on your side of like, hey, this is a finite life and we need to be really mindful of not missing out on years and decades of I'm so glad I did all those things.
- [11:49]
B
I think it's important to have this self awareness of where do you fall on that spectrum? And I think in the FI community on that spectrum we tend to be more long term thinkers. There is less impulsive spending just as a character trait. So yeah, if I'm talking to people that every night they're going out to bars and going out to eat and like spending a hundred, two hundred bucks a night and they have credit card debt. We need to think more long term. And sometimes that long term even as like if you do a little bit less of this, like you could take a month off in two years. Like if you think not even 40 years down the road, but if you think two years down the road you could save up these kind of mediocre experiences and trade it in for something really incredible and profound. But if you fall on more the other side of the spectrum, it's important, it's important to get the best of both worlds. It's important to find that balance and to think about it in a way that moves you closer to a meaningful life. And one of those tools that can be helpful for people is because a common fear is like, well, what if I hit Phi later? You know, what if I become phi at 48 versus 47 what if I become Phi at the horrors I know Dun dun, dun. What if I become phi at 67 versus 64 and I have these three extra years that I end up working? And I say, okay, so let's think about this from that perspective. You're 67, and you've worked an extra three years, but you are looking at, you know, the next, hopefully 30 years of retirement. Now, you could have retired at 64, but now you're 67, and you look back on your life and you're like, okay, but in my 20s, I. I did this really incredible trip through Europe with all of my college friends, and now they're all old and their hips are broken, and, like, they have jobs, and we could never do that again. We slept in youth hostels, and it was incredible. And then in my late 20s, I met my spouse, and before we had kids, we spent three months in Central America, and we learned Spanish, and we had this great experience. And then when my kids were young, we did this epic road trip with them. And, you know, before. Before my parents retired, I did this bike trip through Croatia. We spent a month doing that. And then, you know, my kids were in high school. Like, we did this thing. And if you look back and you have these seven experiences that, like, we talked about, if you waited till you were 64, none of those are accessible to you anymore. None of those are possible. All of those seasons of life passed you by. Now your parents have passed away. Now your kids have grown. Now your college friends all have jobs and spouses and broken hips. Like, how would you feel about that? Yeah, you worked 64 to 67. But you can look back and say, but I did all of the things when I had the chance. I did all of those things that people wait till they're 64 to do but maybe can't actually do when they're 64 because their kids aren't 7 years old and they don't want to do 10 national parks with you anymore.
- [14:59]
A
Yeah. And, yeah, I did all those things, and I had a rich life. Yeah, right. Not just a couple more tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars on my spreadsheet or something, or when I log into whatever it is that I use to track my money. I had a rich life, and I think that's really important. And, yeah, I love how you said a couple minutes ago that really, it's who you're talking to. Right. So for. For someone who is already going out every weekend and spending money, you said, like, okay, hey, do you want to Trade those mediocre experiences for something profound. I think clearly most people in the FI community are not on that side. They're much more on the, hey, I'm going to put everything off for a later date. And I'd like to believe that this podcast has helped move the needle a little bit in that regard. Certainly from the old Days of Fi, the circa 2013-2017 Days of Fi and really has focused on what people value on living life, on living a wonderful life. But, but I'm not silly enough to think that that, that has changed wholesale. I think a lot of people really do struggle with that and, and yeah, giving people the license to understand, like, hey, there are seasons of life. And living a rich life is really important. Living a life rich of experiences is really important. And there is a way to balance that. And I think that that's what's coming through loud and clear from you. And I think, I think people are getting it. I know I've gotten tons of emails from people who talk about mini retirements. I, I put them on my newsletter as often as I can and the 1% win. So hopefully, Jillian, you see them every now and again. And yeah, it's really, it's really cool. This is resonating with people. Thanks for listening to Choose a VI and for all your support of our mission here. The absolute best way to support Choose a Buy is when you sign up for your next rewards credit card to use our cards page at choose a buy.com cards or 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. So if you want more background, if you, the listener, if you want more background, just get Jillian's book. Retire often. Okay, so it comes out September 9th. We're not going to go through line by line. The book here and all the four steps and everything you need to do. Get the book or ask for your public library to purchase it and grab it from there. Go back and listen to episode 451, do all those things. But Jillian, I think why don't we focus on like one or two, like really meaty things that people can get and take away. So before we hit record, you said something that was just so beautiful that I wrote it down like in the moment. And you said if early retirement is something you want, you should probably practice it, right? Like, you work out the kinks. You deal with the logistics so you have the confidence to fully retire when the time comes and you are speaking to the financial independence community. So I think this is, this is pretty perfect. Like, let's just, let's really dive deep in this. If early retirement is something you want, you should probably practice it.
- [17:59]
B
It's a funny, it's a funny mindset that happens in the FI community. When I talk to people who are planning on retiring early and they're like, you know, they have their fine number and they've got like the number of years left. They're like, it's going to happen when I'm 42 and, and here's my number. And I'm like, have you, you know, have you done a mini retirement? No, no, no, no, no. I'm just, I'm just head down, I'm pushing there. Like I'm so close. Like I just want to get fully five and then I'm going to do it. And I kind of compare it to like running a marathon where if someone's like, I'm going to run this marathon and it's going to be awesome. And I've been listening to podcasts about running marathons and I've been reading books about running marathons. And you're like, oh, that's cool. Like, have you, have you done like a 5k race? And they're like, no, no, no. Nope. That would be a distraction from actually running a marathon. I don't need any practice because I've listened to the podcast and I just intuitively know that I will be awesome at running marathons. I've been working at a desk for a very long time. I've done no running, but I just feel it in my bones. I'm going to be great at this and it's going to be great. Day one. And those are the people you're like, well, that doesn't make any sense at all.
- [19:09]
A
That is a terrible strategy. Terrible.
- [19:12]
B
And those are the people, you know, like mile 17. Like they're being carried off in a stretcher because they have leg cramps. And I've seen this so much in the FI community, like, and I have empathy. But I'm sure you've met a lot of people. They pushed really hard, they hit that Phi number, they retired. Woo hoo. Everything's gonna be awesome. I'm gonna be awesome at this. And six months later, they have another job because it was uncomfortable. They, and it was tricky and they never practiced and they're shocked that they're not good at doing the thing they never practiced. And it can be very disillusioning if you've given up the last 10 years of your life to be really good at working, thinking that you'll be really good at retirement, and then it turns out that you're just really good at working and not really good at retirement because that's all you've done. And so I always encourage people, like, if you want to run a marathon, that's amazing. And you should absolutely do that and you should practice along the way, because as humans, I mean, newsflash, we're usually not good at things that we've never practiced. If you've never done it before, like, why do we expect to be awesome at it? And there's a lot of fear around taking a mini retirement. But if you're scared to take a month off of work, if you're scared to take three months off of work, and you think, but taking 40 years off will be easy breezy, like, deal with the fear in like this little teeny, tiny low risk package, and then you'll get better at dealing with it. When you're facing a 40 year retirement, you won't get stuck in that one more year syndrome as, as profoundly. But it is, if you practice it, you will get better at it.
- [20:57]
A
Yeah, I hear you. So I love the quote, not really good at retirement. That's amazing. Which to me essentially means you're not really that great at life, or at least a life where you have 16 hours a day free. Right. To be, to be perfectly charitable is okay. You got really good at work.
- [21:17]
B
Yeah.
- [21:17]
A
And like you said, you got really good at saving. I mean, all jokes aside, this is critical stuff. Right. Like, especially for people on the path to fight. Like, you need to design a life where you have a savings rate that will get you to a point where work is optional. Okay, that's wonderful. And that's really, really critical. But lest you think that's enough, Jillian and I are here to tell you it is not enough. And it is not at all. You need to really think about a lifestyle design. And I think that's. That to me, is what's so important. Right. Like, as Jillian, you're saying you have to practice.
- [21:47]
B
Yeah. That's an interesting point. And challenge is that people get really good at saving and they enjoy it and it's fulfilling and it's satisfying. They're good at earning money, they're good at investing money. Being good at investing money does not necessarily mean you're good at pulling money out of investments. You're good at watching the number go up. Are you good at watching the number go down? That's a Different skill set. And why not practice it for a month? Like, why not watch the number go down $10,000? Because if you can't handle that, how are you going to handle the 60,000 or the 40,000 when you take the first year off watching that brokerage, like that big withdrawal, if you've never withdrawn money, you've only put money in.
- [22:34]
A
Yeah. Gillian, this is so timely. So we were actually recording this in June, a couple months beforehand. So what's interesting is I just recorded an episode with Scott and Mindy over at Bigger Pockets Money about the phrase that they've popularized to some degree, which is the middle class trap. Now this episode is, I think, going to come out June 20th. And the TLDR is I got, I got a really kind of a little emotional on this one. I got, I let a lot of my strong feelings come out. I think the middle class trap is much ado about nothing, frankly. And I think it is very overblown. But that all said, I think when people feel things, it's not our job to tell them their feelings are not accurate. But I think what, at least how I think my job is, is to say, okay, look, I understand you're scared, but here are the ways that we can help overcome that. And interestingly, one of the things that Scott talked about in the episode was a poll that he did on YouTube where essentially it was something crazy. Like 80% of the people who responded basically said, or might have been 2/3, somewhere between 2/3 and 80% said they did not genuinely believe they would be able to pull money out of equities or sell stocks or mutual funds ever. So I mean, Jillian, that's, that's crazy because that essentially renders useless or moot the entire FI strategy. It's like, okay, well then you need to cash flowing properties or you need to buy businesses that split off income. But like, that's beside the point. You all can go back and listen to the episode. It's pretty good. But that all said, I love your concept of, hey, not only is taking a one month mini retirement really good for the life aspect, but you just hit on something that I never would have considered. It's really good for the finances aspect as well because you, for the first time probably in your adult life have no money coming in. Then you gotta sell. Then you gotta figure something out like that's, or, or at the very least, you're gonna see your bank account balance go down by like you said, five to $10,000 probably. That's super interesting.
- [24:42]
B
It's an important skill to practice because for a lot of people who've been five for a long time, it does get easier. Like, it was hard the first time I pulled money out of my brokerage. It was hard the first time I sold, like, Roth IRAs. And now I'm like, click, click, click, cash in my account. Like, yeah, no problem. But I've been doing it for 10 years, so I'm better at it. Like, it doesn't. Doesn't stress me out. And I talk about how this practice can give you confidence partly because it gives you the experience. It's really tough to be confident about things that we've never actually experienced. It's theoretical confidence. So one of those things is, you know, there's this idea of, well, you know, I think I'm five, I think I've hit my number. You know, maybe I, like, maybe I could go back to work if things don't work out, or maybe I could, like, find a different way to earn money. But if you've never actually practiced that, if you don't have that lived experience, it can be tough to have to let it give you enough confidence for you to actually make moves in your life. Where people who've done many retirements are unemployed and they're spending money and they're not earning money, and they get the lived experience of new job opportunities showing up and new ways of making money showing up and things kind of working out and having to resist the call of, like, going back to work too soon because that dream job just happened to, like, pop up in your inbox. Or your friend called you and says, oh my gosh. One of our mutual friends, Bob, everyone knows Bob, said to me once I met him at Chautauqua. And he. And so now he always jokes he was thinking about retiring. And I was like, just take a one year mini retirement and see how it goes. Like, you don't have to commit to this forever. So every time I see him, he's like, I'm three years into my one year mini retirement or six years into my one year mini retirement. But he told me once, like, he's like, yeah, that first year, two people were constantly calling like, hey, Bob, oh my gosh. We have this project. It has your name all over it. Like, man, if you could come back, like, this would be incredible. It would really help us out. He's like, it doesn't. It doesn't have my name all over it. Like, I know you think it does. It really doesn't. My name's on other Things. But until you have those experiences of like, oh, actually there's lots of different ways to make money, you only have this hypothetical confidence that that could happen. But take a couple mini retirements, experience it, feel it, know that that's a thing. And then when you go to retire forever, you'll be like, you know, and if things don't work out, I can go do something else. Because lots of things have shown up when I haven't been working.
- [27:16]
A
Yeah. Oh, I like that. It's so easy to fall prey to the scarcity mindset. Right. Like, grip on tight. This is the only job. This job's amazing. This is the only job I could get. There's nothing else out there for me. I've been here so long, you could come up with a litany of excuses. Right. But okay, why not test that out? And Jillian, you said something in there that I just want to clarify. So mini retirement does not in any way, by definition mean you are unemployed. Because in many cases it can just be, hey, I'm taking a mini retirement from my current employer. I'm just taking a month off, two months, three months off, but I'm still employed with that employer. But there are times when a mini retirement could mean I'm between employers or I'm leaving, leaving my current job. So it can be the full spectrum of that, right?
- [28:06]
B
Yeah. So typically there's like three ways a mini retirement can happen. You negotiate it off from your employer. And I suggest doing that especially if you're looking at the one to three month range, because usually HR is equipped to handle a one to three month leave of absence. Like they have the infrastructure there. Or you can take a break in between jobs. And that's great if you want to take three months, six months, a year, usually it makes sense to do it in between jobs. And then the third thing is life can be unexpected and weird. And sometimes stuff happens and you have some time, either because you had to take a leave of absence or you lost your job, or, you know, your mom got sick and you had to go, like, get her settled in a nursing home. Like, stuff happens that you're not at your employer for a period of time. So those are kind of the unexpected, unplanned ones, which can be just as great as a planned one if you do a little bit of the legwork ahead of time so that you can really lean in and make the most of that time. But yeah, those are kind of the three ways it happens. So you might still, you might still be employed. And for people who are just starting out. If you're nervous, if you're like, I love the idea, absolutely no way I could could make it happen. Like, just try to negotiate a month off. You still have your job, you might lose a little bit of income, but you might be able to actually use some of your PTO and stuff and, like, you won't lose all your income. It's not that expensive. Like, it's very low risk, very, very potentially high reward because you can do some really cool stuff in one month. That is almost a capital investment if you think about it like a business. You make this upfront investment of time or energy or infrastructure or money in your business with the expectation that it's going to continue to increase your profitability or your efficiency for years to come. And our lives are the same way. If you take a month and make this big upfront investment in yourself, in your hobbies, in your relationships, in your personal growth, in your health, like, you'll reap those rewards for years, if not decades down the line. And then when you go to retire, you've made all these capital investments and you're starting on this amazing foundation. You're not starting your life from scratch.
- [30:20]
A
Yeah, yeah. I love that reframe of investments and also experiments. Right. Like, that's really what we're doing here. We're experimenting at life. And I think. I think it's very easy to get into a rut in life, even if your life is wonderful. And I think I would define my life in recent years as that. And it's my own fault. I wasn't experimenting with things. And I think that's, again, like, a really cool rethink on this is. Okay, yeah, let's just try something new. Let's just get out there and see what I like, what I don't like. I'm practicing.
- [30:53]
B
One of the ways early retirement or a mini retirement can kind of go off the rails to that idea of practicing is that if you do something you've never practiced or you've never expanded this, okay, there's a likelihood that you won't like it, that it won't go well, and that's really disappointing. So sometimes people have this list of, oh, my gosh, I would never be bored in early retirement. I've got like, 50 things I want to do and it's going to be awesome. And. And then they start going through that list and they're like, nope, don't like that, actually. I don't want to clean out my garage, actually. I don't Want to remodel my bathroom? Actually, I don't want to learn Spanish. Actually, I don't like going to my cousin's soccer games that much. And dealing with a high percentage of disappointment can feel very disillusioning. You can be like, oh, my gosh, I gave up all that money, I gave up that career, all that security for the stuff that isn't as fulfilling or enjoyable as I thought it was going to be. And in kind of my dark sense of humor, sometimes I think of mini retirements as, like, spread out the disappointment. Try all this stuff on this list of 50 things and cross off a bunch of the stuff that you don't like. Learn that early so you can find new things to experiment with so you can build a better list. Because you might try five things you might. You might realize you don't like three of them, but you've got two that you like. Cool. This is our new list. Go back to work, Find a couple more things you want to experiment with. Test them again. So when you get to retirement, you actually have a list that's like, it's tested, it's proven. You have the foundational work. Now, instead of starting from scratch, you're scaling these things up. Scaling up. These things, you know, are enjoyable. You know, they're meaningful. You know, you want more time with them because you've actually given them time.
- [32:44]
A
Yeah, this is really cool. And it's funny. I'm going to actually refer back to Jess from the Pioneers again. We did an episode, episode 4 72, which was the cure for the boring middle. And she talked about this lifestyle design process that was kind of like this iterative loop of identifying elements of things that you want, dreaming big, and then experimentation, and then just, hey, if something works out, great, then wonderful. Keep it on that list. If it doesn't, that's not a failure in that case. It's just you've learned something really important. And, yeah, I mean, I think how you were describing this really ties into that beautifully. I think whether people are just on the path to FI or they are truly taking many retirements on the path to fi, I think this experimentation is really, really important. So you kind of loosely referred there to, like, this list of 50. So it's like, dream big, right? Like, come up with a list of things that you think you're interested in. And like you said with the disillusionment, like, if you walk into fully FI or retirement, even traditional retirement, with some short little list of things like, this is how I'm going to spend the next 40 years of my life and they all go bad because you never tested them and you never actually realized. Like, oh, maybe I don't like sailing or maybe I don't like woodworking. I thought I would, but it just didn't work. Like, then you're going to be pretty disappointed. You're going to be profoundly disappointed. Let's be clear. But I think, Jillian, what you're advocating is, okay, these mini retirements can be this beautiful way of, of helping to bridge that gap more concretely than maybe even just like a small scale experiment. And I think it also ties into, it ties into your definition of mini retirement, right? Which is focus on something meaningful and enjoyable for you. So like when you were describing, like, oh, I went to whoever it was at soccer games, my niece or my nephew, and like, okay, well, I mean, that's all well and good, like that can be part of the 168 hours you have a week in your mini retirement. And that's great. We're not telling you to not go to your niece or nephew soccer game. But that's not really the point of the mini retirement. The point is to find something meaningful and enjoyable for you. So I'd love to hear you talk about that. But as part of this practice, like, how does someone who's listening to this today, how do they start actually making this list and start to think about that first real mini retirement? Like, what does that nuts and bolts look like? Like, are they testing one thing? Should they test? Like you just said three to five. Like, what is that Very first someone, someone wants to do the bare minimum, right? I don't mean that in a negative way, but they've got one month. They negotiated this. They're dreaming about it. It's going to happen six months from now. How do you get from here to there?
- [35:22]
B
So you do have to prioritize. Don't try to do 87 different things because none of them will go well. They just won't. And it'll be very discouraging. So for longer mini retirements, I say up to three goals, but really no more. Which is part of the reason we're retiring often because we don't have to do all 87 in one mini retirement. Like take a bunch of them, try different stuff out. But I think about, if you think about your next one, what right now feels urgent and important, like, where does that Venn diagram cross over for you and focus on those things that are urgent and important right now for your next one?
- [36:02]
A
All right, so up to Three goals. You said for a longer one, but. But yeah, the short one. Is it fair to say someone should maybe focus on one or maybe two at the most if they have a month? And so a. That's. That's my first question. And then second. So, right. The urgent and important right now, to me, the word. Yeah, urgent. Urgent. Interesting, right? Because it's like, okay, even in my own life, I'm like, I'm not sure anything's exactly urgent, but I love the word important. Like, that. That really resonates with me. So, yeah, like, again, just brass tacks. Like, what's the process? Is it like you go through your life for a month and think about things that are interesting to you and jot them down? Like if you had someone come to you, one of your. One of your clients, like Jillian. I'm lost. I know I want to take a mini retirement. I feel like I have things that I like to do in life, but maybe I'm so deep in the nuts and bolts, the everyday life that, like, I can't even see it. Like, help me design a process where I can find those one or two things that are urgent and important.
- [37:04]
B
I think there's a number of different tools that you can use that I do use. In the FI community. I would probably start by asking, like, why do you want to be Phi? Like, what did you imagine that to be? Like, what do you think will be different in your life that's so compelling when you become Phi, that you're willing to go through this whole process to get it? And maybe we can incorporate some of that in. In this small way? And for people that might be exploring kind of new career options or time with their friends and family, recovering from burnout, investing their health, like slow travel, like, there must have been some compelling reason that set you on this path. What if we do a sample size of that right now? And the urgent. I don't necessarily mean it like, like, your house is on fire urgent, but what feels pressing, what feels time sensitive? And maybe that's like, urgent is like, I'm super burned out. I'm exhausted. I can't think, I can't be creative. I should probably deal with that sooner than later. Or, you know, my kids are still in grade school, but they're going into junior high. Like, if I don't do a really big road trip or something with them now, like, I might lose that opportunity. That's urgent. Or, you know, your parents health is declining, but they might have a couple good years and you're like, If I'm going to do a fun adventure with them, these are things that I feel like have an expiration date and they're not going to wait in 10 years. Or there's other things that, you know, if you say, I want to do an around the world cruise with my friends, you could do that this year, or maybe you could do that in 30 years. Like, it's not really urgent, because it could. You could do that at any point in time. It may be important, but it doesn't necessarily need to happen next.
- [38:50]
A
Right? So that's the intersection of seasons of life. Right? Whereas something like, hey, my friends and I want to climb Mount Fuji or Kilimanjaro or something, okay? That probably, depending on your age, can't wait 30 or 40 years because of seasons of life. So, okay, I like that. So that's how I'm seeing now, how the urgent. And sometimes I can be a little too literal, I think, Jillian. So that was another example. But yeah, it's interesting, right? So focus on something meaningful and enjoyable for you. But what's cool is I think in your answer, you gave such a flavor for it that really opened my eyes in a sense of like, again with maybe like the old school, like, wanna gold star or want something, like, tangible. Like, I think that's where my mind would have went is like, okay, it's gotta be something big, like a travel or an adventure or I did X, Y and Z. Like, I here's the output, which is not the right thinking. And. And you provided a couple examples, right? Burnout. I'm overcoming burnout. Like, okay, that's really meaningful, truly meaningful. And overcoming that burnout and setting up again, because that's how I'm looking at these many retirements is I'm setting up a better life. As you said, I'm investing. Overcoming burnout is a perfect example. Another one that's tangentially related but separate as I'm seeing is like, hey, I really want to focus on my health. I want to take this one month and maybe set the cornerstones for. Here's the workout program that I'm going to implement. Here are the 15,000 steps I'm going to take a day because I know movement's really important. And like, actually making that happen, like, that's pretty darn meaningful as far as I'm concerned, is coming out of a one month with, hey, I've proven to myself that I can go to the gym three times a week and I can walk 10 to 15,000 steps a day like that Sounds like a pretty good mini retirement to me.
- [40:40]
B
The hardest part for most people in any kind of endeavor is starting. Starting. It takes such a disproportional amount of time and energy and mental and emotional bandwidth. And you know, I talk about kind of the two drivers of mini retirement. Sometimes it's seasons in life. The other thing is stuff that just doesn't fit into nights and weekends. You're not going to hike the Camino on a four day weekend and you know, you're not going to do like a 10 week road trip on a four day weekend. And we get that. But there is also this reality of there are some things that even if we theoretically could do it on nights and weekends, we have so little energy, we have so little mental bandwidth, we have so little emotional bandwidth to like learn Spanish intensively. Could you fit in 15 hours of that into your week? Sure, maybe if you had no other commitments, no other obligations, like your job wasn't stressful. But for a lot of people it's just probably not going to happen. Even like doing fun stuff with your kids when you're in the thick of it and you're working 40, 50, 60 hours a week and you're picking them up and dropping them off in schoolwork and baths and dinner, do you have the time and emotional bandwidth to like do a fun adventure every day or to do a cool art project every day? Or like maybe you should and maybe we feel guilty that we don't, but sometimes we don't. You know, I'm in my 40s now and I remember about three years ago I started taking time off just to focus on my health because I was like, oh, my body's different now. I can't eat candy for breakfast and apparently it requires vegetables and protein. I was like, what? What are these things? What are these things that you speak of? And should I have been able to like learn how to do all of this while balancing everything else? Sure. Like we can pile that shame and guilt on ourselves or we can say, apparently it's not happening. So what if I took some time and really focused on this and I gave myself that gift? Or in my 20s I took a month off and just did a month of intensive therapy, like outpatient six hour a day therapy, which honestly, at any point in your life is a great idea, but in your 20s, like, why not just go in there and like rehab the whole house? Why not just take it down to the studs, work out all the bugs, like do that capital investment that, yes, the work continues, but that One month, that one moment. I honestly delineate my life from pre month of therapy and post month of therapy. It was so intense and so specific. And the trajectory of my personal growth post one month of therapy was radically different. And now that was. I was 27, now I'm 42. Like, I still feel that, like I still feel that capital investment that I made.
- [43:34]
A
Yeah, Jillian, I can, I can certainly imagine. Goodness, that's. And, and it's funny because I keep coming back to the definition and I'm, I'm not usually this literal. You, you know, you know me. But I guess I do have a strain of it. So it's meaningful and enjoyable. Right? But, but maybe I, I would ever so slightly change that to meaningful and, or enjoyable. Right, Because I think we've talked about examples that like, was a month of intensive six plus hour day. Like, would you say that was enjoyable every single minute of every day? Probably not. I'm taking, taking a wild guess here, but meaningful by any definition. That was meaningful. Right? So this whole thing is really interesting because I think we are all trying to set up wonderful lives, whether we concretely think about that on a daily basis or not. I think most people come into this and just say, hey, I want to get my finances in order to, hey, I want to have a position of financial strength. Hey, I want to eventually get to a point where work is optional. But I think most of us realize along the way that that's not the end goal. The money, the number on the, on the screen, it's just not the end goal. I think we often, and hopefully pretty early now pivot to, okay, look like we do have to design this life and like you said, so you have the confidence to fully retire when the time comes. And what I love about mini retirements, as you've set this up today, very specifically, it's such an eye opener for me. It's like it actually hits both sides because it hits again, that money side of, hey, look, the money's not coming in. You have to practice that. And of course you have to practice the. I have 168 hours or maybe 112 waking hours if you get eight hours of sleep a night. Right. But I have 112 waking hours a week that I have to fill. And I think a lot of us do reflexively say, like, and maybe recoil and horror when people are like, oh, I could never retire, what am I going to do? Blah, blah, blah. And like, my reflexive response to that is, come on, like, you mean you have the you have time and resources and you have the entire world of options. You can't think of how to fill your waking hours. But. But I think I'm rethinking that as my response because, yeah, I do believe that in my heart of hearts to a large degree. But that all said, you're not just going to wake up on day one of retirement or early retirement and know how to do it. You're just not right.
- [46:06]
B
Most people have. There again, we have very little practice organizing our time in a way that's meaningful and enjoyable because we went to school and they organized it for us and they told us what to focus on and what success was and where to be and what to do. And then we went to college and it was the same. And then we had jobs and they said, here's how you have to organize your time. Here's what a good day looks like, here's what a bad day looks like. And we've had these little tiny snippets of maybe an evening which was already so fun, packed full of stuff, or maybe a weekend that was so packed full of stuff that we don't actually have a lot of practice when we have this hundred hours stretched out before us. How do we organize that in a way that's meaningful and enjoyable and helps us get closer to our goals and intentions, Whether that goal is quality time with people we love or recovering from burnout. Most people don't know how to recover from burnout because we've never practiced, we've never had the opportunity to do it. And I think there is this bizarre overconfidence of, yeah, I've never done this before, but I'm pretty sure I'm awesome at it. I'm pretty sure there won't be any hiccups along the way. And most people I know, even in mini retirements, and I see this all the time in group coaching. My group coaching is very intensive, it's very long. And people are still sometimes a little bit surprised. Like, oh, I feel a little untethered. Like, I. I thought I just wanted like this vast openness of space, but maybe I need a little bit more structure. Maybe I need to tweak this. I think there is a. There's an idea if, especially if you're really stressed at your job and it creates a little bit of suffering for you. Sometimes people think, as long as I'm not doing that, I'll be happy. And I think happiness is one part reducing suffering, but the other part is increasing the meaning of and enjoyment of things. And yes, leaving your job will reduce suffering and you will be very happy for a couple weeks until you realize you're not really good at the meaning and enjoyment. And there's no shame or no judgment. No one's good at stuff they haven't done. I wasn't good at it. The only reason I feel like I'm successful now in financial independence is that I've had so much practice. Like, I've been five or 10 years and I've taken like a dozen mini retirements, like, and I'm not perfect at it, but it does get better. You do, you do learn that skill set eventually.
- [48:32]
A
Jillian. I love that. That, to me, is the perfect place energetically to end this episode. I think that's the perfect encapsulation. And really, it's similar to fi. Right. Like, it used to be we were running away from something that we didn't love. And like you said, maybe that's good enough for a little bit, but you have to really be running towards something that you absolutely. Like you're saying you find meaningful and enjoyable and that you love. I think that's what helps make a great life. So I think you've made that case very convincingly to me and always love having you on the show. Julian, It's a pleasure. And I'm super excited for the book. So the book is Retire Often, and like I've said repeatedly, it comes out September 9, 2025. And you also mentioned I would have asked you the question, where can people reach you? But I'm going to do it for you. So retireoften.com you have a podcast which is fantastic. Like you mentioned group coaching. That's still available. That's something that I took part in a little bit. You were kind enough to let me into the group coaching, and it's really great and it helped me really consider, and I would say mostly take my. My own mini retirement. Uh, I. I did the best I could. I know, I know we laugh about that behind the scenes a little bit, but it really did. I can say without any hesitation, Jillian, that helped me so much. It helped me so much, and it really helped me rethink how I organize my days. And I can give no higher compliment than that. It. It helped me rethink my entire work life. And you talked about, like, setting an investment for the future, like, being part of that in a tangential way helped set an investment for my future in terms of how I organize days, weeks and months. So, yeah, a sincere thank you.
- [50:21]
B
It is always so fun being here. Well, it's fun talking to you whenever.
- [50:25]
A
Nice. All right, Jillian, well, until next time. And good luck with the book. It really is fantastic. Everybody check it out. Retire often. And until next time, thanks for being part of the Choose a Vibe community.
- [50:37]
C
Thank you for listening to today's show and for being part of the Choose5 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 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.
- [51:13]
A
So that's the way that I keep.
- [51:15]
C
A pulse of the community and and how we keep this the ultimate crowdsourced personal finance show. And finally, if you're looking to join an in real life community, we have choose a five 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.
- [51:34]
A
All across the world.
- [51:36]
C
And if you're just getting started with VI or you have a family member or friend who you think would be interested in two easy ways, choose a Fi 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.
- [52:03]
A
Live a better life?
- [52:05]
C
And then choose if I created a Financial Independence 101 course that's entirely free. Just head to choosefi.comfi101 and again, thanks for listening.