Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
⚖️ Early Retirement Lessons: Life Insights with Ryan Connell 🧘
830 Plays6 months ago
Watch this Episode on YouTube and Subscribe
💬 David Baughier sits down with Ryan Connell, an early retiree with a knack for aligning values with finances. Ryan talks about his leap from real estate to passive index funds. His story showcases the magic of intentional living and mindful spending. 🌟
💡 Ryan introduces the concept of negative time, highlighting the importance of creating space in our lives for genuine freedom. He shares practical tips to help you balance your life and reduce stress. Turns out, doing less can actually mean living more! 🕰️
🌸 Ryan also explores impermanence and the Japanese idea of ikigai. By accepting life's fleeting nature, he finds deeper satisfaction and purpose. He encourages aligning your passions with your daily activities, so every moment is filled with intention and joy. Who knew philosophy could be this fun? 🔍
🔑 Key Topics Discussed:
⇨ Ryan’s transition from real estate to passive index funds
⇨ Understanding and applying the concept of "enough"
⇨ Strategies for creating "negative time" in daily life
⇨ Embracing impermanence and the evolving nature of purpose
⇨ Finding your ikigai and living a fulfilled, purposeful life
🔗 Ryan's Links:
📺 CampFI YouTube: Life Lessons From The First Year of Early Retirement
📚 Your Money or Your Life Book
🔗 David's Links:
🍏 Forget About Money on Apple Podcast
🎧 Forget About Money on Spotify
🕒 Timestamps/Chapters:
0:00 - 🚀 Introduction to Ryan Connell's Early Retirement Insights
4:16 - 💡 Discovering the Concept of Enough with Justin's Root of Good Blog
6:57 - 👨👩👧👦 Sharing Early Retirement Plans with Family and Friends
10:01 - 🏡 Transitioning from Real Estate to Passive Index Funds
14:26 - 📈 Evaluating Progress Towards Financial Independence
17:55 - 🎓 Imparting Financial Wisdom to Young Adults
19:06 - 📰 Navigating Financial News and Media Influence
20:10 - 🕰️ Exploring Concepts of Negative Time, Impermanence, and Ikigai
24:02 - 🧘 Embracing Negative Time
26:56 - 🗓️ Planning for Annual Time
32:18 - 🌸 Embracing Impermanence
37:56 - 🔍 Unveiling Ikigai Concept
44:07 - ⚖️ Balancing Transient Nature
👍 Like, Share, and Subscribe:
If you enjoyed this episode, please like, share, and subscribe! Your support helps us bring more valuable content to you.
#️⃣ Hashtags:
#EarlyRetirement #FinancialIndependence #MeaningfulLiving #FIREMovement #NegativeTime #Impermanence #Ikigai #PassiveIncome #IntentionalLiving #PersonalFinance
Recommended
Transcript
Welcome and Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
How do the concepts of negative time impermanence and a key guy impact early retirement? Today, Ryan Connell shares his life lessons for meaningful living.
Introduction to Life Lessons from Early Retirement
00:00:10
Speaker
Here we go. Welcome to the Forget About Money podcast, where we encourage you to take action today so that you can focus on what matters most to you. Today we have Ryan
Relevance of Ryan's Viral Success
00:00:21
Speaker
Connell. He has recently come into some, I'd say like some minor fame. My brother runs a camp called Camp Fi, and what that is, it's a financial independence camp.
00:00:34
Speaker
across the country. And one of his YouTube videos has gone viral recently, and this video is of Ryan.
Life Direction Over Finances: Positive Reception
00:00:43
Speaker
And as of the time of this recording, it's probably just past 50,000 views in under a month, I believe. Ryan, welcome. Good to be here, David. All right, today we are going to talk about the life lessons from the first year of early retirement. And in this video, for you to go back at this Camp 5 video and look at the comments, comments like, this is the best video on this topic that I've ever seen. When you see comments like that, how does that make you feel?
00:01:14
Speaker
So I'm excited for one because the fire community talks all the time about the financial aspects of fire and a lot of people come to the fire movement because they're really interested in taking their life
Reflecting on Life Post-Financial Independence
00:01:25
Speaker
in the right direction. And this talk, I didn't talk about finances at all. I just talked about taking your life in the right direction and I think that's what's resonating with people. Now, you've had the realizations that you shared in this
Ryan's Financial Beginnings and Real Estate Journey
00:01:36
Speaker
talk. after you achieved financial independence. So let's go back. Can you tell us a little bit about your professional background and what led you to consider early retirement in the first place? When I was in high school, I read Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad Poor Dad, which has mixed viewpoints in the fire community for rightly so, and really realized that investing and building up my finances so that I could have more freedom in life was something that
Finding FIRE and Aligning with its Principles
00:02:02
Speaker
interested me.
00:02:03
Speaker
I followed that. I got into real estate when I got into the working world. I jumped in the real estate hard right out of college in 2007, the worst possible time to jump into real estate and learn that real estate does not always go up. So mine is not a wonderful story of like, I just bought a couple of things and made it there in a year or two. Made it through that, kept saving, was ah was a very strong saver, kept investing in the stocks more so than the real estate as time went on. And then in 2016, I found Justin Root of Goods blog. And that was an introduction to me to the fire community. And it really resonated with with me for the first time because I never resonated with the idea, if you're going to own all these sports cars and all these mansions and you're going to be so rich, like and I had no interest. And when I found the fire community, I'm like, these are my people. These are the people who are doing it right. So.
00:02:51
Speaker
kept going with that. And in 2022 at Camp Phi, I put in my badge, drove to Camp Phi,
Turning Points and Influences in Ryan's Journey
00:02:58
Speaker
and announced that I was now early retired. So when you found the Justin's Root of Good blog, what was it about that? And would you say that was that your turning point that made you decide to pursue financial independence? because I, like you, read the Robert Kiyosaki books, and they were great, and they were motivational, and they definitely taught you how to frame certain things as far as asset liabilities, how to make money, a little bit about leverage, maybe the tax leap holes books, all those things.
Impactful Books and Community Support
00:03:27
Speaker
Remember all those purple and black books that you would walk into bars, and it was like cash flow, a whole section, right? And those were great books.
00:03:36
Speaker
but that's not financial independence. It might be some tools that you use to get to financial independence, but that was not the focus of those books. It was just like how to make money. At least that's how I interpreted it. So again, like you, I had some kind of I don't want to say pre-knowledge, but I had knowledge, but didn't really have, I don't even want to say a healthy framework, but the financial independence framework to put it in. What about Justin's blog represented that turning point for you? When I came across his blog, he was the first person I'd ever seen who was living with enough. When you look at Robert Kiyosaki's stuff, it's all about more. It's all about the Western American views of consumption, and that is the way to have a happy life.
00:04:19
Speaker
And Justin is seems more than happy to sit at home and play video games and spend time with his kids and cook food and just enjoy life. And here's somebody who is an engineer like I was, who in his early 30s retired with his entire family and is just living the life that is the best life for him. And I said, yeah, that's that's freedom. that's That's the kind of thing that I'm looking for. And I wanted to learn more about about how he did it. the Your Money or Your Life book was life-changing for me. I
Shifting Investments: Real Estate to Index Funds
00:04:50
Speaker
loved early retirement extreme and seeing that even people that don't make a lot of money in the STEM field could still make this happen. There's so many great communities that I got into as a result of that. But for me, that I remember that moment where I was like up at night at 10 o'clock, came across Justin's blog, and just like started consuming it till 2 a.m.
00:05:10
Speaker
and the idea of somebody living enough and having a lifestyle just like mine, but was who who was out of the rat race was just, it was wonderful to come across. Yeah. And it's funny. I just want to, I want to emphasize Justin street cred here because just a few days ago he and I were texting and he was about to go on a cruise with his family. So, or I think it was just him and his wife and his family was at home or something like that. Cause the kids just graduated high school. So he's, he's walking the walk and the walk and
00:05:41
Speaker
he's He's doing well and he's doing exactly what you said as far as living a life that he wants to live. So he's still doing it, even though we're talking what probably nearly a decade later after you saw his stuff. But yeah, he's still doing it. So kudos to him and hopefully we'll get him on the show as well. When you first realized ah that this is the journey that you wanted to pursue financial independence, how did your family and friends react when you shared your early retirement plans with them? They were pretty surprised. it's It's a lifestyle that is out of the norm. And so people have to get their minds wrapped around it. There's a lot of misunderstanding about money and the thought that it'll kind of take care of itself decades down the road. So to say I'm going to do this so early in my life is disconcerting for people that haven't quite figured it out.
00:06:31
Speaker
I was also kind of a little weird because here I am talking to my parents about retiring potentially before they retire, depending on what the timing looks like. So that was a little awkward too, but I always case it in the fact that I'm doing this so that I can have the freedom to spend more time with my friends and my family and work on the things that I'm passionate about in life and I'm not going to. I knew I was never gonna be the person that sat at home and watched Judge Judy and and drank all day or something like that. So I think
Challenges and Benefits in Shifting Investment Strategies
00:06:59
Speaker
it's exciting for them that I was able to do this and people have gotten more open to it as time's gone on and they've gotten more excited about reaching out to do things. so
00:07:10
Speaker
And you talked about your early days in real estate, and you said you were very aggressive starting in 2007. And then years later, you discovered financial independence. What were the initial steps you took once you committed to the idea of early retirement? Did you continue to do real estate? You said you are you did shift investing. it seems like at least It seems like it sounded like you said you shifted investments over to index funds or ah equities in some way. What were your initial steps that you took? Yeah, so talk about some of those into the transition a little bit too here. When I was getting started, I wanted to really add a lot of sweat equity and add a lot of value to my investments. I wanted to be hands on with them. And so real estate really appealed to me. I liked the leverage associated with real estate so I could get there faster.
00:07:56
Speaker
And so when i bought my first home the first time i bought was my personal home i bought it while i was still in college for the place that i had set accepted an offer. I actually got paid to buy that house so i walked away from the closing with a check for five thousand dollars so it wasn't a no money download it was a no money download with a seller concession so i got paid to buy the house. And then I bought shortly thereafter, I used the money I was planning to use for my first home to buy my first rental property. And so I got started with that. And then I got into the engineering field and realized that the engineering field for me was incredibly consuming. And when I got time away from work, I didn't have time to go do flooring and drywall and like renovate houses and side hustle and do the things that people talk about doing.
00:08:46
Speaker
mentally I was done and physically I was done with the day. So and I also saw a huge benefit in focusing my energy on my career because I could increase my income that way.
00:08:58
Speaker
This was 2007. That was a terrible time to buy a house. Terrible time. So the market crashed. um Everything went down. To give you an idea, my first home went from about 210,000 and I sold it 10 years later for a little over 100,000. So half the value I bought it for after 10 years. Which is, I mean, real estate does not always go up. If your listeners think that, then it does not always go up. I'm sorry. And it's been going up a lot recently. So we'll see what the future brings for us. um I also was investing where I had um advisors. Kiyosaki always talks about having people that can help you. And so my family was really big into real estate back where I grew up, not where I was currently working. And so I bought real estate there with their guidance.
00:09:46
Speaker
And it meant I couldn't get hands-on with the properties easily without driving for hours. It meant that I was relying on them some to do things and I wanted to stop relying on them so that I wasn't a reason that they couldn't retire someday, that sort of thing. And then I started learning more about um The passive index funds in investing in the markets and i really dug deep into the numbers and. The math side of things and realize that like this is something you could do and not have to do anything with it people always describe real estate is passive.
00:10:17
Speaker
It is not fully passive. It's a part time job. Even if you're just reviewing tenants and um making sure that everything's running well. up in the In the years that I owned real estate, I had a tree fall on a neighbor's house. I had one of my tenants bite another. Like I've had legal issues. I've had things that have happened. um So you have one of your tenants bite another? I had one of my tenants, sorry, I had one of my tenants dogs bite a neighbor. Yeah, that's more, that's less crazy, but yeah. It's less crazy than than buying it. yeah I probably misspoke, I'm sorry about that. No, I know i was like looking forward to the tenant, buying another tenant. Yeah, that would be a good story. um And it's ah it's a really great way for people to do things with sweat equity and people that don't have a lot of free cash, but working in the STEM field, as long as I didn't live like the rest of my peers, I could put a lot of cash aside.
00:11:08
Speaker
And when I first started in real estate, I was putting like nothing into 401ks. I wasn't putting anything into ROAs. I wasn't taking advantage of any of the tax accounts because I wanted it all so that I could go manage that money directly. And I can't do that in a brokerage. I can't go buy a house off the street in a brokerage account easily. I could buy REITs, but then I'm not adding more value personally. And now we're in a position where everything is automated and it's all just like in the background and it really is passive. And we just ride the roller coaster and try not to look at it as much as possible. And it's
Current Retired Lifestyle and Financial Strategy
00:11:41
Speaker
really great because it creates a ton of freedom in our lives that if I had built an entire real estate empire, I'd probably be doing a part-time job in real estate right now. So you you had only one property or ah multiple properties and then you sold all of them. Do you continue to hold any of those?
00:11:59
Speaker
So my timing and ability to enter and exit markets is horrific. I entered the real estate market in 2007. I sold everything in 2019. Okay. So so let's some of that run up then at least, which is good. Yes. And there was a while there after I got married where my wife and I were renting. and we're still renting but we we're renting and i had three investment properties so. Were we homeowners right like that's kind of a interesting question and that sort of a situation so. I had two properties that were bought as investment properties the entire time and then i had one condo that i started with in life that i made into a rental for a while um thought that i could write off some of the loss associated with.
00:12:43
Speaker
the downturn in the market and then got educated by my lawyers that it doesn't work that way, or not the lawyers, the accountant said it doesn't work that way, which is unfortunate. And so how does your portfolio look today then? Portfolio looks good today. um We are basically like on the 100%, 0% side of the spectrum. we're going We're looking many decades off into the future. We've done really well with the turmoil. We were fine through the 2020 flash crash associated with COVID. We don't seem to need to have the bonds to flatten out the ride. So we're not doing that right now. We're just letting it grow as much as possible.
00:13:24
Speaker
Now, how many years did you work and are you really retired right now? So I worked for about 15 years. And in my talk, I talk about like 20, 25 years going in one direction, which then includes all the work I did educating myself for that career specifically. And right
Financial Advice for Young People
00:13:43
Speaker
now I am living the lifestyle of a retired person. It is a little, it's an interesting question because my wife and I are still trying to figure out what the right lifestyle is for us. And so the spending is a big question. And when you run the safe withdrawal numbers, that can make things move up and down a lot. A lot of people use 4%. I think 3.5% is actually more appropriate looking at the numbers. And then when you put taxes in, maybe it's more like 3.25%, which makes the numbers a lot harder.
00:14:11
Speaker
And then on top of that my wife is consulting she's achieving the dreams she had for her career and continuing to advance so carla fifteen hundred campfire couple years ago coined it as wife is one way to do it um but we're we're probably like. Depending on how you run the numbers, we're in that like 80 to 90% of the way there, and then she makes a little bit of money. And then normally she does so well because she's amazing um that there's even some money to save at the end of the year. So that's where we're at. I'm more happy with that right now.
00:14:46
Speaker
if you were standing in front of a high school graduate class and to impart some of your wisdom. What what specifically would you share about regarding financial advice or habits that were crucial in achieving ah your goals financially in particular? I think a big part of it is understanding what it is you value and spending the money on that. It's really easy to spend lots of money on everything. And if you spend money on everything, then you probably won't get the things you value most.
00:15:19
Speaker
But if you take your time to do that, we use YNAB and it generates really interesting conversations because you have to allocate the money. And so especially in a relationship, it's like, well, we're spending this much over here and it seems silly considering we're spending this little over here. Like that's not where that's not where we want to be putting the money and that's not the effect that we want to have. I also think it's good because even through college, there's almost no financial education for people. go out and get and and and read a number of books. You could read the Kiyosaki view of the world. You could read the Fire view of the world. You could read the Bitcoin view of the world for all I care and explore all these different things and then find one that works for you and make that part of your life. Don't assume that because the system you were put in didn't think finance was important and you could just sort of ignore it, that that should continue for the rest of your life because it's really going to compound badly for you.
Media Influence on Financial Perceptions
00:16:11
Speaker
Yeah, a few episodes ago, I ah interviewed Brett Killian and he is an associate professor at Lakeland University where he's been teaching the personal finance course for I think nearly a decade. And he's going to go on and do that elsewhere now too. But it was great to listen to him talk about what young people are thinking about money. And I asked him the question, I said, what percentage of these young adults are actually interested in this stuff? And he says he didn't know exactly what percentage, but he thinks the majority. an overwhelming majority are interested. So I think that's a positive, you know us being a little bit older thinking about the next generation, I think that's a a positive takeaway from that conversation with him is that we might just assume that they don't care about you know money and earning and investing. But if you also think about the world that we're in right now where all the headlines are inflation, federates, I'll never be able to own a home,
00:17:05
Speaker
ah let's see, salary's not keeping up with inflation over the last. And you know then the comparing of the different generations on, we had it easier. Well, did you really? Probably not. you know So that kind of thing. So it was a really, it was a good conversation to put some things into perspective for me as a 46 year old man, thinking about that yeah younger generation who are in their twenties. And my son's much older younger than that, but it was I think it's going to be a nice bridge for whenever my understanding of what my son will be going through in a decade from now. so
00:17:37
Speaker
I hope that they can, like you said, walk away from whatever education system they're in, whether it's primarily due to their whether it's you know their formal education, whether it's high school or whatever classes they're taking in college or what they're seeing on the media or podcasts like this one or others or YouTube channels. Hopefully they can separate the the wheat from the chaff and and pull out some good nuggets and start to take action, like you said, Don't just be naive and oblivious and hope that things work out over time. and They should take the media stuff with a grain of salt too. i'll just I'll just say that because there's always somebody who's screaming the markets about to explode for this reason or the markets about to crash for that reason. And when you actually look back historically like
00:18:20
Speaker
the right The rates that we're seeing on the mortgages aren't that aren't that wild. It just seems wild relative to the recent past. And you look at things like the Great Depression and stagflation and other things that happen historically in the back testing that goes into the safe withdrawal rates. And we're in a pretty good time right now as far as I'm concerned. So i don't I don't think that
Core Concepts from Ryan's Viral Video
00:18:41
Speaker
what the news media is offering is real so much as it's what gets people to watch them right now. Yeah, absolutely. And then we can but but could talk a whole lot about like the transition of media over the last 40 years and how it's really no longer news. It's just entertainment and you know grouping people and ideas together so that they can get more views, just like social media, just pretty much.
00:19:06
Speaker
So yeah, that's all very interesting. And and I do hope there's somebody, a mentor of some kind in the lives of young people to to help them see through some of that and actually take some nuggets of away to make big differences in their own lives, not only personally, but financially as well. So let's transition from the finances to the other stuff that goes along with achieving financial independence. I know Stephen was very, first off, he's very happy that your video got him tons of views, because that's always great for a YouTube channel. But I think as a symptom of maybe something more, and that's the concepts that you discussed in the video really hit home for a lot of people, no matter where they were on their financial independence journey. Because like you said, you didn't talk about finances during that talk. So why don't you start by describing what prompted those concepts in your own life
00:20:01
Speaker
So there are three big concepts i talked about in my presentation i started talking a little bit about the transition to help people over the hump of starting their retirement. And then i talked about three major concepts they were negative time impermanence in the guy so to start with a little bit with the first one negative time. Addresses directly the idea that i think a lot of people are driven to financial independence for freedom. And in order to feel free in the present moment, you need to feel like you have some autonomy and control in the present moment. So negative time was me getting to terms with the idea that if I create a giant to-do list with 300 things on it and every morning I wake up and I'm assigned every day for the next 30 days on my to-do list, it might seem like I'm being very productive, but I've created a prison for myself.
00:20:52
Speaker
by creating that kind of structure. And in the present moment, I never really have control. I only have control over 30 days plus or some some future me. And if I really want to feel freedom, I want to have present present moment freedom. So that's part of the negative time aspect. We can dig more into that one. The second one is impermanence. And impermanence came up a lot of ways because I was thinking about what I'm gonna do next with my life. And most of your mentors and your idols when you're in fire are people who vlog and blog and podcast and get the voice out, people
Implementing Negative Time for Peace and Autonomy
00:21:26
Speaker
like David. And it seems natural to think that, well, what I'm gonna do next is I'm gonna become one of those people.
00:21:32
Speaker
and Then when I really stop, I'm like, but that's not why I got into this. I didn't want to become a vlogger or a blogger or write a book about this kind of stuff. This was a means to the end. It wasn't the end itself. And so thinking about that got into impermanence and how um things can change and avoiding personas where you then have a hard time evolving and becoming someone new in the future. is a really important concept. And then the last one that I talked about was Ikigai. It's a concept out of Japan. And that is a person's reason for being, why they wake up in the morning. And it encompasses a couple of different elements that when you're firing on all cylinders, it really makes life feel good. And like you have, you have your purpose, you found your meaning. And when you watch videos, I think a good example of one is Jiro Dreams of Sushi is a documentary that a lot of people can go see.
00:22:21
Speaker
And this is a person who's basically made sushi their reason for being their ikigai in effect. So um trying to find that meaning and purpose is another reason why people get into fire is to create that space in their life to do that. So regarding negative time, I think some insights might be you know quality over quantity, where you focus on meaningful activities, ah the mindful living where you recognize that you know each moment is precious now and that we should use it wisely. And then know through personal growth, meaning like we embrace activities that foster our growth and happiness. And what did that look like for you specifically regarding negative time?
00:23:04
Speaker
So negative time in a lot of ways is embracing the concept of enough in your temporal life as you did in your financial life. So with fire, you decide that this is enough for me. I don't need to have more. I don't need to have the yacht and the private jet and all these things. I can i can stop where I'm at and have a really happy life and be at peace with that. And you can do the same thing with your time. Instead of being as productive as you possibly can with every moment of every day or just go, go, go, go, go, go. You can have a sense of enough. And when I thought about how to create that, I use the same concepts as like minimalism and negative space that's used in like photography to say if you create dead space in your life intentionally so that you can feel like you have enough and dead spaces is ah is ah not a great term because it makes it sound negative.
00:23:51
Speaker
um you you can have a feeling about your day that is at peace and doesn't feel rushed and doesn't feel like you're never gonna get it all done and you gotta go, go, go. So I do it on a few different timescales.
Managing Stress Through Structured Free Time
00:24:07
Speaker
And when you watch, when you listen to the talk, I kind of break it down and give people tangible ideas that they can apply in their life to create negative time on the momentary timescale all the way up to the annual timescale. So what does that mean? Like from annual to, like is it does it go even more current than that? Just like monthly, annual? How do you actually plan it practically? so So practically there were five timeframes that I talked about. The first one is in the moment, which has to do with Stephen Cubby's kind of concept of being responsible and the definition of response-able.
00:24:45
Speaker
So that gives you the chance when something happens in your life especially something unsettling or sudden where you have this huge emotional response. to Actually stop pause decide what's the right response the genuine response that's gonna actually have a better outcome that ah lines with what you want to happen. and decide how you're going to respond to that, and feeling like you never have to be out of control by your emotions. So that's it's possible to do that. It's very hard to train yourself to do that, but I'm just letting people know that that's something they can work on.
00:25:17
Speaker
The second one was in the task. So when you work on something, yeah, you might be able to do that in an hour, but what if you give it two hours, three hours? What if you give yourself some time to reflect partway through or learn from it? When I teach snowboarding, one of the things that's kind of key is keeping people on the bunny slope a lot longer than you might need to. and making them more comfortable and confident and then they go faster for people in the military use the concept of slow is smooth and smooth is fast so that's sort of something you can apply at the task level after that you have your day. So setting aside time in your day for a few hours where you have nothing scheduled and when you arrive at that window you can decide do i want to take a nap do i want to go for a walk.
00:26:01
Speaker
Do i want to go read a book or work on a project and feeling like hey at least in the day there were a few hours where i had control and autonomy in the present moment to decide what it is i want to go do next and have that freedom after that's the week this is one of my favorite ones i have a lot of time freedom. This is harder for people that are still working, but setting aside a day every now and then where you have nothing scheduled, nothing planned, and you get to wake up and just decide whatever it is you wanna do, you can go do it. So for that, it could i've I had days where I've gone and i've worked on ah I've worked on hiking and athletics and trying to build up my stamina and endurance. I've had days where I've sat in a room the entire time learning about taxes.
00:26:44
Speaker
And it varies from day to day, but to feel like you can wake up with that freedom and there's no obligation, expectation, past person of yourself that made you do something is really freeing and really enjoyable. And then the last one is on the annual level, setting aside a couple of weeks. where the calendar is basically free and that's a time for you and your family to decide to do something big. Whether you go do a vacation somewhere or go visit family or maybe just pick a project that's going to take a week and a half to complete and you decide when that time frame comes along that this is the time to go tackle that project and finally do that thing that's been bugging me that I hadn't gotten finished. Do you feel that you personally are sticking to that pretty well? Is that is that a proactive approach that you use
00:27:31
Speaker
Yeah, I think I've been doing really well on it. I've done well at the the momentary thing is always a challenge, but it keeps getting better and better for me. It's something that you have to, it's almost like meditation where you become cognizant of your mind and meta about the problem when it happens and to stop yourself from spinning or emotionally overreacting to something. The task, absolutely. I just built a countertop for our deck, and now we can sit out there and look at the mountains, and I could probably have forced it done in about two days, but doing it over a course of two or three weeks and giving myself more time to think about it, I basically mentally built four of those in that timeframe and ended up with something way better, and the wife's happy, so I get to be happy about it.
00:28:14
Speaker
and Let's see, the next one is in the day, getting a few hours. So that one I typically get almost almost every day generally. I get at least a few hours to work on something of my choosing. On the week, getting a whole day is definitely happening. Probably at least three days a week right now which is wonderful for me absolutely wonderful and then on the annual time scale i gave an example in my talk where my wife and i had this big open block happening where.
00:28:49
Speaker
we We went to new zealand last fall and there was an opportunity to go to fiji for a week basically with free flights to fiji and so we added free tact fiji on. And i did some of the colorado trail last summer and right now we've already set aside some of the we recognize that we have a lot of trips and things coming up with family but we set aside time to go to an international trip sometime this fall. And we have a couple months window that it could happen and we're just monitoring flights and talking about it. And right now it's just this creative thing that we're going to go do. We just don't know the specifics and we've created the space for it to happen. And it's going to happen. It's just a question of where we go and what we do.
Spontaneous Travel for Affordable Adventures
00:29:28
Speaker
And your wife is, she's still know working as a consultant, but she is she also
00:29:36
Speaker
doing this with her life while she's doing her consulting work so that you can, are y'all doing this together? Yes, so we're doing this together in the sense that her consulting work typically is 15 to 40 hours a week, more so on the 15 to 30 hour range. So she has a lot of the day-to-day kind of freedom in time. And then she works maybe six to nine months out of the year. So there's a lot of free time because she does projects. She does six to eight weeks at a time.
00:30:07
Speaker
And anybody that's in a work situation where they're working 40 hours a week and they get to get their two weeks or three weeks off and they're trying to figure out what to do with it and they feel overly constrained, moving to a different kind of work situation where you have more freedom like that is is life changing. And she's so much healthier for it. And our relationship's a lot healthier for it, I think. So it's it's a really great thing for her. But it means that she has enough time freedom to enjoy a lot of these things with me. And I remember in that campfire talk you mentioned, and you may have alluded to it just then, there's a site that you can go to that basically provides impromptu deals if you have the flexibility in your schedule. Do you remember what those sites were? Yeah, so the the site's called Going. It used to be called Scott's Cheap Flights.
00:30:57
Speaker
And it's a really great i'm a frugalista so it's one of my many frugalista things and that site is interesting because they basically have a bunch of people that are always scouring google flights. and Finding deals that are out of the norm for places and i get emails i think i got four or five emails today of places to go including. Please came up and we're talking about maybe we go to police there was ones in there for probably ten different spots in europe that you could go right now. They come up and and you have to have some time freedom to do it but they're typically over a couple of months when the sale happens or about maybe fifty percent off.
00:31:38
Speaker
typical flight costs. And the nice thing is you pay a fixed fee each year, maybe $50 to $100, and you can just follow the links and go to Google Flights and get it directly through the carrier because it's searched the same way as everyone else searches it. It isn't like you need to be part of some special membership club to get the deal. It's just you've got you've paid a small army of people that really know how to find deals to always be there in the background, pushing you the next deal that you can decide whether or not you want it. And in our very first flight, it paid for itself for like one or two years. So if that interests you, it's a pretty neat site to go check out.
00:32:18
Speaker
Let's move on to that second concept, the concept of impermanence.
Embracing Impermanence for Smooth Transitions
00:32:22
Speaker
And that's the philosophical concept that everything is transient. Now we think of our, like I'm a retired military officer, which has its own stereotypes. It says, you know, I feel a certain way because I was in that line of work for so long, or maybe it's helped shape, at least made me believe that it's shaped who I am and in some way. So when I think of impermanence, I think of change and not just change of like physical change, but or geographic change, but ah growing personality change. And to go from a job as you did, or as anybody who you works hard for a couple decades, then to a life that very few maybe will ever live, which is financial independence, where you have many, many advantages, it is a shift, it is a change.
00:33:13
Speaker
And how does impermanence, how how do you use impermanence to kind of like get through those there different types of dynamics? So a big part of it is accepting that impermanence is a real part of who we are. I think that for most people thinking on short time scales like middle of a conversation or watching something on the news or even a few days or working on a project. like We see how mentally we change and how you sleep and things change for us and we're constantly learning and evolving as human beings. But then when you open that up and people think about their purpose in life or what they want to be when they grow up or what's their meaning, they seem to simplify it back down to this singular purpose.
00:33:58
Speaker
and the singular static answer and i don't think that's true i think because we evolve so much on the micro scale at the macro scale we are also evolving and i gave the example in my talk to think back who you were twenty years ago. Are you how similar are you to that person from twenty years ago is sort of a confirmation that you change because i think most people are gonna find that who they were maybe when they were in. high school or college or maybe just starting out and work is a lot different than who they are today. And if you acknowledge that, then that frees you from having to find the one static solution, the perfect answer for who you're supposed to be. You just need to figure out what's the next best thing for me, which aligns better with how our minds work and dopamine and all that stuff too. So I think
00:34:48
Speaker
that really helps That really helped me in a lot of ways recognize that becoming an engineer and following the career path that I did was the right fit for me 15, 20 years ago. And I've evolved to the point where I've now done what I wanted to go do in that world. I've grown and learned what I wanted to go do in that world. And I'm ready for the next thing for me. I'm ready for the next chapter. I give the example of the book, Seed Artha in my talk as sort of a, a blueprint of how that's what people go through. And the character in that book lives many different experiences and identities throughout the course of that book to kind of get to where they need to be at the end of the book at that moment. And it was hard though. it was when you When you go from working 15 years in career and probably like five, 10 years prior to that to prepare you for the career,
00:35:47
Speaker
to go in one very specific direction. And a lot of those things are like those doors close and those doors never open up again. ah it's It's hard to make that leap into question whether all this was a mistake. did i Did I do all this and was it wrong? And the answer is no, I needed to do all this so that I could become the person I am today to know what the next right thing is for me. I think a lot of people get stuck on if they don't know exactly what the next right thing is for them, that that's bad or that that because of that, they regret that shift, whether it's retiring from a job or changing a job or whatever that change is.
Understanding and Evolving with Ikigai
00:36:27
Speaker
Rather than just saying that this is how it is and this is how it's supposed to be and it's a process and and then whatever's on the other side is doesn't necessarily have to be a better than what was before or a you know worse than what's before but it's just you growing and changing and and that's that's That's okay. That's how it's supposed to be. So I think it gives us, if you can take a step back, like at a bird's eye view and recognize that impermanence is a real thing, it gives us the ability to give ourselves some grace to whenever and we're not making as much money or or things that we held valuable a decade ago aren't the highest priority now. And you're looking back and questioning things. so
00:37:10
Speaker
but it's natural. And I would also say that figuring out what the next thing in is is a hard exercise and sort of leads into the Ikigai piece that we'll talk about next. And if you're in a Kaipa career like I was, where it's very consuming mentally, energy-wise, very focused, every time you sit down with your spouse, all you can talk about is your work. and You can't escape it. It could be really hard mentally to create the negative time to actually figure out what the next thing is for you. And making the leap into the unknown just so you have enough space to go explore might be a really good answer. I would just caveat it with create some structure in your life so that you're not just sitting around at your house all day long the second you punch out.
00:37:57
Speaker
Ikigai, which is the Japanese concept of finding one's purpose. It's a guiding principle that you advocate as well in your early retirement. And it's the aligning of passion, mission, ah vocation, and if necessary, if you're still working, profession. um And maybe even in this context, profession doesn't necessarily need to be a paid ah paid thing. What are your thoughts on Ikigai and how have you used it to basically transition into a fulfilling retirement? I think people always need something that they are contributing to the world and being valued for. And that's why Ikigai is such an important piece of that is it sort of breaks out the four fundamental pieces that identify a purpose and a contribution that will resonate and and hold up.
00:38:50
Speaker
something that you really love and are passionate about, something that the world rewards you for. And it doesn't have to be like you were just saying something that you get paid for or profession necessarily. I volunteer and teach adaptive snowboarding and getting a chance to work with people that are military veterans with disabilities or autistic kids that are trying to learn snowboarding is like one of the most rewarding things I've ever done. And some of the best days I've had on Earth is just teaching them and seeing their energy and their excitement learning and helping them through that process. I didn't get paid anything for that. I actually had to pay money to drive there and go do it in some ways, but I feel highly rewarded for it because I feel like I'm making the impact on the world that I want to have.
00:39:37
Speaker
And another part of it is something that you could be really good at and feeling like you have mastery. So there's multiple elements to Ikigai that when you're kind of firing on all cylinders and all four of them hit, it really rings true. And I talk at the end of my talk about how that doesn't line well with impermanence. And you can justify the two by recognizing that your Ikigai today does not need to be your Ikigai 10 years from now. You just need to figure out for where you are and how you've evolved as a person and the world around you. What is your Ikigai right now? If somebody is hearing this term Ikigai for the first time right now, how would you define it for them and how would you explain it to them? And it doesn't necessarily need to be in the context of early retirement.
00:40:23
Speaker
And it's not that Ikigai concept comes separately from early retirement. It actually comes from Okinawa, as I understand it. And part of the reason it's hit a larger audience is that the Blue Zone book and and research that was done into why do people live so much longer in Okinawa, Ikigai is part of why they live so much longer in Okinawa is they have a reason to get up. have a reason to keep contributing. it's I'm not done yet with this world. I need to keep going. And this is my contribution. And so Ikigai is a is a way of identifying a sustainable and meaningful country contribution that you can provide to the world that then serves in some ways as your identity and keeps you moving forward.
00:41:06
Speaker
And it's the overlap of those four. Is it four concepts that overlap? And then you try to where the commonalities are in each of those fours, like where you can provide the biggest bang for your buck. Is that that the kind of... If you guys look up Ikigai, I don't know if David can put it up on the screen if you're watching YouTube, but if you look it up, there's a really amazing Venn diagram that kind of sums up Ikigai better than any book on Ikigai I've ever read. and It highlights these four different elements and when all four of them are present in the center of the diagram, you have ikigai. It also breaks out some of these other VEN overlaps where you're missing pieces and uses the terminology for that like it might be profession or it might just be passion project.
00:41:49
Speaker
And that sort of drives home when you think about those examples in your life like yeah that's true i really i really enjoyed maybe doing a whole bunch of photography but nobody ever looks at my photos and i never feel like it's contributing to the world and so i've got a lot of the pieces. but not all of them. And so if I can find something where I get all of the pieces firing, it'll really make a difference and give you that sense of meaning and identity that I think a lot of people are searching for. As you're talking there, I'm thinking if I had a kid about to go to college,
00:42:22
Speaker
This is probably how i'd how I would frame that conversation is three key guy and to make a smart college choice decision because it's got passion, which is ah what you love doing mission, which is what the world needs a vocation. I like what you can be paid for in a profession. What are you good at? Like say, if you wanted to be engineering, well, do you love doing it? yes or no, check or not. So then that might be a way to frame a, hey, let's make the smart college decision conversation. But it's not just for that, it's for any of us. So I just was throwing that out there is what I was thinking on the spot. And it's an ideal. And I think it's an ideal that's much easier to chase after you've reached financial independence. Because from what I've seen after I've left,
00:43:11
Speaker
When things really start firing on all four of those cylinders and they're that wonderful, you see a lot of people volunteering and doing that for free. And so it's hard to find an icky guy that's also going to pay you a significant amount of money. It's not impossible and you find people that are making a lot of money that say, hey, I've never worked a day in my life because I love what I'm doing. there's There's a balance there between spending some time to get the money and the compounding set up up front so that you can then go chase some of your Ricky guys because, like I said, I i like teaching adaptive snow sports and everywhere I look, that's all volunteer based. There's maybe a couple little small chance things, but even if I'd done that right out of college or pursued that in college, like that's not that's not something that would allow me to have the conversation with you right now about being financially independent, I don't think.
00:44:03
Speaker
um yeah So you have to balance those things. Yeah. And I think that also goes back into impermanence, this change you know that transient nature. ah Maybe before you you were trying to get to enough so that you can open up the aperture a bit to get to some of these other things. And that's at some point, I mean, money is a piece of this and it provides us the ability to kind of just open up our lives a little bit once we have enough and explore aspects of life that aren't necessarily centered around Money, but it's a great rubric for people to assess different careers that they're thinking about when they're at that moment in their life. To say, well, do I have interest around this with this passion? I'd warn people that sometimes the things you're really passionate about and love is hobbies. You will kill by trying to make them a career. It will not be as enjoyable as a career as it was as a hobby. So trying things out and figuring out what things work well as an icky guy and what things work well is just something you enjoy doing on the side.
00:45:00
Speaker
is also sort of a challenge, but they're that's a really good rubric for a sustainable career path if you can fire on all four of those cylinders. So what's next for you? You've been retired how long now? coming up on two years at Rocky Mountain Camp Phi here in about a month. Are you gonna give a presentation on the life lessons of two years of retirement? Nope, nope, nope. I'm just gonna go have fun with my friends, that's it. There you go.
00:45:31
Speaker
Nice. Well, I really do appreciate you coming on and having this conversation with me. It's good to see you again. Stephen reminded me that you are the gentleman who walked me, him, and a mutual friend of ours through a park giving us basics of photography. And I was like, oh, that's the guy. So yeah. Yeah. So there you go. Yeah, that was another wonderful day. I love I love photography. I'm just trying to figure out how to make that part of my ikigai, and it might be teaching people about the outdoors through photography, but we'll see. Well, let me know how I can help you do that, if possible. i would I'll be one of your students. We'll see. Well, thank you again so much. Congratulations on your newfound fame of YouTube. I don't want it. Sometimes it just falls on our lap, right? Like I said, i don't I'm big in impermanence. I don't want a persona.
00:46:25
Speaker
Okay, it's transit. You'll get another persona next year. It's fine. Yeah, I'm sure people will lose interest quickly. It's good. Well, so far, Stephen says it's picking up again. So you might be at 100,000 in a week. Well, i'm glad it's I'm glad it's resonating with people because this community needs to talk more about where everyone's trying to go with fire and not so much about what the spreadsheets need to look like. That's just one small piece of the iceberg. Right there, I think that's a very good wrap up statement. Again, thank you and I look forward to the next time you and I can chat and even better if we get to hang out and do some photography over up National Park somewhere. Thank you very much for chatting with me today and thank you all for watching and listening.