56 : Leaving Google, Learning How to Rest and Clarifying Her Vision with Julia Li

"I wrote this mantra to myself where I said 'I celebrate uncertainty and I delight and not knowing what comes next.'" - Julia LI

 Welcome to the mindful fire podcast, where we explore living mindfully on the path to financial independence and beyond I'm your host, Adam Coelho and I'm so glad you're here. 

On today's episode, we're rejoined by my friend, Julia Li, who joined us on episode 15 of the mindful fire podcast. 

 In the fall of last year, Julia and I connected and she shared that she was about to make a big change in her life. She was going to leave Google, and pivot to a new career in the field of sustainability. And we thought it would be really cool for us to do a two-part episode. Before and after she left Google. 

The first episode, episode 15, we explore why she's making this change, how she's thinking about it and how she's thinking about making the move into a new career, in the field of sustainability. 

Today, we're almost exactly six months from when she left Google and took a six month sabbatical to rest rejuvenate and clarify her vision of what she wants to create for her life as she moves into this next chapter in the world of sustainability. 

Since Julia and I were catching up for over 2 and a half hours, I've decided to break the conversation into multiple episodes. This is part one of our conversation 6 months after Julia left Google to take time off and pivot into the field of sustainbility. 

In today's episode Julia and I caught up on:

• all aspects of what has happened since we last spoke a few months before leaving Google after 6 years
• what it was like in the last couple of months, as she was preparing to leave Google
• how she was thinking and feeling about that.
• what it was like when she was on the other side. 
• how she really need to learn how to rest and 
• how she learned to practice resting just like you would  practice anything else like meditation or the guitar or any other skill

We talk about how so many of us, even when we're resting, feel like we should still be doing something productive, learning something or growing in some way. Sometimes it's really important to just rest with no other agenda than to take care of ourselves.

Julia shares how she embarked on some self exploration to clarify her vision of what she wanted to create. She shares how she used the tools of journaling and networking, reaching out to people in the fields that she was looking into and asking them tell her all about their life.

All of those things allowed her to clarify her vision and ultimately settle on a particular field of sustainability that she's now working in.

I really enjoyed this conversation with Julia. I feel like I learned so much every time I connect with her.  I really hope that you enjoyed as well.

You can find the full show notes for today's episode, including all of the books, resources, and links we discuss at MindfulFIRE.org/56.

Full Show Notes | https://bit.ly/3EZulHq
More Inspiring Interviews | https://bit.ly/3dTO3YX
More Guided Meditations | https://bit.ly/3GOtBFC