119 : Mindfulness as an Accelerant to Financial Independence with Tracy Collins

Tracy, welcome to the Mindful Fire Podcast. I'm so glad to have you here.

thank you so much for having me. I've been a big fan for, quite some time, so really happy to be here.

Yeah. It's so cool to finally connect with you live. we've talked a lot over LinkedIn and Instagram and you have a project that you're working on called Mindful Fire Life, which is a Instagram channel and a YouTube channel and a blog. And so you're we're very much aligned on this idea of pursuing fire mindfully, and so it's such a treat to have you on the podcast and to explore this philosophy together.

I agree a hundred percent. I would say that our ideas are pretty unique out there. I mean, there's a lot of people who are talking about financial independence and a lot of people who are talking about, using that to, to create something. But merging the ideas of mindfulness with fire, I think is something that we have that's a little bit, unique and special. So really glad to be here again.

Yeah, and it's, it's pretty cool. when I first started this, I wasn't sure. do these ideas even go together and like, does anybody care? And so it's really cool to like hear from people like you who have been listening to the podcast like, I didn't know you before. So like people that find the podcast and resonate with it. And I found, especially after going on Choose AFI about a month ago, a lot of people are into this idea, which is really cool. A lot of people signed up to get the envisioning guide. A lot of people have joined on the podcast. And if that's you, welcome, to you the Choose Fi audience, happy to have you here and explore this concept. But I wasn't sure if anyone was gonna care. And it's nice to hear more and more from people who are like, that's exactly what I'm looking for. I'm looking for more than just the numbers, more than just racing towards this goal of a arbitrary dollar amount. I want to create this life now and live into it. And that's how I think about it.

A hundred percent. Yeah. And yeah, I agree cuz uh, me too. I was like, I don't know how else to express what I wanna do other than through mindfulness as an accelerant or as a key tool. yeah, I think it'll, catch on more with people as they explore these concepts together. So, definitely. Yeah. And I loved your podcast and she's AFI as well. I'm a big fan,

ah, thank you. Thank you. I got great feedback on that. And it's one of those things that you recorded and you're like, I don't know how this went. I think it was good, but who knows? And it's was really good. When I listened back to it, I'm like, wow, I actually sound like I've known what I'm talking about oh, it's nice. so Tracy, I'd love to have you start by sharing a little bit about who you are, your journey, and what you're up to.

Sure. I am Tracy Collins and I'm, currently living in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, and I got here through, Dubai. so my husband and I were living in, the UAE for almost five years. So our five year anniversary would've been coming up, next month in March. And, you know, I'd been looking for a change for a while. I had that, itch to try something new. But, you know, the life, in Dubai and in, in the UAE generally is really good quality. So I felt like I would be, I felt like I should just wait till things played out organically. And, that happened in, in October. my role was made redundant. Luckily I had a head a heads up that it was coming, but. like just literally, set our lives on fire in terms of, planning two huge moves. So leaving the Middle East and all of the paperwork and agony around that. And, closing up your life and friendships. We're not closing the friendships necessarily, obviously, but, ending that part where you're able to interact, in person and just navigating a really complicated world, to get to Mexico, which is where we planned to come anyway, because of, some, a real estate investment we'd made back in 2021. so ended up, in Mexico via Canada as well. and at the time when all of this happened, I already knew that we had hit our work optional number. that sort of came to me in May of 2022. It, it just, I can't believe I didn't even see it coming. I think it was just because of all of our investments had done really well and there it was in, in black and white. Like if I, if you just use the 4% rule, we'd hit our number. So when my rule was made redundant, I was just like, okay, I'm just gonna take a long pause. Like I'm gonna take maybe a gap year or something in Mexico. And, we launched this website, mindful Fire Life, to capture our journey and, that as all of the chaos of our life was playing out, I ended up, accepting an offer at a company that I'd been, whose work I was really aligned to in terms of, mindfulness and leadership. And that all happened really serendipitously and I would. I would argue, not in terms of the magical thinking, but I would say that when you make space in your life, sometimes you introduce or allow new opportunities to come in. and in hindsight, as well with everything that happened, I'm really glad to have this role because it's, it's allowing me to live more purposefully and, also, I think I really underestimated the cost of life these days in, in inflationary period as well. lucky for Americans, the dollar's really strong, but not so great for Canadians where, like in Mexico, everything's pegged to the US dollar. it's really, it's a lot more expensive than I expected. So having that extra cushion has been, a blessing. so I'm really happy for that. so yeah, I'm like work optional. I have this website, I'm working in a space that I feel really connected to. And, yeah, I just love to share. like if there's anything that I can offer to the world that helps them in their journey, then that's great. so that's, where I'm at.

I love it. I love it. And I remember reading in your bio that you kind. Happened upon the knowledge that you had already hit your work optional number. Like how did that come about?

so I was really late to the party, so in, I don't know, maybe 2015 I read or reread, I'm not sure. Tim Ferris is the four hour work week, like many, people did back in the day. And it just really got me thinking about, about life and retirement and a lot of the social expectations or cultural expectations about working till you're 65 and then retiring, et cetera. And, I started tracking our spending early on. So I've, I'm, I have a million budgets. I have like a million Google sheets of like, stuff that I've been tracking over the years. And at the time, we were living in Canada, we had a beautiful home on the water, which I swore I would never sell. And then I sold it a few years later, and I just felt like it was so unattainable, So we're paying a ton of taxes and we just didn't have a lot of extra cash flow after all the bills were paid. so we're trying to budget and trying to find ways to save money, but like I said, it was just, it just seemed really out of reach. I just couldn't understand how we could make this happen. But we found, we had very low interest at the time. We bought one income property, which like scared the shit outta me. I was like, we're, we're never gonna get a tenant and like, we're gonna lose money and all of these catastrophic things are gonna happen. So we got the first income property going and then we bought, a second income property. And, so that was really great. And then I would say the big accelerant happened in, 2018. So I had an opportunity in the uae and of course, for us as Canadians. So if you have a tax treaty with a, with a country and you are deemed or you meet the criteria for non residency, then you earn all of your salary tax free. So I'm just gonna let that sit in for a second. So earning all of your salary tax-free is a huge, benefit, right? So we were in the UAE for gosh, right? Yeah. Just

to be clear, you, because there's a agreement between Canada and the uae. You went to the UAE to work and the salary you earned there was completely

tax free. A hundred percent. Yeah. And so for Americans it's a little bit different because you still have to pay tax on your worldwide income. for Canadians as long now you have the criteria are quite strict and you have to declare yourself as a non-resident. You have to meet the criteria, so you can't just suddenly decide, like there are very specific rules around that. but, we were able to save a lot of money. and like a lot of people during the pandemic, we saved quite a bit of money. now we also enjoyed our life tremendously. We traveled a lot, et cetera. But, like those four years, we saved probably a third of our total net worth, which was, that's a huge amount. when you talk about financial independence, one of the keystone is starting young. So like we started, like I was, in my forties already. But those four years, if you're able to save like$7,000 a month like that's Canadian. not American, but that is a huge, engine towards your net worth. so all of these things happened. it was like an awareness, that I wanted to not be working until I was 65. I wanted to be able to travel. we had, I read the book, we invested in a couple of houses. We, struggled along until we moved to the uae. and then of course, during the pandemic, This was where we discovered the accidental part of, reaching work, optional status was I had really, even though I was tracking the growth of our portfolio, so we have, quite a bit of real estate and then we have, I should say some in terms of our total net worth portfolio, I think we're like 60% real estate and 40%, investments. But everything was just booming, right? And when I looked at the current value of our properties and our portfolio, I was like, oh my God. Like, we're there, and I sat quietly for like a long time. I didn't know what to do with the information. I felt like, just like, shocked. I was like, I don't like, life is going pretty good and the UAE should, I'm not gonna resign now, which is why we just decided to wait and see. losing my job indirectly was actually a blessing because the, I really needed a change. and, so I was glad for that. Although the strain and pain that went with it was, quite extraordinary. and so I like that idea. Like I'm, I've met sort of the work optional holy grail, so to speak, and, I'm working now, but I have a lot of flexibility and, just the freedom of knowing that I choose, I'm choosing to work for this company because it'll, it aligns with my purposes and it's very fulfilling in that way. But, I don't need it, which is very different than most of my careers where it's been like, I have bills to pay, I have a mortgage, I have this, I have that. so that's a little bit about the journey to get there was. Long and very like up and down. Like I think a lot of people have a very steady, steady journey towards financial independence because they put all of their energy into accelerating that journey to work optional or financial independence as quickly as possible. So I would say our journey was slower and much rockier, but but we got there, right where you put your energy, you are bound to succeed in a way, right?

Absolutely. Absolutely. So it sounded like you almost went the traditional path in Canada and got the beautiful house on the lake and the big mortgage and all these things, and then you realize that like with all of that, you're just even though you're probably making good money, you're just scraping by and that kind of hamster wheel, so to speak. I don't mean to. Speak badly about what you were doing, but maybe that resonates almost that kind of just going through the motions just to keep up with what the life that you've created. and then you decided maybe there's a different way, right? Maybe we can do something differently and the opportunity to go. did the opportunity to go to the UAE come out of that or did you sell your house first or just curious.

I've worked like you, I've worked in tech for a long time, the Silicon Valley of Canada is the Toronto Waterloo corridor. Yeah. And, although I was living further east in the province, I was working remotely in the tech, like educational technology space. I had a really good friend of mine, still like a best friend who, was in the process of accepting a role in the UAE for an ed tech company. I had been spending some time with her before she left and dropped the hint to say like, Hey, I'm Steve and I are looking to maybe make a change once you get settled. And if there's an opportunity there, let me know. She had, gone, we'd stayed in touch and then there was an opportunity that opened and at that time, so that was, I knew that this was gonna probably happen like in the new year of 2018. And, from there we leased our house. So we rented our house for, I think it was a two year rental agreement with the option to buy, and I think they purchased, yeah, they purchased the year after. so that was how that played out. and I ended up selling my dream house that I had, affectionately joked that I was gonna be like, buried in that house, And then I sold it out because, sold it out because, you hit the nail in the head like you have this lifestyle. you have a great lifestyle, but you're cash poor, right? So you're like, just doling out money for taxes and mortgage. And, I wanted something different, I wanted, I just also, I was just curious. I wanted to just try something completely different and unconventional. Yeah.

I love that. I love the boldness of the move, right? it's, I ask these things because I'm in that scenario right now, right? Like, I have this beautiful house, like this room you can see is like, I envision this room, like I love this house and, I never thought I'd be living in New Jersey. Let me be honest cuz I don't want deal with the winter. I'm up, I grew up in Florida, went in California. Not a winter person, but here I am. And, but that comes with a a substantial mortgage that's. A third of my annual expenses. So it limits some flexibility. but yeah, so I don't know. I just asked that for, cuz I'm curious about that. One thing that stood out to me in what you were just saying is something that I'm talking about all the time, which is envisioning having a clear vision or an idea of the vision that you want and talking about it to people. And if you hadn't planted that seed with your friend about like, Hey, I'm open to this idea, you're going to the UAE to work on this te in this technology company. I'm open to talking about that, right? Like, if you hadn't had that conversation, maybe that never would've happened. And so I, I always, I'm huge on this idea of like, get clear on your vision and talk about it with people you trust and. Or if you're bold, anyone who will listen like get a podcast and talk about it Like me Hundred percent. Yeah. But it's amazing, right? Like, so Yeah. Any thoughts on the power of talking about what you want and your vision? Yeah, I

mean, so I would say there's a couple of things that resonate. One is, for Steve and I, even though we were living the dream, so to speak, there are many things that I really liked about our life in Canada, but there were also, things that I didn't like so much and you raised one, which is winter. Like, winter just doesn't work for me. Like I just, my husband and I are just can't, we just don't like winter at all. I know it sounds maybe strange, but like, if you can shift that sort of misery about the weather and look at another option, like we've been talking for years about moving maybe to California or to Florida, it's a little bit difficult with the immigration rules and I, that was a bit of a struggle we'd been talking about Oh, when we retire, but that just seemed so, so far in the future. So this opportunity to move to the UAE just seemed like a perfect storm. Cuz obviously the easiest way to get a new role is through someone you know. And having like the idea of, this was not the first time I'd uprooted my life before I had started my career living in Southeast Asia. I lived in Korea, I lived in Taiwan. And so I knew, and actually my friend did too. So I think there's also something about the travel bug that once it gets into you, it stays with you. so it was easy for me to basically see the connection points, to be like my friend who I have a lot in common with is going, we work in the same industry. the UAE is, very strong financial center. Why wouldn't they be hiring their startup? so there were a lot of synergies and also in my mind I was like, at least when you're moving, if you have a, a mini network already, like that eases some pain. so yeah. seeing synergies and being able to talk about them is one thing. So that applies to me reaching out to my friend, but it also applies to the life that Steve and I were envisioning of which winter did not play a part of that. And, it's funny things like. But, okay, so you've got the weather part, but like, you also have like the cost of maintaining multiple wardrobes. You've gotta have like a full summer wardrobe, a full winter wardrobe. You have winter tires, summer tires, or regular tires. You have a lot of house maintenance. You have all of these extra costs that are going into, maintaining a lifestyle in Canada. And many, Canadians are snowbirds and they end up with multiple properties. Now, if some of them are lucky, they might be able to rent them out as an Airbnb, but they also wanna be there when when there would be the high season to rent it out. so I was like toiling with like, thinking through all of these, issues in terms of the lifestyle that we wanted. And being a full-time resident of Canada just didn't really play into that vision. So now I would say that, Talking about these things is one part. Doing it as another, like the doing part is difficult and it also introduces other pain points, right? But overall, you are growing, right? You're expanding your worldview, you're trying on new things, you're stepping out of your comfort zone, and all of that is worth it in and of itself, yeah. So I guess it starts with seeing what's bothering you and then seeing where you wanna get to, and then throwing darts to see what sticks, and then just trying something new, right? I think it's the trying part that a lot of people get stuck on cuz they're so afraid. so many people are afraid of what might happen, right? There's a lot totally to worry about. But again, we all know those are just thoughts, right? they're not truths.

Absolutely. Absolutely. said. yeah. Yeah. definitely no winter in the uae. I met someone that I, on a plane one time that we were going to s global sales conference, and she's like, oh, like, it's like a plane full of Googlers going to Vegas, I think. And she's like, oh. I'm like, where are you from? She's like, oh, the uae, I'm from Dubai. and I'm like, oh, it's hot there, right? And she's like, oh yeah, we have two seasons, summer and extreme summer. And I was like, okay. Yeah, that makes sense. That stuck with me. That was like, that was a long time ago. That was like 10 years ago. But it's funny, my brother is in, I think my brother is in Dubai today.

Oh, this is a great season. This is, oh, it's a little bit cool. Cool. Now, but, nice. Yeah. Winters are magic in the uae. Yeah,

I can imagine. And yeah, I, growing up in Florida, it's just the winter comes in, every license plate is Ontario, just so many Canadians, all over Florida in the winter. but to do that, you need to have two houses. And like you said, you want to be there when the house is most valuable. So it's, not necessarily the best solution if you don't want to be in doing winter. There's other options. And it sounds like you really opened your world to what's possible. So I appreciate that a lot. All right. So anything else you wanna talk about in that with regards to. the pursuit of fire, or even the, the work optional mindset.

so let's see. Oh, okay. so maybe one thing I would say about financial independence or just moving towards financial independence is, there are a lot of different ways to get there, right? There are so many pathways, but it all starts with starting. saving, I would say step one is always about having a budget, tracking your spending, knowing where your money is going and finding some ways to maybe accelerate your savings or tons of hacks for that, which I won't get into. and then just. like investing smartly. Like I think because I'm Canadian, I like to diversify naturally. So like our portfolio is 50%, like, 60% real estate, and I was trying to make it simple, but 60 40. And then even in our investments, so in our investments we have what I would call low risk, conservative, aggressive. We have a cash pot. so that's like diversified. And then in terms of our real estate, we have some safe Canadian properties. we bought a condo with my mom, and then we bought a place in Mexico, which some people like all of those purchases scared me to death. Like, I literally just, every step I took was like, we're gonna lose money. Something catastrophic is gonna happen, we're never gonna get a tenant. Someone's gonna trash our house. And you know what, like, none of those things happen. Now, I understand real estate is a really. Sensitive topic right now. And it doesn't mean that real estate is maybe the right solution for people now, right? Because we had the benefit of getting in when interest rates were really low and when house prices were really low, right? So maybe real estate is not an avenue that's feasible for people. But what is feasible is for people to think about where they could put, what kinds of assets they could invest in, right? Like, for example, I don't invest in crypto because I don't understand it. I have tried so hard to understand it, I just can't wrap my head around it. So it's not something I invest in, but ETFs is something that I understand. Real estate, having had quite a few houses is something I understand. and it's something I, I believe in terms of like, if you like a population growth and housing crisis and the fact that people need places to live and not everybody is gonna wanna buy a house, right? A lot of, some people would prefer to rent for, for their specific reasons. I think it's just about. Like finding the frictionless path to where you wanna invest, but always investing, right? Investing continuously. that's how you're gonna get there. And also knowing that, like for me, like so many of the fire, community that I followed, they, they, were really frugal early on. They saved their money aggressively. They did all kinds of lifestyle hacking. they had eight jobs and they rented out rooms in their house and they didn't travel and they lived in an$80, or they drove in an$80 van or whatever the case may be. Some people can accelerate through that really frugal, minimalistic lifestyle, which is great. And, but if you can't, like just being aware of, where your opportunities are, where the frictionless points are for you, you might be surprised at what you can accomplish. Like for me, like I, I've shared openly like how shocked I was that we hit our work optional number just because of the economic circumstances at the time. I was tracking things, but I just didn't realize how much everything had appreciated and grown. And, we had that big accelerant period while we were, in our forties. So you never know what can happen, but if you just focus on the long game, you'll get there because it's a focal point for you.

Absolutely. Yeah. That kind of gets back to the importance of having a vision of where you're trying to go and keeping that top of mind and then just taking steps down the path little by little and investing. Continuously, and trying things, right? like you were saying, you tried living in uae, now you're trying, living in Mexico, now you're trying, doing this job that you're, that's aligned with your purpose. Like none of this is permanent, right? I had another guest on that I met on LinkedIn, named Maurice Phil. and he has this concept, try life on, right? Like, he likes to try life on, like he wanted to be a street cop. He decided, I'm gonna go try that. Like, so if you are open to trying things, all sorts of opportunities open up for you. And a, if you have that clear vision of where you're trying to go, it's not gonna be a straight line to get there, but you can definitely start get you, you'll definitely get there if you just keep taking steps forward. So I love that. And the advice about investing in is great too. So let's shift gears and talk about mindful fire. what does that term mean to

you? okay, so we have my fire journey that I've talked about, and, so around the same time, so in 2016, I started, meditating. I've been doing yoga for, I don't know, decades. but that's more what I would call an active practice. And at the time it was really focused on what I would call yoga, exercise, so it wasn't really like, yoga for mindfulness or connecting to body or awareness or any of those, kinds of, components. so I start meditating, mostly just cuz I was so anxious and develop that practice over years. And, it just really as my, meditation practice evolved and I started, it's a little bit like an onion or a lotus flower, right? Like, there's so many layers to it as you evolve your practice, I saw just the connection points with financial independence or just money, how we view money. through my mindfulness practice, I was able to see or observe, I became aware of the kinds of money mindsets I had, right? for example. There's a part of me that has a deep scarcity mindset, and I think many people have that. we're all children of war babies at some point. I'm not gonna get into epigenetics, but maybe there's an epigenetic component where that stress, that financial insecurity, d n a is getting passed down and downloaded into, into our beings that we're like afraid. we're afraid of running out, we're afraid of not having enough. We hoard, we, we don't share, like, so being able to explore that mindset to be like, Like, at least to name it, right? To say like, oh, I'm in a fair based mode right now. what is the quality of that? And ex and exploring it like this is mindfulness, right? and I, and also the foundation practice of the, many, fi experts write about this. The starting point for any journey in financial independence is knowing where your money is going, right? And I would say that is an act of mindfulness because, you can't bring awareness into anything like having a budget and tracking your spending is shedding light on where your money is going. Like money is an asset or a tool that either controls you or that you can control, right? Just like your thoughts are either in control on autopilot or you can raise awareness, notice the thoughts and say, Ah, anxiety, ah, scarcity mindset, ah, fear, right? You can notice these things and then you can do something about it. You can smile, you can laugh, you can say thank you so much. But those same tools and principles apply to finances. And so many of us are, finances is like a dirty secret. Nobody airs, nobody wants to talk about money. And there's, I'm sure cultural rules around that, but it's like, why don't we, like, we talk about our family stuff with friends. we talk about, we gossip, we engage in all kinds of people talk, but we don't talk about one of the most important things in all of our collective experiences, which is money, right? And using it as a tool to have, freedom, right? Which is, I think probably something all of us strive for. I just definitely saw how as my financial independence journey was evolving and my mindfulness practice was evolving, that it seemed inevitable that they intersected directly. And, I wanted to be able to, I don't know, raise that to people to showcase how they could use both those tools to, get some place, maybe more interesting. And it doesn't have to be better necessarily, but it can be a more interesting, fulfilling, satisfying, or, I've been through a lot of chaos. It's not always roses. Like the path to change is chaotic and stress, creates a lot of stress and anxiety. It's worth it because you're growing as a human being. So for me, I like that. I like the change, the growing, et cetera. So at this point in my journey, I can't see how mindfulness and finance, or financial independence don't dovetail. cuz it's all about awareness practice,

absolutely. A and you hit the nail on the head right there. It's all about awareness. The first step to anything is awareness, right? Without it, we're just being carried away by, society's expectations of us, our own thoughts and emotions, whatever, in any respect. The first step to like taking control over a situation is understanding what is, and that requires awareness. And as I think about, how, and as I, I had very similar experience. Like I was interested in mindfulness, through my work at Google where I learned from a colleague about meditation. And as I started practicing more and more, I started to bring awareness to my own thoughts and to the inner critic in my head, that's essentially running with stories around scarcity certainly is a huge one that I'm continuing to work through. and just not enoughness and doing things right or wrong, like this feeling that I'm always doing things wrong, right? And those are just thoughts, but the more that I can relate to them with awareness, and now I just, more and more I bring that compassion, that kindness and curiosity, which is a core part of mindfulness, the more I bring that into this awareness. Back then and now the less those thoughts, the less power those thoughts have over me. the same thing is true with our finances. Right around the same time, maybe a few years later, I had been working for maybe four or five years and I was making money, right? I was not spending all my money, luckily I was investing my 401k cuz I knew that was at least okay, at least a good thing to do. But I was overall, but overall I was afraid to invest. I was in cuz I didn't understand the stock market. I didn't wanna lose money. That scarcity mindset was there. But the more I learned about finance, financial independence through a friend of mine, David Multz, I'll give him a shout out here. My friend David, who started the same day as me at Google, he. decide he wanted to do a side hustle, but he didn't wanna do anything related to what we did in our job. And so I said, Hey, go learn about investing. Like that is as good of a side hustle as you can do. He went off and learned as much as he could about financial independence or about finances, which led him to like, choose fi and afford anything and all of these Imma scientists, all of these, five legends, and of course Mr. Money mustache, I should say. and he came back and taught me everything. So I, it blew my mind that like, wait, you don't need like 10 million or 20 million or whatever to retire. You actually just need 25 times how much you spend per year. And that was like, whoa. Like, okay, if I spend a hundred thousand a year, I need 2.5 million. that's a lot of money, but it's not 10 million and it's actually possible to get to. And so as I. brought that into my awareness. I started to see, over time these two things became bigger and bigger interests in my life. And I just started to see, like, I think there's an intersection here. Ultimately, I think mindful fire, which I tried, like, I choose if I had tried to like make mindful fire a thing, right? I think I did it. You and me we're doing it. but this idea of the mindful fire approach to financial independence, it boils down to awareness and choice. Bringing awareness to yourself, your life, what you really want your life to look like, and of course your finances, right? Bringing a kind, curious awareness to your finances is the first step to making any sort of improvement, right? A lot of people don't look at it. A lot of people, avoid it, let's be honest. They avoid it. They don't wanna talk about it, they don't talk about it with their spouses. but without that awareness, it's we're flying blind, and we are spending money in ways that aren't bringing us the fulfillment that we think they are. and. or worse, putting us in a horrible financial situation like debt, like living paycheck, paycheck to paycheck, which so many of people in, at least this country, but I would say all over the world, are living. And that is a very scary place to be. one thing that's come into, clear focus for me is that financial independence is great, but financial resilience is essential, right? that, three weeks ago or four weeks ago, 12,000 of my colleagues were laid off via email. yeah. Long longtime Googlers people that have dedicated their whole careers to this company and excelled, right? These are not poor performers, culture holders, like just amazing people. And overnight they don't have a job. And if you live like in the Bay Area, like many people do, and you go and you live the normal life by like buying a house, a shack in California is 1.5 million, right? So you have people that are making good money and they think, oh, I can afford going and buying a two, three, 4 million house. But guess what happens when your income evaporates overnight? You are now in a very precarious situation, right? And it gets back to what you were talking about with your lifestyle in Canada, right? everything needs to go well for it to keep going and.

I think that, but I think it, it comes back to how do you cultivate, independence agency and autonomy, right? So you're talking about tech layoffs, which I've watched, I've so many friends over the years and I've just been watching on LinkedIn. It's devastating. I went through it myself, right? I, yeah, that's my role was made redundant. the word redundant On its own just has a twingy kind of vibe to it. But

like,

And so you have like, I would say that's one layer. And then recently there's been a lot of news about, that ai, there's that a new chat, g p t chat. G p T. Yeah. So, you know, that is gonna display. I mean, the future is here. Okay, fine. But like, and hopefully it'll be used for, to serve very humanistic endeavors. Like, maybe offloading some of the more mundane tasks for important people like doctors and lawyers and people who, can focus on human-centered, work. But at the end of the day, like. all of us are vulnerable, and I would rather have control and agency through finances and, and not getting sucked into that. keeping up with the Jones' mentality, accumulating, I mean, buying stuff is very similar to any other kind of addiction, right? Like you're using it to feel better in the moment, right? Overeating, drinking, smoking weed or whatever. Like, these are all substances, and experiences to mute our human, dampen the human experience, numb out, numb down, whatever. for me, like I, I just think it's so important and you, you talked about a few aspects in your conversation too, which I think are like, just being aware of how you feel about money. So if you are living paycheck to paycheck, like knowing that feeling is. Not good, right? Like that it, and maybe exploring the edges of that, That financial insecurity, is a terrible place to be. just a small example of that, like when, leaving the uae, I grossly miss, I grossly, underestimated the cost of life, which, you've got inflation, you have exchange currency exchange stuff. That was really hitting us as Canadians. And like, I immediately went into scarcity, like panic, right? Like, oh my God, I'm gonna run outta money. Like our investments are gonna collapse. real estate's collapsing. I just got into this like really negative spin and I pulled myself out going like, ah, there you are again. Okay, you're in that negative spin. Like, the world is not gonna collapse. you're gonna be okay. This happens, this is cyclical. but again, it comes back to, like you said, the awareness and choice. Yeah,

absolutely. Yeah. It really does come back to that, right? Because when you notice that you are caught up in that scarcity or fear or whatever, you can notice it, right? And as you cultivate this more and more on the cushion through meditation, where you focus on your breath one practices, where you focus on your breath and your mind wanders away and you notice that and you bring it back with kindness, the more that you can, you train that ability, you start to notice that off the cushion as well. I've had like realization recently that like I am getting better at like, just allowing the thoughts to pass by, right? Like I've been getting, I kinda mentioned to you that I've been, I've had some sick kids and I've been getting, up in the night to run to my crying baby, and there's a lot of like, Cortisol coming up for me, and sometimes I just like feed it and like, I can't believe this is happening. Ah, but I'm getting better at just oh, there it is. Okay, let me just let it go by. And I can feel it's subsiding. We can do that in any, with regards to any kind of thoughts that we get caught up in. And the more that we can do that, the more choice we have about how to react, how to respond, and how to move forward. And so I think it really does come down to awareness and choice, in the moment, but also on like a macro level of like, what are we actually spending our money on? what is the life that we've created for ourself and is that still aligned with what we want? And if not, once we have awareness, we can start to choose like, what do I wanna change? And that brings us to choice. And then I'll just say something, close the loop on what I was saying before, but. what I was really talking about was financial resilience, right? With all these layoffs and all these, the market being down and, recession potentially being here or around the corner, like financial independence is a great goal and it's a worthy goal and I'm super excited about it. But knowing that I have financial resilience, I have money saved, I have investment saved, I have cash sitting around in an emergency fund that I can use no matter what happens, right? a lot of people are in a very difficult situation after these layoffs, no matter how much money they are making. I feel confident and I feel great in that confidence that even if I get laid off today, I'm fine. I'm okay. Not saying I have enough money to live on for the rest of my life, but I am okay. I know I'm going to be able to pay the mortgage. I know I'm gonna be able to put food on the table. And that is, that's a hu that's a feeling of power. Like I feel really confident in that. and that's a good feeling. I think so I think that's what mindful fire and Fire in general is really helping us set our lives up I in that way so that we're not one or two paychecks away from like a really scary situation.

and you indirectly, like if you, I mean I'm sure you're familiar with the mbsr, mindfulness-based Stress Reduction Protocol, which is the sort of old standard, program with the John Katzin, but Like, the goal of that is to develop what? Stress, resilience. And you're talking about developing financial resilience. There's a natural synergy with, the mindsets of both, right? So being able to weather the emotional storms that we go through, right? again, when you're just on autopilot, you're literally just the victim of your thoughts, right? Like, oh, that guy irritated me, or I'm upset about this. Or, I'm, caught up in thoughts about scarcity or whatever. but those thoughts are outside of us. The same as watching, leaves flowing down a stream, right? They're external to us. That in itself is, its own practice maybe for another day, but like when you can observe objectively your thoughts, just like you might say, gee, that guy almost got in a car accident across the street, but it's outside. It's not you who's being. Injured, right? It's the guy who, narrowly escaped or what have you. But that same process works for finances where we can, use, where we can, develop a financial awareness, even if it scares us, and confront, and prepare for these kinds of, in some case, in some cases, inevitable, cycles in the economy, right? This happens all the time. this is not the first rodeo with layoffs and a recession and inflation. high inflation hasn't been around for quite some time, I think since like the eighties or something. But, these are cycles, they're patterns, they're predictable. So of course you want to prepare yourself for that.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And as, as you've talked about, I think it really starts with just. Looking at what your life costs, right? Looking at where you're spending your money, looking at how much money you've saved, and just having that awareness, right? And then choosing like, is this where I want to be spending my money? And how can I, do I have money set aside for the rainy day, so to speak, just in case? And if not, how can I carve out a little money in this budget to make that happen? we talked about your philosophy on mindful fire, very much align with mine. Would love to have you talk a little bit about mindful fire life and your hopes and aspirations with that project. yeah.

okay, so I find out, end of September, like the last Thursday of September that my role is gonna be made redundant, right? immediately, talked to Steve, it was like a one minute conversation because, you can't stay in the UAE because you can't have debt there. It's pretty dangerous. I didn't wanna run the risk of, getting, trapped there with and accumulating any debt. So we immediately knew we were gonna go to Mexico, And, we had bought a property is gonna be ready next year, so it was obvious we were gonna come here. and at the time, like I mentioned, I just thought I would take a year off. I, I just felt really drained and I knew it was gonna be stressful moving. so I had been toying with this idea of the website for a while. I had drawn, so Steve, taught himself over the pandemic coding. So he, he, he built our website for us. And I had already been working on the storyboard for the, or the blueprint, the layout of the site. So he had been tinkering on it, and we had been talking about it, and then the minute I found out, I was like, all right, let's just, let's go all in. Like, let's just build it. we had about a two week window where, it was too soon to start selling everything. it honestly, those two weeks were some of the most incredible weeks for me. I just felt so relieved to be able to. Finished the chapter at my one job. And so looking forward to the next chapter, and I'm so excited about this website cuz I thought, I'll just use this as a springboard. At the time I was thinking maybe I'll teach yoga or maybe I'll offer some mindfulness. maybe corporate like wellness programs. I wasn't sure, but I was open to just being curious. I figured in Mexico there'd be like a big community of that and that this website would, springboard well, but more importantly I just, I wanted to be able to share the story because, Like, there are so many financial independence people who paved the way for me, right? Like, one thing I often talk about, or I have talked about on Instagram or, and I actually have a post, I'll tell you about it, later. But I, talk about some of the most influential financial independence people and how just the simple act of following them on Instagram can change your life, right? Because your feed is full of, new ideas. Everyone's got a slightly different lens or perspective, and I wanted to be able to. Help other people see, that journey or that pathway. So our story's a little bit unique because we're Canadian, but we're non-residents. We're, we don't have kids. We're closer to, Steve's 50 and I'm 48, so we're more on the older side of, middle-aged side of the fire community, and I, I wanted people to see that, this lifestyle, if you want it, is accessible. And that just because I, like, I feel like even when I was younger, I would shame myself. I'd be like, oh, other fire people, they retired at 35, and what's wrong with you? Like, why can't you do what they're doing? I was comparing and shaming myself and blaming myself. And at the end, like the truth of the story is, financial independence is accessible to everyone. There are a million different ways to get there. And it all starts with, making a plan, understanding what kind of lifestyle you want. And for us, that's always focused on travel. and we I started storyboarding and building out blog content and we launched that website cuz I literally, like I said, I had a two week window. I was like, we have to launch this in two weeks. So Steve was building the website all day and I was writing content and we were planning, the move on the side cuz that conversation had only been one minute. we knew right away we would come to Mexico and we launched it in two weeks. Just blind. Just, okay, let's just put this out there. And, so we launched the website, the YouTube channel, and, the Instagram account, I'm not really sure. Like, to me it's more about the story and helping other people see possibilities. I don't know where we'll go with it. long term. I know the smart thing, you're supposed to do an email list and do all these other things and activities to grow, emails and what have you. Like, I'm not there yet. I'm just exploring. But like, to me, I've always wanted to, I always feel the most, connected when I can or connected to my purpose if I can help someone somehow. Like, and that could be so simple, like just seeing someone, I don't know, struggling at a shop and offering a hand or, someone needs advice offering it, or if someone just needs to talk, whatever, just being there. And so in this way, Like, if my story or our story could help someone, then it's fulfilled its own purpose. and on this, the other part of that I think is really important is like, when I was very young, like my biggest passion was always reading and writing. Like for some kids it's baseball or, I don't know, collecting coins or playing hockey. kids have these natural interests or things that they're good at. my, I tried dancing and swimming and I'm just not very athletic. It's just not my jam. But writing and reading was my jam, right? And I lost sight of that. I used to write a lot of stories when I was a kid and, just got sucked into the adulting part of life and corporate and what have you, and lost sight of that. And one of, one of, the things that I enjoy most about the website, is being able to write. Content, right? Write posts that come to me that have helped me make sense of the journey. And now I'm publishing them, obviously on the website. I also publish them on Medium because that has a wider audience, base and maybe more, people might interact with my content or my stories. But that's the other angle. So it's about helping and it's about fulfilling a passion of mine, which is writing. And like, if I can do that long term or find a way, it's not about monetizing it either, right? Like, people always talk about monetizing, you have to monetize everything and turn everything into a paid side hustle. For me, it's the joy of writing itself. If it eventually generates something great. And if that generation is aligned with helping, then that's the most important part for me. so that's the genesis of the story about how the blog got started. It launched in two weeks when I was chatting with, I'm part of the, mindfulness facilitator network at the Comm Monkey. I don't know if Wendy Kwan and her work in Vancouver, but she's got a certification program. and so I was chatting, we have a Slack channel. I was chatting with, one of my fellow, mindfulness facilitators cause I was getting some, he's a marketing and web dev guy. So he was commenting, he's like, you launched a full website in two weeks. Cause I'd gotten, I'd done a feedback session with them. He's like, that is crazy that you launched this whole thing in such a short amount of time. But I, I knew we had two weeks and then after that our life was gonna start a slow, steady burn. And, I was happy to get, I'm happy it's there. It's a side project that is just brings me happiness,

I love it. I love it. And I love the, reconnecting with your passion for writing and letting it be an outlet and letting that be enough. Like not having to make it, monetize it and this and that. And that's, as I've built this, mindful Fire podcast, like it's, I've like, ebbed and flowed between like, oh, I'm just like doing this for fun and to learn and connect like this. Like I, this is my favorite part of the podcast, right? Like, having these conversations, but at the same time, like seeing it as a gateway to, potential post Google, post fi work, optional work, right? That earns me a little bit of money and doesn't need to cover all of my expenses, but could potentially. And, that type of thing. Yeah. So it's like, oh, I'm, what am I building towards? And oh, I'm gonna offer all these things and grow the email list, and then I essentially like overcomplicate it and then I burn out and then I stop. And like, there, there was like a two month period where I just didn't publish anything. So that's not good either. So I am in this year, I'm really trying to come back to what it is that I'm looking to do with this, which is connect with interesting people like yourself, grow, community of people who are interested in this and, try things, right? Try things that, that move me towards, what I want to be doing, purpose aligned work, what I want to be doing more full-time after, I leave the corporate setting eventually. and trying to make, let that be easy, right? And not putting pressure on myself that it has to grow a certain amount, right? Honestly, after the choose fi. Appearance, like it's grown way more than it's ever grown. So like it's really cool to see that. But then there's always that not enough mindset, right? Like I have like more downloads than I've ever had ever, and I'm still like looking at it like, oh, just a little bit more, just a little bit more. And it's like, why? Like it doesn't matter. Like these are people who are getting value from the episodes and enjoying it and that's great. That's great. So I love that you are in that place and have that clarity around the purpose of what you're doing. And. I have it and I lose it, and I have it and I lose it, but

oh, I have it and lose it too, so don't kid yourself. So I write for the pleasure of it. Not perfect. Write for. Yeah. I write for the myself, not the audience. interestingly, like I write things that I wanna talk about. but sometimes like I'll be like, oh, two people like unfollowed us on Instagram. Like, and I feel like wounded, and like, yeah. Oh, they hate, my, my stuff is no good. I'm not good with Instagram anyway. I'm not good with all the reels and stories and things like that, but I'm like,

I've given up on it. But I think you're doing great.

I have a guy that I, who's helping me to be honest, so he helps me with the most important things. But, yeah, I always just come back, like you said, like your, for you, it's about the conversations. And for me it's about the storytelling. and putting my thoughts together. Also, like when you put your thoughts together, like sometimes you have, like, I have an idea for a post. I'm like, this is how it's gonna write itself. This is what it's gonna look like. And all the thoughts and points make sense at the time until they actually write them. And I'm like, oh, I don't know what I'm talking about. I've changed this whole structure. This doesn't flow. It doesn't work. My logic is broken. it, it's, helpful and amusing for me to, to explore that as well.

yeah. One thing I'll also say that just came to mind is just this whole pursuit of, putting yourself out there online is such a self-awareness practice in itself. Like, I've learned so much about myself in the messiness of doing this, in the, what I call haphazard action taking, which has led to whatever this is, and like the procrastination, the perfectionism, the not enoughness, the all of it, right? Like it's all just like shining a light on those things within me and working through them. And like, the last time it took me two months to work through it and then I came back and, and I over-complicated, then I simplify it and just, I'm just moving forward and it really, I've learned a lot about myself and some things that I already knew, some new things. as I do this, so it's interest.

I'm with you. I struggle. Yeah. With the perfectionism. I make all these, I have like so many half baked posts on my phone that like, I'll be like, oh, I'm gonna do a post about this. This would be really cool. And I'll like start it. Like, with Canva, I have like a hundred half baked things or like, I'll sit down to write and everything is just not working and I'm just like, ah, can't do this. I'm annoyed, I wanna give it up. But, and then I come back to self-compassion saying, Okay. That story, that article's not working. Find one of the other 50 strands that you have and just pick it up right. And just be less hard on, on yourself. And, it doesn't have to be perfect, I suck at social media. Oh, fine. Okay. maybe my writing's no good. I have no idea. most of the time I'm like, if it's good, it's good enough for me. And if it helps someone, then great. And, if not, then I don't know what can I do. So I feel you. Yeah,

that's good. I'm glad I'm not alone on that. so let's switch gears now to what I call the mindful fire Final four. You ready, Tracy? Yep. Alright. So the first question is about envisioning. We've talked about a lot of things that you've envisioned already, but maybe is there anything that you wanted to make happen in your life you thought. This would be great. I have no idea how this is gonna happen. But then using the power of your mind, you, it happened, you made it happen. Did anything come to mind?

Yeah. Yeah. so for example, my whole background is in education ed, tech learning. Obviously when you go into that space, you do it because you wanna make an impact. And I just felt like over the years I was always, struggling. Like, in some careers were really good, or roles were really interesting. Others weren't so great. But I always felt like a higher calling. Somehow I felt like there was something else I needed to do. I just didn't really know what it was. And, a couple years ago, like during the pandemic, when my, my, meditation practice really acceler. I knew I was, it was like an epiphany. I was like, oh, I have all these transferrable skills, like mindfulness can, like corporate in a corporate context. It applies directly from a learning and education and training perspective. So I had in my mind that, I would like to make that transition. I was like, I think I just wanna have a new chapter. If I'm gonna work in, if I'm gonna continue to work, I wanna do something really purpose aligned. And my, to me, learning is one thing, right? So yes, learning and education is important, but to me, meditation has probably been one of the most transformational practices that has changed everything in my life, right? Radically changed everything in my life. So I knew I wanted to get there, and so I had, done a bunch of stuff. and then when I had heard early room, like rumblings about this, org structure, reorg at my company, I was like, okay. I'd like to move into this space. So I'd reached out to a few companies, put some feelers out, and, I had like a, an intention that I'd written on a piece of paper that I kept in a box, and I used it as part of my daily meditation. It basically said I am a mindfulness coach and consultant and, I can't remember the exact words, but that was the main piece of it, and, that, and through my work, I help, I help and heal others as I help and heal myself. So I would meditate on this every day. And so I had this opportunity with this company that I'm working at now. when you talk about intention setting, they, I'd seen, they had rules. I'd applied for a few of them over the years, hadn't heard back. And then finally, I just reached out. They had the recruiter on the job posting. So I reached out. I was like, Hey, I've applied to these jobs. I feel like I have some transferable skills I haven't heard back, which is okay, I'd really like to move my career in the space. could we even just talk for 15 minutes about how I might transition my career in the next two years or three years or whatever. So I had a chat with her. Things went well, and then, I, in my mind, I immediately was like, oh, I wrote this intention. I'm attracting, I'm gonna manifest this role. So I got the email the next week. She's like, thanks so much. It was a great conversation. We don't really have anything for you at this time. Thanks so much. We're gonna put you on the list. I was like, oh, the dreaded list. I'm going on the list, which is just, I'm gonna be dropped off a cliff. I'm never gonna hear from them again. heard from, my company at the time, but the redundancy, and immediately since that part was closed, immediately focused on the mindful fire life. Cause I was like, that's, this is what matters to me, and I'm just gonna put this out there. And then two weeks later, heard back from the company and they were like, oh yeah, we want, we'd like to talk to you again. Can we? And it wasn't a done deal. I had to do a bunch of other interviews, but in hindsight, if I, if they had offered me that role, I would've resigned on the spot from my company. If I had resigned from my company, I would not have gotten a severance package. right? So sometimes, so I put my mind to this, and it happened in a convoluted, serendipitous way that benefited me in the best possible way. I wrote a post about how moving, like incinerating, my li how I incinerated my life in 47 days. Like if I had not had that severance package because there's no relocation, money that's provided, when you're moving back to your country, that would've been like financially very bad Like, so having,

is that a technical term? Financially?

Very bad. Very bad. like I would've burned through like, so much cash as it was, I already burned through like, 16,000 US dollars in like 60 days, which was not expected. so like the life, the universe had my back in a way, Like it came out. and so yeah, that's my sort of story about like wanting to do it, but not really knowing how it would work out, not knowing if it would work out and it came to me anyway. Yeah. And

what I'm hearing there is not forcing it and trusting, trusting in yourself, your skills and in the universe that it's going to, I don't know how, I don't know when, I don't know what's gonna look like, but this is gonna happen one way or the other. This is my intention. I want to make this happen and I don't need to force it. That's the struggle that I have often is just like releasing, right? like having the vision, getting really clear. Cool, but releasing and letting things flow. And I've had so many experiences like that where it's like worked out better than I could even have imagined. And so I love that. And yeah, it's always good to get severance, alright, question number two, Tracy, what piece of advice would you give to someone early on their path to financial independence?

I've mentioned it so many times, but start with tracking or spending, this is the hardest part for so many people. They don't wanna look, they don't wanna see. and the easiest analogy I can use is like, if you don't track your spending similarly, why don't just take, I don't know, a hundred dollars bill or. 10,$100 bills and light, take a match and set them on fire. Like, would you do that? could you physically just light a match to your money because you're actually doing that by not knowing where your money's going and not having, awareness and, agency over your spending decisions, right? So if you wouldn't set your money on fire physically, then, just take some baby steps to at least, maybe even just identifying where the big categories of your spending are going, being honest about that. And, I think that's just such a fundamental step. Like you can't really go anywhere without taking a hard look at your spend. so that, oh, sorry. okay. I know you said one piece, but the other piece is it's all good. Just start, right? just start wherever you are because, the pathway can be linear, it can be up and down, it can be all over the place. It can be global, you never know. But when you start, then you're at least getting someplace, right?

Absolutely. Great advice. Just start and track your spending. All right. The third question is, what piece of advice would you give to someone getting started with meditation and or mindfulness?

Okay, so here's, I feel, so I feel like with mindfulness and meditation, so many people struggle with it, right? Because they think it's like so airy fairy, and the minute they sit anywhere sit or stand or lay, they say, oh, I can't meditate, I can't, my thoughts are all over the place. I just can't. And that's the whole purpose, right? We know that's the whole purpose. But something, cuz I've tried, I've been trying, I've always struggled to find like a meaningful analogy or a metaphor that would help people understand. so if, so meditation is to exercise is mindfulness is to fitness, right? So if you go to the gym for 20 minutes and you do cardio or kickboxing or yoga, you might notice that also transcends into ar other areas of your life you might. be less winded. When you take the stairs, you might feel a little better. You might, have a bit more endurance or stamina, in your daily life. The same way is just sitting on the cushion or sitting or laying or whatever for like, even one minute. we talk a lot about like, mindful meetings like where you just start, your meeting with one minute to reset and recalibrate can just change your whole experience of life, right? So it's the same metaphor. So people, and it doesn't have to be about exercise, it can be about eating healthy, it can be about any sort of supportive practice. But, again, the same piece of advice stands. It's like, just start someplace and go where it takes you. Because meditation, a 20 minute practice will lead to mindfulness that, impacts other areas of your life. yeah, so just start and know that the racing thoughts is the whole purpose.

Yeah. That's what the mind does. It creates thoughts, so expect it and cuz it will happen. All right. And the last question, Tracy, is where can people connect with you online and learn more about Mindful Fire Life and all the things that you're working on?

yeah. So we have the mindful Fire life.com, website. We have the same handle on Instagram. We have a YouTube channel, and then I'm also, cross posting, not all of the posts, but the posts that make sense. Also post on Medium. yeah, you can find us there. I'd love to, help anyone who's interested in this journey or if the story resonates. yeah, feel free to reach out. Wonderful.

thank you so much, Tracy, for being here and sharing your experience and your story and your wisdom with the audience.

Welcome. Thank you as well, Adam, for hosting me. And yeah, it's just, it's been so great just being able to connect with you, through LinkedIn and through Instagram and to make this connection happen. and thanks for inspiring, my journey too. you're part of that as well. So many thanks.

Thank you so much.