125 : Retiring Early with Coast FI and Slow FI with Diania Merriman

Diana, welcome to the Mindful Fire Podcast. I'm so glad to have

you here. thanks so much. I'm happy to be here.

Yeah. So I'd love to have you start by sharing with the audience a little bit about who you are, your journey, and what you're up to in the world.

Sure. so I'm Diana Miriam and I discovered the fire movement when I was about 28. And at the time I was completely financially illiterate, living in New York City, living beyond my means, but like having my twenties right. Really parting it up. And, um, myself in 30 grand of debt for literally no reason. and that was just from me, just like running credit report on myself. I realized that I was in 30 grand of debt at that time. And so I had this goal to go walk the Camino for my 30th birthday. So I knew I was gonna be taking two months off of work. And in order to make that happen, I needed to make it financially feasible. And so that really, motivated me to figure out my finances and I went on this journey of like reading all this stuff about money, but everything I would come across had this tone of like, struggle to it, right? Like it's gonna be hard to pay off debt and you got to eat rice and beans and buckle down and this whole like tone of deprivation and just again, that struggle, it just was very unappealing, right? Because I was having a lot of fun in my twenties. And so I came across the fire movement and specifically the Mr. Money Mustache blog. And that was the first thing that I read about money where I was like, oh wow, I'm actually wasting an incredible opportunity. And I didn't even realize it. And it was just this complete 180 where I ended up getting out of that 30 grand of debt in 11 months. And from there I started saving and investing about 60% of my income. So I went from. 30 grand of debt at 28 to then retiring from my corporate career at 33. And it was just this wild ride that now has left me at 36 where I work four hours a week of paid work. I host a daily podcast about money, and that's just 10 99. And come on, basically paid to be a voice actor. and then I produced this event called The Economy Conference, which is my business that I started, but it doesn't provide for my livelihood at all. It's almost like a hobby business. And so I just lived this life of like time and creativity, abundance, and it was really all from getting my money. Right.

That's pretty compelling. Thanks. That's a pretty compelling story. Yeah. and yeah, I've heard your story a couple of times in different flavors, It sounds like the desire to walk the Camino and take two months off work forced you to say like, how am I gonna pay for that? Mm-hmm. And that might have been one of the first times you actually thought about the inflow and outflow of money.

Oh yeah. It was the first time I actually paid attention. Because before that, I was swiping my credit card, I was paying the minimum balance on it, but I just really was not paying attention to how much I was spending. and so actually coming up with the plan to get outta debt required that I understood what the gap was between my income and expenses. Because if you don't identify the gap, how are you gonna grow the gap? How are you gonna protect the gap? How are you gonna deploy the gap strategically, And so identifying the gap is the first step. And you identify the gap from being really clear on what is my income and not what is the, what does it say my salary is, right? People are like, oh, my income is X amount. No, what is it after taxes and after deductions? How much are you actually bringing home? So getting a really clear vision on that. And a really clear understanding on what your expenses are. What are the fixed expenses, what are the dis discretionary things, and how do you reduce those expenses without it feeling like deprivation? that whole process for me opened up this realm of creativity and resourcefulness that I didn't even know I had. And I think a big part of that is because I reduced my expenses at a time when it wasn't forced on me externally. It wasn't like I had a job loss and I had a big loss of income, and all of a sudden I had to like tighten the belt loop, right? it was a very, it was self-imposed and so I could experiment and it not feel like scarcity. It actually felt like a really creative time to like cook all of the meals that I was eating and find ways to entertain myself that were really cheap. find ways to take care of my needs in a really like, resourceful way, without any, True external pressure. I think that's what made that time feel so magical versus again, if it was like due to a job loss or a loss of income in some way.

Yeah, I imagine that's a very different feeling. Mm-hmm. Yeah. and you talked about the identifying the gap, and when I talk about, how mindfulness and money come together, I really think of it as awareness and choice, right? Yeah. First, if you're unaware, like you, you described, and as I was in my early twenties when I was just, fortunately I wasn't spending all the money I was making and I was investing my 401k, but beyond that, I had no idea what was coming in, what was going out, certainly wasn't investing, but first is awareness, right? Getting clear, like, okay, like here's what the situation is and then comes choice. And it sounds like you use this opportunity to choose to grow the gap, to choose to. Think about that big opportunity that you said you were missing out on a big opportunity when you first became aware of Mr. Money Mustache. So what, maybe unpack that a little bit. What was that big opportunity, that you

identified? I could just see how much I was wasting my money and also wasting my privilege, right? Like I'm an educated white woman in a first world country that was living in New York City with no man and no kids, and climbing the corporate ladder. I saw my income increase like 20, 25%, three years in a row. I was crushing it in my corporate career. I had an office in the Empire State Building, like I was just, I was doing so well from like a career growth perspective and what was I doing with all of that great increases in income. It's like I was just, I was spending like two to$3,000 a month going out, partying. Granted I had fun, right? like I, sewed my wild oats. Let's like that's great, but that had nothing to show for it. Like all that career growth, I was just wasting the money that I was. earning. And I think I had to like come to the realization that money is a really powerful tool. it can buy your freedom. And most of us are so focused on material abundance, the stuff that we can buy with money that we'll never be able to experience. Time, abundance, relationship abundance, creativity, abundance. Like when you use your money to create more time and space in your life, you get all of these other like gifts of wealth that not many people are able to enjoy. And even people that like technically could buy that they get so caught up in like, now I need more money, I need more success, I need more achievements. And it's just like, There's on that same hamster wheel that you're on, even if you don't have money, right? So like we even talked about before, this concept of enough of like, what is enough money to where I can not have to trade my time for money so much anymore and I can start asking the bigger questions of life? Like, what do I wanna do with my time? Who do I wanna spend it with? What do I wanna create in the world? Like over time, those questions become a lot more interesting than how do I reduce my expenses and increase my income even more? How do I reach financial independence even faster? those are valid questions, but I feel like at a certain point I grew beyond those, to start asking what I consider some more interesting questions. Yeah.

and what are those questions

again? It's the, yeah. What do I wanna do with my time? Yeah. Who do I wanna spend it with? What do I wanna create in the world? Yeah. The thing about money is that it's like, it's this impersonal tool, right? And I think a lot of what we get wrong in the fire movement is everyone wants to figure out, how do I sit on top of a big pile of money, but I say this analogy a lot. let's say if money is a hammer in the fire community, we talk about how do you acquire the hammer? Where are you gonna store the hammer? What kind of features does the hammer have? How am I gonna protect the hammer? That's what we talk about in the fire movement. But if you never pick that hammer up and swing it and do something with it, what's the point of even having it, right? Like, the goal is not to reach 25 times your yearly expenses. The goal is not financial independence. The goal is to like, again, create that life you never wanna retire from, right? And so money is just a tool, it's not a goal. And I think that there's a lot of confusion around that.

Yeah, I really, that's a really good analogy. you gotta pick up the hammer. You, or at least you gotta know why you're. Why are you getting a hammer? Why do you have the hammer? What do you want to use it for? What do you wanna build? So I like

to say that money is only as valuable as your clarity on how you're gonna use it and your comfort level of how much is enough. Without clarity and comfort, you are not able to fully leverage your nest egg. And I see a lot of people struggle with that.

Yeah. that makes a lot of sense. yeah. When you mentioned before, time and creativity, abundance, that getting your finances in order allowed you to create more time and creativity, abundance. Was that on the path to, being 33 and leaving your retiring from your corporate career? Or was that once you reached that point,

I retired from my corporate career when I reach, Coast Five status. So I didn't even get to 25 times my yearly expenses. That was my goal. Originally when I came up with my original plan, it was to be five by 40 and reached that magical five number, right? But when I got to 33, essentially I was in a situation that forced me out of my job and I decided to retire at that time. but to me, retirement is not about not working, and it doesn't necessarily mean that you are. Drawing down from your nest egg. I consider myself retired from my corporate career. It's an ending to something. So I ended my corporate career, I ended W2 work and my expenses are so minimal that I'm able to meet them on four hours of work a week. Most people that work four hours, You could criticize me for not drawing down on my portfolio, but like, I don't think four hours of paid work a week would be considered gainfully employed. I consider myself retired.

I mean there's some gainful aspects to it. You're covering your expenses with it, but yeah, I wouldn't call that full-time work, that's for sure.

No, and honestly, like I don't think retirement is about not working either. I agree. I think it's about separating your finances from your work and being super picky about what you work on, who you work with, how much you work, where you work, when you work right. to gain full control over it. That to me is what financial independence and early retirement is all about. I think that Like work is a really important part of wellbeing. To be able to contribute to the world, to be productive, to create things you're really proud of, that is a wonderful thing. Our culture just ruined it. But I think there's a way through financial independence to take back that full autonomy over your work and be able to, really see how it fits into wellbeing. Like Yeah. I have, I had someone ask me the other day like, do you think you'd consider taking like a part-time job for like 20 hours a week? And I was like, I think four hours a week is too much. Like I can't even imagine like committing to 20 hours a week. It's not that I don't do 20 hours a week of work, but it's so self-directed and it's so driven by inspiration and what I feel like doing that day to like be obligated to do 20 hours a week. Again, it's not that I don't work 20 hours a week, but there's no obligation to it. All of my deadlines are arbitrary. Everything I do is self-directed. That's true. Freedom.

Yeah. I love it. four hours a week. sounds fantastic. you're living Tim Ferris's dream. That's right. That's right. The four hour work week. that's fantastic. So you were describing that, out of this creativity and time abundance, is that kind of how economy came to be? The conference

economy was me answering the question, what would I do with my time if I didn't have to worry about making money? To me, economy was supposed to be my retirement project. It was supposed to be when I got to 40 years old and I got to 25 times my yearly expenses and I was just looking for something to do with my time without having any pressure of it, for it to provide for my livelihood that I had this idea for this conference I wanted to build. the problem is that I got so damn excited about it. I couldn't wait. And really it was, inspired by this other conference that unfortunately isn't around anymore, but they had a 10 year run. It was called the World Domination Summit. Have you ever heard of this? Yeah, I have.

I have, yeah, I have some friends who went to it, but I never went.

So good. Mr. Money Mustache spoke there in 2016 and he wrote a blog post about it and when I read about it, I was like, I gotta go to this thing. So 2017 was the first year that I went, and so I went to the last four and they get 2000 people to spend$700 each together at this event. And it is worth every freaking penny because you're surrounded by all these people with these really expansive mindsets that are living these really. Dynamic creative lives and every time I would go to this event, I would leave feeling like my life was so full of possibility. And what I wanted to create is that feeling specifically about money. Because money is this like incredible tool, like I said, that can create so much time and space and like abundance in your life. And I think we get it so wrong that I just felt like there was this opportunity to create an event for people to feel this like sense of opportunity and potential around their money. And also within the fire movement. we are like such weirdos, the fact that we're saving large percentages of our income. Our friends and family think we're weird that we're doing this right. We can't talk to anybody about it. And most people that you meet will not be interested in this topic at all. And I just think like community and a sense of belonging is another really important part of wellbeing. And so to meet with hundreds of other people that also have this like crazy goal of fire for me personally, when I started going to PHI events, it was game-changing. It completely changed my path to fi, and like totally helped me reimagine it. Because there's no rules to fire. The only thing we agree on is to spend less than you earn. It's the only thing we agree on. Everybody's fire journey looks so different, and so by people being transparent and sharing the way they're approaching it, it just helped me reimagine my whole path. And that's why I gave up on the whole, I'm gonna be five by 40 and have 25 times my yearly expenses. Once I learned about Coast Buy and SoFi and how like self-employment and entrepreneurship can like open up so many doors on my financial journey, it's like I just let go of that traditional fire path. And now my goals look so different. I don't even know when I'm gonna reach my traditional fine number. I have absolutely no plans to like. Stop what I'm doing as far as the podcast and the conference. So it's like, even if I reached five tomorrow, it's just irrelevant because I wouldn't change anything. Yeah. I'm already living all of the benefits of a financially independent life without having 25 times my yearly expenses. So it's just an incredible thing. Like I just, I think along my path, I continue to change and evolve with my relationship around money and the way that I'm approaching fi. I think I've changed my plan like 10 times already,

Nice. And but you're getting to the heart of it, right? You are living your PHI life now, right? there's no, if I get to there, then I'll be happy. That's what I like to talk about that as like the if only mindset and I find myself mm-hmm. Even still, even having awareness of this, getting caught in this, like, oh, if only I could be financially independent, then I'd be happy if only I had, I could teach mindfulness and get paid for it and all these things. Like, and then I realized, wait a second. All those things I say I want, I already have, or I can have very easily if I just switch how I'm paying attention or make a couple of small tweaks. Like, it's not definitely, it's like you said, like anyone listening to this is already so far along the path that they can start to make these changes to start living the life that they want right now.

Absolutely.

Yeah. So you mentioned Coast Fi and slow fi. Would you mind explaining what those are and how you think about them?

Sure. So Coast Fi is really about front loading your traditional retirement savings. So there are calculators online that can help you determine this, like kind of what is your FI number, right? That's everyone's big question. and then at a certain point, you will have enough in your retirement vehicles that if you don't contribute or just your investment vehicles, right? If you don't contribute one more dollar, it will grow through the power of compound interest to what you need at, let's say, 65, when you actually start planning on tapping into that and drawing down. So I'm 36 in theory, I've got 30 years to let that money just grow. And so I think I got to. I wanna say like 300 grand in my retirement vehicles or in my investment vehicles. So that was four that I rolled into a traditional IRA when I quit, hsa, Roth ira, and then after tax brokerage. So within those four accounts I had about 300 grand. And through this kind of financial modeling and calculator, that money will grow to what I need at 65. You know when I wanna start drawing down from it. But honestly, maybe it even has longer amount of time and also that considers that I'm not adding anything to it. When I started, like when I did that modeling, when I was deciding to quit my job and realized I was at Kofi status, the assumption was that I wouldn't add any money to those investments for 30 years. I would just let them grow. But the reality is I kept coming onto like additional sources of income that I didn't realize would come my way when I quit my job. So like I took on a second podcast for over a year. I was reading horoscopes with the same producers who produced my show. It was a daily horoscope show, and I was reading it in this like really sultry voice. So I did that for over a year, and that had doubled my income, more than doubled my income. That was something I didn't anticipate. and that was another four hours a week. So for a period of time I was working eight hours a week. Boohoo, I'm sorry. I know. And then like, I had some consulting projects come my way. My first year that I quit my job, I had this like insane$9,000 tax return due to business losses on my conference. And I lived off of that for like six, nine months, something like that. And like all of this money just like that was unexpected. That wasn't a part of my assumptions when I was making these decisions. really showed me too that like. A lot of our modeling is like worst case scenario. I've now been retired for two and a half years, and in those two calendar years, I contributed about$10,000, each year to my investment. 6,000 in a Roth and, 36 or whatever it is, So my plan was to invest nothing and I've invested an additional 20 grand. coast by, to answer your question more directly, it's again, that frontloading of your traditional retirement savings. And the idea is that you'll be able to take your foot off the gas at some point and you're not having to worry about your investing anymore. You already have your like, emergency fund, f fu money, whatever it is that you want in your cash reserves. You have that, you have your retirement front loaded, and now all you have to worry about is covering your expenses. And for me, my expenses are so low that I'm able to cover them on a very little amount of work. So when I was making this decision, now granted things have changed because now I have a partner. At the time I was making this decision, we had not like combined our lives yet, and so I was just looking at it as just like me and my dog. in general, I spend anywhere from like 25 to 30 grand a year. I can make that amount of money so easily that like, I could like go drive for Uber or something if I wanted, There's other gig economy stuff. Sometimes it's not worth the money, but the point is I could make that little amount of money so easily when I'm used to making a really good six figure salary that it allows me to take my foot off the gas really early, in life and be able to spend more time and energy on creative pursuits.

Yeah, I love it. And how about slow fi? Is it related.

I think it's related. to me, slow fire, like coast fire is almost like the mechanism of how you internalize AFI mindset and really slow is about recognizing that. Even if your path to traditional financial independence is five to 20 years, that's still too long to be miserable. It's still too long, so it say

five minutes. It's too long to be miserable,

really. But a lot of people are like martyrs for their fine number, right? They're like, I just need to like work this crappy job for two more years and it's a job I hate, but if I just do it for two more years, then I'll get my pension, then I'll get my whatever. Then I'll reach my fine number and it'll be all worth it. Because, I think there's this myth in the fire movement that, once we reach our magical fine number, we're all of a sudden gonna start giving ourselves permission to live differently. And that's not how it works. If you're miserable now, you will be miserable when you reach your fine number too, because your happiness is not a condition of how much money you have. It is a condition of how you spend your time and the people you surround yourself with and how well you take care of yourself. And so like all of a sudden having money is not really gonna change all of that. Those are very deeply ingrained habits that you need to deconstruct.

Yeah. it's, like I talk on the podcast a lot about, like, neuroplasticity of our brain, right? Which is basically the idea that everything we think, feel, and pay attention to changes the structure and function of our brain. So if we're spending 20 years or longer practicing scarcity and yeah, just like sacrificing everything for our fine number when we get there, those are the skills and practices that we have, and habits that we have. it's gonna take a real concerted effort to start changing those. And I would argue we should start practicing abundance and gratitude and connection and whatever is important to you of how you want to be living, you should start practicing that now because we have a lot of, history of the other thing.

Absolutely.

one of the things you mentioned that going to FI events helped you realize is the power of entrepreneurship and, starting a business and self-employment As a means to improving your five journey. Can you unpack that a little bit for me?

Oh man, there are so many benefits to self-employment, and I get that like for a lot of people, they're not good at being their own boss. And I certainly went through a period of having to learn how to work for myself because if you think about it, the skills that make you a really good employee make you a horrible entrepreneur. So you almost have to like reverse your thinking around that kind of stuff. why is that? What, so, like for example, like I worked at the largest brand extension agency in the world. I worked with like really talented, amazing people and anything that we put out the door was perfect. It had 10 pairs of eyeballs on it. It got. Everyone's seal of approval. We would like check and double check. our clients demanded perfection and we gave it to them. So I'm used to working at that level and used to working at a very fast pace. And so to make a mistake, to have a typo and a deck was like blasphemy. it was perfect what we put out there. And when you work for yourself and when you're creating something from scratch, You have to allow yourself to start ugly and to embrace imperfections and to try things, and they're not gonna be perfect and you don't have the right roadmap. Like in the past I would write licensing strategies for my clients, and a lot of it was like, based on my experience, based on seeing what worked in other programs based on X, Y, and Z, I didn't have any of that in event production. Yeah. I had mentors and I had people helping me in certain ways, but like a lot of entrepreneurship is like making mistakes and learning from them. And I was not allowed to make mistakes in my corporate career. And so that was a lot of untangling all of that and allowing myself to even again, like when you're on the path to fi and you wanna conserve every dollar and not waste money, right? It's like there's an anxiety around wasting money. I can't tell you the tens of thousands of dollars I spent on my business that I wouldn't have known it until I spent the money, but hiring people that didn't work out, spending money on marketing costs that were not reaching the audience that I actually needed to reach. you're gonna come up with a beautiful plan on paper and then be wrong about everything and to like be able to actually not let that destroy you emotionally. It's just a skill set that I didn't have. so that's what I mean being able, to Let things be messy, and embrace the imperfections. And the learnings and the money that's just gone. I took a 40 grand loss on my first event. How much of that was me spending money on things that I didn't realize wasn't a good use of money, but I wouldn't have learned that until I spent the money. And so it's a necessary education, I guess you could say. but there are so many benefits to working for yourself, and I think that there's. almost five people don't realize that they have an incredible opportunity because when your personal finances are so like in a good spot and you have so much bandwidth from your personal finances, it allows you to create a business without as much risk as most other people. So you hear about entrepreneurs like draining their 401k to live their dream, and like 99% of them aren't successful. You're not gonna hear about those in the success stories like how I built this. you're not gonna hear about the 99% that fail, but most entrepreneurs fail and it's really painful for them because they spent their life savings on their dream and now it's just gone. Now I took a 40 grand loss on my first year of business. That was money that I would've put in my after-tax brokerage that year, that 40 grand, I was still putting 30 grand into my 401k, into my H s a, into my Roth ira. So That I didn't feel that 40 grand at all. I was able to cash flow it, and I was able to start a business that I completely self-funded. I took on no debt, no investors, and I did it. Just by self-funding it, like that's the kind of opportunity that five people have. You're sitting on a gold mine and you're able to manage risk in a way that someone that doesn't have that financial bandwidth wouldn't be able to do. The other thing is the tax deductions, like the tax code favors business owners. It just does. Everything I want to do with my time is now a business expense. I wanna go to all those camp five events. Literally any event I go to is a business expense because I'm doing research. Because I run events. I'm doing research. Yeah, I'm doing research for those events, right? Yes. every book that I buy on personal finance, I'm vetting a potential speaker. It's a business expense. My computer's a business expense, my internet's a business expense. I expense part, I work outta my home. So part of my mortgage is now a write off. literally like anything that I wanna do, the business covers my health insurance. And actually last year my income was so low due to all of my business expenses and the way, like, the timing of when the conference hits in 2022. I didn't have any revenue for my conference, but I had expenses and that offset the podcasting income that I got. And so my taxable income was so incredibly low that I ended up getting back all of my, health insurance premiums from the ACA plan that I bought. and I was able to do a Roth conversion. I only converted like six grand, but I was at that 12% tax bracket, And so to be able to like control your income, in really creative ways and have the things that you want to do, especially if it's a business of something that you're really passionate about, all the things you wanna do are now business expenses. It's pretty incredible.

absolutely. Why do you think I have this podcast? Yeah, there you go. Obviously I'm very interested in it, but it, I brought together my love of mindfulness, my love of financial independence, put'em together and now same thing, Yeah. I'm not taking advantage of the events and the travel and things to this point cuz of young kids, but that's the whole idea. And my dad has always said that the best tax strategy is to have a business. Totally.

Totally. And I think about like, the conference costs me about a hundred grand in expenses, right? It is an event, like it is a huge production. I invest in lighting engineers, sound engineers. Like it is just, it's a three day extensive thing, but a hundred grand in expenses. You better believe I'm opening credit cards and I'm charging all of that, and I'm getting all these signing bonuses. So this year I've got like$7,000 in free travel from all the points that I, accumulated by charging economy expenses and then just immediately paying off those cards, using the points and, shutting them down. so yeah, I can go on and on, but I think that. For me, there's this idea in the fire movement that like work and retirement are polar opposites. And I, we already talked about like how retire retirement doesn't necessarily mean that you're not working. it means that you're changing your relationship with work and you're no longer dependent on your work to provide for your livelihood. But I just have this sense that like most of us don't wanna not work, we want more control over it. And I think that working less is way better than not working at all. I think for most of us we're really talented, ambitious people. yeah, we can go on vacation and spend a week on the beach or maybe you need a year to just like decompress from your corporate career or whatever you retired from. Like, absolutely take your time. But most of us are going to want to do something, create something. And I think creating a business, even if it's not something that, you need to grow it. So it provides for your livelihood. There's still plenty of reasons to do it. And impact is one of them too. Like I think about all the notes I get from people that come to the Economy conference and how life changing it is for them. And I am making an incredible impact on these people's lives. They are meeting friends that they're building businesses with and traveling the world with. there was one couple, cuz we did a speed dating event at one of the economy conferences and a couple met and they showed up to this last. Conference, in 2023, hand in hand. They had just moved in, into, in, together. Like someone met their spouse at my event. That is mind-blowing to me. It like, it makes me feel like my heart's gonna explode and I make no money off of this business. I work really hard at it. I make no money. But it's not that I'm not benefiting financially at all, because as I mentioned It's covering a lot of expenses for the things that I wanna do. But there's still a payoff. The payoff is like seeing the incredible impact that I'm making. And so I just think people in the fire movement have incredible skills and talents that can be used to make an impact on the world. It's not just about having your financial needs met. Like, how can you use that to make the world a better place?

Yeah. that's incredible. And I would imagine it's so rewarding to hear those stories, to get those notes, to see that couple,

totally.

it's amazing. Yeah. I got a message the other day from someone on LinkedIn about the podcast being like, thank you so much. this is awesome. I heard your episode with Susie and I started working with Susie, and now I'm taking a sabbatical and gonna go travel. It's so good to go work on a farm outside of Rome. I'm like, that's incredible. yeah. I'm sure you get those every day and it probably brings such a smile to your face.

Absolutely.

So, Diana, you talk to a lot of people in the fire movement. What is one thing that people in the fire movement get wrong about Money?

many things. No, I'm kidding. Probably right? I'm very opinionated. what I think is incredible is I feel like I'm surrounded by millionaires who feel like they're poor. And it drives me nuts because most people that I interact with in the fire movement have so much more money than me, but they won't give themselves permission to like leverage that money to create something different in their lives, right? They feel trapped in their job or they feel trapped in like this question of, do I have enough? They're looking for a lot of reassurance on do I have enough? And from my perspective, it really feels like there's a very strong scarcity mindset within this fire community and really reaching that fine number is what people are doing to try to solve for this sense of scarcity. But the reality is that there is no amount of money. That is going to give you that sense of reassurance that you're looking for because life in general is just full of uncertainty. The only thing that's certain is that everything's uncertain. So even if you had$10 million, which I know one person in particular who has$10 million, they spend 50 grand a year by all intensive purposes. they are like well beyond financial independence, right? They're multiple lifetimes. But from their perspective, and I see this a lot, and maybe these are extreme numbers, and a lot of times these numbers aren't this extreme, when you challenge them on it, they'll say things like, but what if I need long-term care? What if I have a health scare? What if I have a black swan event that is gonna completely wipe me out? What about that? And so there's a lot of A lot of people in the fire movement are grasping at a sense of certainty. They think their money can make them feel safe. And what I like to say to people is that your sense of security is not in your investment portfolio. It is in your talents, your skills, your connections, in your circumstances and preferences and the elements of your life that you can leverage to navigate whatever challenge life throws at you. That's where your sense of security is. money comes and goes. And so you're always gonna feel insecure if you're expecting your money to provide you with a certain level of emotional security, but it can't provide all of it. And people ask me all the time like, oh, you retired so young, what if you were wrong about your financial modeling? Which is totally possible, right? your financial plan and your like coming up with your fine number. It's all built on assumptions that could be totally wrong or your circumstances change, right? So like when I came up with my number and my plan, it was just me and my dog. And I had this house and was making a great income so I plotted out a trajectory based on my current circumstances. what happened after that? I met a Midwestern gentleman. Now I'm a bonus mom. Now we're getting married next year. My circumstances completely changed And you know what? That's a good thing. We want our lives to be dynamic and to change over time. And so to make a plan now that I know what my life is gonna be like in 30 or 50 years, Is ludicrous. And it's also built on this idea of scarcity. There's no way that I can know at this time that I have enough money to last me the rest of my life, but I do know that I'm smart enough to figure it out. I think about my corporate career. I made my clients 55 million in my corporate career. The idea that I wouldn't be able to figure out making more money for myself if I end up needing to make more money in the future is a ludicrous idea. And I feel like that most people in the fire movement are in that position as well. You are talented. You are ambitious. You have good connections. You have skills and experience that can be leveraged to make money if you turn out to be wrong. And so I think that's where this scarcity and where we get it wrong is we want our money to do something for us that it can't do, we need to do it for ourselves. We need to build confidence and a sense of security that is more internal versus based on this external number on a bank account. Yeah.

So do you find that these, this scarcity mindset keeps people from going for it to like taking the leap to leave work or like, oh, 100%. How does that show up for them?

they don't wanna pull the trigger until they have a sense of certainty that they will never need to make another dollar again. I just have a friend who, we were talking about this and she's also Coast five and she has an opportunity to make$150,000 working 20 hours a week. But it's at a job that she has no interest in doing that is very boring to her. And I told her in my abundance mindset, my position is there is no amount of money that you could pay me to do something that I don't wanna do. That is coming from a position of strength, that is coming from a position of, I have enough money. I don't need more money because I know I have enough and if I'm wrong, I'll figure it out, right? Because all of my assumptions and like things that I thought was gonna happen when I quit my job, I am in such a better financial position now than I could have ever anticipated when I quit my job. But we all have negativity bias, right? We're all making decisions based on what could go wrong. We don't consider at all what happens if it all goes right. if you look back at all the things you thought was gonna go wrong in your life and how none of those things came to be And it actually turned out way better than you anticipated when you were like, making plans and ruminating over. What about this? What about that? it's not a bad thing to. do some fear setting. Do some, Tim Ferriss concept, right? What if the shit hit the fan, what would you actually do? And the reality is that if we have money and we have resources, we will figure it out, but I just don't think that the solution to the feelings of scarcity is to keep yourself in a situation that is not bringing you joy, that is not allowing you to experience, the kind of time and abundance and creativity and relationship abundance that I feel like not enough of us get to experience. When you look at your money, I feel so strongly that you should feel a sense of peace and contentment and joy and excitement. That you won the game, right? There's so few of us winning the game. Why can't we enjoy that feeling a little bit? And when I see people look at their portfolio, in these case studies that I do as my local FI group, we're looking up at the screen of a portfolio of multimillion dollar portfolio, and the conversation is all around fear. And what if this happens and what if that happens? It's like, why have all of this money if you're not gonna even have any emotional benefit when you look at it, yeah, shouldn't you look at it and go, this is so exciting. I've got two, 3 million. I've solved the issue of questioning money in my life. Can we move on and go do something else now? what else is there to talk about? Yeah.

So what's the solution? What's, like, what do you see as the path forward from that place of. Scarcity towards that steps to abundance.

For me, it was engaging in the FI community, engaging with people who have an abundance mindset. It's almost like you, you adopt it by osmosis. I remember when I was quitting my job, I was so scarcity mindset and I called my fi friends and I went over all my numbers with them, all my worries. And it was like, they are like way smarter about money than I am. these are true spreadsheet nerds who can model out like whatever scenario. And so I'm consulting people way smarter than me, when it comes to financial planning and they're like, here are all the reasons why you're gonna be okay. And even what was it, a year ago, probably like a year and a half ago, I got offered a job with like$150,000 salary, unlimited p t o direct reporting directly to the president. I would've had a team. It was like my dream job in my corporate career. And I called my five friend Jeremy, and I talked to him about it, and he goes, you'd be an idiot to take that job, And he tells me all the reasons why I shouldn't take it. Now, if I would've called anyone else, they would've been like, oh my God, like that's so much money. How could you leave that on the table? But all he saw was opportunity costs, because there's diminishing returns for money that you don't need. That's a quote.

That's a quote. I'm like, you can't see my face. But I was like, huh. there are diminishing returns for money you don't need.

Like even that same friend who's like taking this job where she's gonna make 150 a year for 20 hours of work a week, and she had just made 75 grand last year on a similar job. And then she took on a project where it was like a thousand dollars project, but it was like a little bit of her time. But the client was annoying and I was like, and she's complaining about this client. And I'm like, okay, so for$76,000 and all of those hours of your time and all of that aggravation and complaining you're doing about it, is it worth it? Was all of that. Worth this additional$76,000 and she was like, no, it wasn't. So then I was like, okay, cool. We learned something there. And then the next week it's now it's$150,000, but does it really change anything? It's still money that you don't need. And do you really think, cuz she was saying, if I don't take this then it's gonna take, seven years for me to hit my million dollar mark. And that's assuming that you don't find any other sources of income in those seven years. So these two opportunity right now for 150 grand is the only thing that's gonna land in your lap for the next seven years. That's scarcity mindset. That's looking at what's in front of you and thinking this is it. There's nothing else but this. So it's either I choose this or I get nothing. Whereas I think an abundance mindset is recognizing that. I can't possibly anticipate today the opportunities that will present themselves tomorrow. And so I better have time and space in my life so that when something presents itself, and it's a hell yes, I'm able to say yes. if it's not a hell yes, then it's a no. And so I think that people in the five community have an opportunity to wait for the hell Yes. And they don't, they choose just what's presented to them out of a sense of fear and scarcity.

Yeah. this is speaking to me because I'm in the scarcity mindset, honestly. I joke but I'm not really joking that I don't wanna spend money on anything. Mostly, and more importantly, I think it's like the job, right? Like my job is. Fine. like it's not my life's work and I can do it, with fairly minimal hours and I get paid quite well, but it's still hanging over my head, so to speak. And there's an

opportunity for that. The more time that you spend, in the mediocre, like, it's fine. There's nothing terrible about it, but there's nothing great about it that sounds like complacency and mediocre living to me. You likely already have too much money to tolerate that. Like, it's fine, but fine isn't good enough when you are financially stable, when when there are other opportunities out there for you,

So let me ask you this. I find myself taking advantage of the opportunities already, right? I'm able to do the job, earn the money, And do the podcast and, invest in, learning about being a better podcast guest and starting to build this business on the side. that is like my goal for financial independence. You mentioned it earlier, this idea of being able to pursue business and hobbies and whatever with this idea of enough and from a place of sufficiency rather than meeting it to work and like betting it all. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So I see myself as being able to do that now, both because of the money I have saved, but also because of the income mm-hmm. That I can do. And, I like the people I work with. Like the work itself is whatever, I like the company. I like going in, talking to people, mm-hmm. it is. Good enough, but it's not great.

And I was in the same boat. when I started the economy conference, I was still working that full-time job, and that enabled me to take that 40 grand loss and not feel it at all. If I had already taken the leap and I took that risk, like that would've been a harder risk to tolerate, right? I think in retrospect, I think I would've been fine, but what if that would've happened when I was in the moment, I would've been probably freaking out, but I told myself that I liked the people that I work with, that the job was fine, that it was tolerable, that there was still so many benefits to it, and so it justified me staying there. I think I'm really fortunate in the fact that I was forced out because I think it would've been really hard for me to, leave on my own because it was just fine. It wasn't painful enough to force a change. It wasn't great enough to experience what I'm able to experience now. it's very similar to the concept of like, why don't more people see the benefit of saving money? And like, why do people like just spend money on stuff versus, like feeling that comfort of having money in the bank? But here's the thing, when people know what it feels like, the thrill of the immediate pleasure of buying a new purse, right? Almost no one knows the feeling of having a million dollars in the bank. So you have no frame of reference, right? You don't know what it feels like to not have that job that you have now. And so it's really easy to justify that fine is good enough because you can't imagine that it would be that much better if you didn't have it. You don't have a concept of what it's like to have that much freedom in your life. there is a dark side to it. most of your life you have had some authority or external figure dictating your schedule. So when you're handed the keys to the castle and it's truly all self-directed, that's actually a lot of pressure. That took me two years to figure out. I crumbled under that pressure. but now that I'm on the other side of it and I can actually fully enjoy the freedom and fully see like the screwed up relationship that we all have with work and productivity, now I feel like I'm finally in a place to be able to enjoy it. But it takes a long time. It does take a long time, and I get it. Like I was you, I was like, this is fine. I'm gonna keep doing this. and maybe you're right, like we're all different. I am so glad that I, and I don't even know how it was possible for me to have a full-time job. Now where I'm at now, I don't know how I did it. I honestly don't know how I did it. Plus building economy on the side, especially those early years, I was like killing myself on my conference. and now I'm able to be able to work at a much more like intuitive, relaxed pace. And my work is such better quality now. Yeah.

Yeah. It's very interesting because I'm able to do all this stuff, but then it's like a lot of stuff and it's always on my mind. it's just like adding, I have a sense of what it would be like if I didn't have the full-time job. I'm even actually experimenting with that now. I'm taking one day off a week for the next several weeks to like really dive into the program that I'm in, that I was telling you about. which is, let's be honest, just more work. Yeah. But I'm going to like, try to live my ideal day as much as I can within the constraints, but Amazing. Yeah. and I took a sabbatical last year and all these things good. where I didn't fill it with more work. I just chilled and Yeah. I like it a lot. I really do. I relate a lot with what you're saying about like, Getting forced out. yeah, I'm, not opposed to that. Yeah,

it was painful at the time. in my specific situation, I was in a discriminatory environment, so I was the only woman on my team. I was one of the highest performers, and yet I was the lowest paid. And when I brought this to management's attention, because they, you know, around the time of Black Lives Matter, they were making a whole big stink about a lot of corporations have these diversity and inclusion, programs that kind of popped up. And most of it is performative from my perspective. And same thing here, like I was getting pulled into all these meetings like, Diana is the only woman on the team. What do you think about diversity and inclusion? And I'm like, it's about pay parity. Just pay me. Why do I make so much less than my male colleagues? And I'm not an idiot. I know that. I have been accepting that for a variety of reasons that I don't need to bore you with here. But it was like once it became clear that they were like, oh no, we're not actually gonna do anything about it. We're just gonna talk about it. I felt like my integrity wouldn't let me stay. So they didn't fire me. I did quit on my own regard, like on my own Volition. But, it felt like I was forced out because my integrity wouldn't let me continue to be treated like that. I have too much money to tolerate that kind of treatment.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I'm, I'm like having flashbacks from hearing you talk about this on other podcasts. Yes. I remember I was like at the gym and I'm like listening to this story and I'm like, what? I know what is going on. It's,

it was very painful at the time, and I would not wish that on anyone. But being now two and a half years removed from that, it's the best thing that ever happened to me. it forced me to leave something that wasn't serving me anymore. That was just fine. That was just good enough.

Lot to think about here, for sure. let's switch gears now into what I call the mindful fire Final four. You ready, Diana? Yeah. All right. So the first question is going to be about vision. Mm-hmm. I talk a lot about envisioning on the podcast, and I am curious, you talk to a lot of people in the fire movement. do people have a clear vision of their post five life,

yes or no? Some people do, but the reality is that a lot of things that we think we wanna do, It's because we think when we do those things, it's gonna make us feel a certain way and then that doesn't pan out. And we go, oh crap, that's what I thought I wanted. And then I got it and it didn't feel the way I anticipated, so now I'm stuck and I don't know how to pivot and try something else. So like for example, when I walked the Camino, I sang a ton. It was like the way singing is a strong word. I was like wailing, right? and when I loved it though, like it was very cathartic experience to just walk for eight hours by myself and like sing at the top of my lungs. So I thought that when I got back that I wanted to sing. And I've always loved to sing, like even when I was a kid. So it was always like in my mind that I could sing somewhere on a stage one day. It was on my list when I got back from the Camino. And when I bought this house right down the block, a school of Rock opened up and they have an adult program, it's like a franchise of music schools. And most people think it's for kids, but they had an adult program. And so I joined it and I had a singing coach and I was in a band and we like practiced once a week. And then I had my singing coach once a week and I had to sing every day. And this was a four month program. And I basically trained to sing seven songs in front of a hundred people at like our final performance. And I did the thing that in my mind was what I wanted to do. And when the show was over the rest of my band mates, it was like a bunch of old men and me, and they were all invigorated. They were all like basking in the glory of a good show and they couldn't wait to do it again. And all I felt was relief because it didn't feel the way that I thought it would feel. It was more relief than anything else. But there's always been something in me about performing. Like I used to do standup comedy. I wanted to sing, and like now I perform on the economy stage and I get to combine all of it. I don't sing on stage, but like all of my comedy stuff that I loved and like the idea of performance is really what I was attracted to. And I just was not finding the right medium. But just because I was wrong about the medium doesn't mean I wasn't following the right hunch of I wanna get on a stage, and so I had to just keep. Reiterating that, like finding a new way to do it that would get me the feeling that I was ultimately going for. And that's what I get on the economy stage. Being on that stage is better than drugs. it really is. It's amazing we had over 400 people at the last event to have them giving you so much of their attention, and it's such a warm, welcoming audience. It's the warmest audience I've ever spoken in front of, and you could just feel that they're cheering you on up there. It's the best. It's the absolute best. That's what I was chasing after over all of those things. But I was wrong and I had to pivot and figure out another way. And I think that's the problem with imagine the life that you want. sure, you can imagine it in your head, but until you go out and live it and see if it actually feels the way you anticipate it will feel. It's all just, it's all just in your head,

Yeah. So do you feel like people have a vision that they are going after but they they're not taking the steps to try it?

I feel like sometimes they do, but in my experience, more often than not, I'm wrong about what I think I want. And I won't know that I'm wrong until I go out and try. And then when I realize that I'm wrong, I'm like, oh crap, I gotta go back to the drawing board and that can be disorienting. So whether you have a vision or not, I don't think that makes a difference in like the fact that the going out and trying stuff is gonna get you closer to what you actually want. And being willing to be wrong and being willing to like question our assumptions on what we think we want. that, degree of like approaching these things with curiosity versus I know this is what I want my life to look like, that I think is gonna serve you better in the long run.

Yeah. makes a lot of sense. okay. the second question is, what piece of advice would you give to someone early on their path to financial independence?

Prioritize the journey and. recognize that money is the only thing in life that you can completely screw up, and it's totally fine. Like you can lose all your money. You can go through a bankruptcy, you can lose your job. You can get into really bad debt and you can fix it, right? Money is like a super impersonal, dispassionate tool that you can figure it out. You will always make more money, you will never get back the relationships you neglected while you were career focused, and you will never get back your health that you destroyed through stress. And so your health and your relationships are the most important aspects of your life. Money, whatever. You'll make more of it.

Well said. The third question is, what piece of advice would you give to someone getting started with meditation and or mindfulness?

I think I wasn't able to experience the benefits of meditation or mindfulness until. I truly learned self-compassion and patience. And like, not needing to do anything perfectly and just being willing to accept what's there. I really have struggled with like depression and my mental health a lot. and self-compassion is the lifeline.

well said. And I can relate a lot to that when I talk about mindfulness, there's two aspects. There's the awareness and there's the attitude of openness, curiosity, and kindness. For so long I was just focused on awareness. Yeah. I'd focus on my breath, my mind would wander. I'd bring it back, bring it back, bring it back. It was like a bootcamp style of, yeah. Of training. And that has some benefit. But once I brought in the self-kindness, the self-compassion, it changed. Yeah. totally. And it becomes a practice that you can bring off the cushion to see all sorts of things. Back to the question about vision, right? Yeah. You need to have some self-compassion to be able to try things and them not go well and still keep moving forward. Yeah. And so I think it's really a good point. and then the last question is where can people connect with you online, learn more about economy, and all the things that you're working on? Yeah. I'd love for you to share a little bit more about the conference and what you're looking forward to for next year and Sure. How people can get involved.

So economy is a party about money and really we solve two key problems that people face on the past of financial independence. First of all, you're lonely, right? Like we talked about earlier that like the large majority of the people that you meet are not gonna be interested in fire. And like I'm sure you have plenty of other common interests with them. Like don't tell them about fire. Save that for like when you meet your five friends, because you guys will have a ton of talk to. To talk about, but we need community. We need in-person connection and deep, meaningful friendships. It's a huge part of like having a satisfying life and having that sense of belonging. And there are plenty of like online communities with fire. but let's not kid ourselves that's where, how we're gonna get our social needs met, right? Like I think social media is like the junk food of social connection or the fast food of social connection. So the example I like to give is, if I am starving right now and I go to McDonald's, that will satiate me. But if I ate that for every meal, I'd be the supersize me guy, right? it's not nutrition. There's no nutritional value there. And it's the same thing with human connection online. Yes, it will satiate you and scratch your itch, for human connection, but you need to be in person for really to get that nutritional value. And so that's where you can meet people in person is that economy and also campfire and Camp mustache. There are other things aside from economy, but that's just the one that I produce. It is the largest, event built specifically for fire people. And the second problem that we solve is that most of us, when we first learn about fire, it's so exciting, right? Like, we reduce our expenses, we increase our income, we come up with our investment strategy, but it's gonna take us five to 20 years to reach our fine number for some of us, right? it can be a long lonely journey. And so you wake up, five to seven years into accumulation and you realize you're bored and you don't have, and it's really hard to maintain that level of enthusiasm through your whole journey. And so people come to economy to fuel the fire, to reengage with the ideas. And I really focus on bringing in new content that will surprise you. It's not the kind of stuff that you hear like on the standard blogs, right? Like we, we really try to bring in stuff that you might not be thinking about that could be game changing for you. And Those are the two problems that we solve. The next event is coming up in March 17th, no, March 15th through 17th of 2024, and we're already over halfway sold out. We're expecting between 500, 600 people. And we will give a discount code for the listeners of this show if you go to economy conference.com. And that's economy with an me, not an m y at the end because I'm so clever. so economy conference.com. There you can buy tickets, you can look at our programming and our speakers and learn all the things. And if you buy your ticket, Type in the code mindful all caps, and that'll get you 10% off. But you gotta do it fast because again, we're over halfway sold out. the, I would say the absolute best way to get in touch or stay in touch with me is to sign up for my newsletter. I am on social, I'm on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn, but I don't play with the algorithm. I don't play nice. And so even if you follow me there, you're probably not gonna see my stuff. If you really want to hear from me, sign up for my newsletter and that way it will come to your inbox and you won't miss anything. And I barely send it newsletters. Maybe once or twice a month I'll send one. And so that's a great place to just stay in the know. I use that to share content as well as announce speakers and developments with the conference that you need to know. and then lastly, you can listen to me talk about money every single day of the week on the Optimal Finance Daily Podcast. This is a show where I am reading. Content from popular blogs, and then offering about 300 words of commentary on it. So it's every single day, 10 minutes or less. And we've got about 200 contributing authors. So you really get like a very broad perspective on different money topics.

Very cool. That's all great stuff and I will link all of that up in the show notes so people can get in touch with you. And yeah, we definitely recommend joining the newsletter. I really enjoy getting your emails. They are just a couple times a month, but you always are sending great videos from the conference. I'll link to your YouTube channel as well so people can watch, talks from the last conference or the previous conferences, because all the talks that I've listened to have been excellent. So would love people to check that out. thank you Diana for being here on the Mindful Fire Podcast. It's been great to get to know you a little bit and hear about your story and I'm sure the audience loved it as well. Awesome. thanks so much.