73 : An Entirely New Way To Relate To Money with Sarah McCrumb - Part 1

[00:00:00] Intro

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

On today's episode of the podcast, I'm excited to bring you a really special guest. Sarah McCrum Sarah was introduced to me by a former guest Morgan Bricca Morgan joined us on episode six, seven and 14 of the podcast. Out of the blue a few weeks ago, morgan emailed me about a book called love money. Money loves you. she said it was like nothing she's ever seen before.

And that it totally changed how she thinks about financial independence and the fire movement, overall. Obviously this caught my attention and anytime Morgan sends me anything, I make sure to check it out immediately. So I grabbed the audio book and started listening to it right away. and I will say this book is like nothing I've ever heard before.

It takes a totally different approach to money. And I'm so excited to bring you this episode with Sarah. I just got done recording it and it absolutely blew me away. And so a little bit about Sarah.

Sarah believes in a society that is fundamentally based in love generosity, and a deep understanding of the essence of being human. Her purpose is to contribute, to creating a world that works for a hundred percent of humans.

She is an author educator and business innovator. She's the founder of liberate humanity, which is a place for learning and sharing the skills for liberation of the human spirit. Sarah has spent more than 20 years teaching and coaching business owners and their families.

She is the creator of the innovative program. Thank you money based on the principles of her book, love money, money loves you. 

Over 10,000 people have completed courses with Sarah, building a relationship with money That's founded in love, abundance, generosity, and nature. She's also the co originator of Love To a group of mutual companies that have created new financial products backed by the regeneration and protection of nature and human quality of life. Love To has been built from the ground up on the principles of Sarah's book and work.

It's an example of what's possible when we build businesses based in the spirit of generosity.

My conversation with Sarah was so interesting that we talked for almost two hours so I wanted to break this episode into bite sized chunks for you. 

On part one of my conversation we cover a whole lot, including her journey with money, which led her to write the book, love 

money, money loves you. And she shares how she had to put these principles into practice in her own life. When she moved from the UK to Australia, with her husband, and essentially had to start over from zero.

And how she used these principles to grow her wealth and her business after starting over, she shares some of the ideas from the book, although we don't go too deep into the book. So I would highly recommend reading it yourself.

 I absolutely love this conversation with Sarah and I'm so excited to share with you.

You can find the full show notes for today's episode, including any links, books, or resources.

We mentioned in the episode at mindful fire.org/ 73

Part two of my conversation with Sarah will come out in two weeks and you can subscribe to make sure to receive it wherever you listen to podcast.

Let's jump into today's episode. 

Adam Coelho: Sarah, welcome to the mindful fire podcast. I'm so glad to have you here. 

Sarah McCrum: Thank you very much. And I'm really delighted to be here. 

Adam Coelho: 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.

[00:03:54] Introduction

Sarah McCrum: At my core, I'm a teacher. I teach people about their relationship with money. Actually, what I really teach people is how to liberate their spirit. And I found that teaching people about their relationship with money as a particularly powerful way to do that, but I probably wouldn't have expected if I hadn't done it.

That teaching that I do is rooted in many, many years of studying and training and practicing with Chinese masters. So it was 22 years in total. So my language, if you like is the language of energy, which is the traditional way that the Chinese used to view everything in life. Through this lens of life is energy everything's alive.

And everything that comes out of that. The other thing that I'm extremely engaged with is a new business that launched very recently. That's called Love To, which really takes my work on money to a much bigger level What we've already done is to create a new financial product that's backed by the regeneration and protection of nature and of human health and wellbeing.

It's a problem that hasn't really been solved very well until now. And it enables large scale investment to be brought to the grassroots people who actually do the best work in the world and make the most contribution in this space. So yes, there's quite a lot going on right now. 

[00:05:15] Sarah’s journey with money and how the book love money, Money loves you came into the world. 

Adam Coelho: So I'd love to go a little bit deeper on the book and your journey with money. Can you share a little bit about your journey with money and how the book love money, money loves you came into the world?

Sarah McCrum: My journey with money really was initiated by growing up in a very middle class, British family, where we were taught not to talk about money. It was money, sex and politics and religion. Of course, it was always dangerous territory. You weren't supposed to talk about them, with other people.

So we didn't really talk about it. And that's pretty much how I grew up. interestingly, when I look back on it now, when I used to work for BBC radio and when they enabled independent producers to make programs for the BBC before it was always just freelance or in-house. So they created a system where a business could do it.

I was one of the first people to sign up, but I didn't even know that was a business that I was doing. I had no concept of business language. And then later I went on and started another business. But still from that mindset, mostly of. As much as possible, just like the, money's not really my thing. I knew I had to deal with it, but I didn't have that real interest in money that you actually need, I think, to run a business.

And during the 2008 crash I'd been away from the business for a while, but I came back to it and they'd lost pretty much 90% of everything overnights. It was an absolute disaster. And we struggled for a while, getting more and more behind with our rent and all of that kind of thing.

And in the end we had to close it, which was a very challenging, really unpleasant situation because we had clients and, suppliers and all of that. 

But it was actually then, which was financially, I would say the lowest point of my life because I remember that we didn't really have enough money to pay the rent of the apartment that we were living in at that time.

It was then that the book thing happened. So I will explain What happened? 

I'd been given this little book at a sort of business bootcamp weekend which was called how to become a money magnet. And it had questions at the end of the chapters. And one of them said, what would money like to say to you?

And I didn't really think much of it, but I just started writing. And my pen literally started writing for itself. It was completely automatic writing. And I was watching words coming out of the pen, which were the words of money. They were not my words. It was like money was speaking to me. And the very first thing it said to me was I would like to tell you to love me.

Which was very surprising. And then it went on to explain, it said things like I'm energy. I am very powerful and beautiful and you can do whatever you want with me really is what it was saying. And don't be afraid you're far too afraid and too rigid. Like, take me, I'm here for you. I'm totally available.

And it said that it helps to connect human beings together in their creativity.

Which of course makes sense if you think about it. But it was very different from how I used to think about money. So after that I started writing every day. Cause it was a very cool experience. It was very beautiful.

When I read back what had written, it's like, oh my goodness, this is amazing. So I started writing every day in the same way and ended up with, I think at that time, about more than sixty writings messages from money essentially. And something occurred to me, it's like, oh, I think this would probably be a book.

I think this was just meant for me. So I turned it into a book which is called love money, money loves you. It's got a few extra chapters now. And a few years after that, I moved to Australia with my husband and we had no money. And we literally had to figure out in a completely strange country where we didn't know a single person, how to make money and pay the rent really fast.

We had a couple of weeks to get sorted out and I went to the book and I just followed the instructions in the book. Initially it was like a primer for manifestation. I, how, I don't know how to pay the rent. Please there's like money, please just sort this out for me. And time And time again, it works.

And so I started to learn this different way of relating with money through practice, got myself out of lots of sticky situations in the early days, and then started to build my business and then, gradually grew everything and then started to get into this conversation that turned into Love To, which is on its way to becoming very big and very significant business also at a financial level.

Yeah, so I went from being totally broke to having a completely different way of seeing an understanding and experiencing money.

Adam Coelho: That is wild. That is a wild story. I appreciate the additional context as well. It's a lot shorter in the book. I imagine you're trying to get into, the book there's quite a bit in there, so I appreciate the additional context.

So it sounds like. You were doing this exercise and just started writing and this came to you you spend a bunch of time writing each day and you had the manual, so to speak, and then you move to Australia needed money and decided to pick up the manual and give it a try.

Sarah McCrum: Pretty much exactly like that. And I, honestly, although I'd written it, because I knew it really was not my words. I was writing stuff in there that I didn't know all the way through. It was genuinely surprising. So it was like picking up the manual and it was like giving it a try.

And sometimes it was like, really no, is this really true? Cause it's so beautiful what it says in the book and it's touching and simple and sometimes there's an innocence to it that it feels like we've lost as human beings, but it brings us straight back into touch with it. And it's so appealing and yet it feels almost dangerous to go there in case it's not true. 

I almost felt sometimes I wanted to protect myself because I wanted life to be like that. I didn't want life to be like, it appears to be now where it's so complicated and heavy and conflicted and manipulated. But actually what I found was that even if I, didn't fully believe it, like I couldn't fully trust it every time I said I want it to be like this.

I got a result. And if I sat in my, oh, I don't know if this is right. I don't know if it's really true. Am I supposed to go and do everything differently? It just felt horrible. So I started to learn to follow the advice in the book, which is really to follow your feeling actually, and to see what felt good and what didn't feel good and follow what felt good.

And that became a really strong guidance system for me. 

Adam Coelho: Yeah. That's really interesting. there's a real simplicity, I relate a lot with how you're describing the wanting it to be true, but like, I don't know, is it really that easy? Is it really that easy?

 there's just a simplicity to it and yeah the whole thing about following your feeling and following what feels good again, makes total sense. I think there's a part about this in the book, but there's so many shoulds in life and so much seriousness and responsibilities that we have, and it feels counter-intuitive to just follow the joy, follow the good feelings.

Sarah McCrum: The interesting thing that I found is that when you open up this relationship with money, you actually become more responsible, but it's lighter so you let go of a lot of that seriousness. You can genuinely find joy, even in your relationship with money and in business, which is amazing.

It's what everybody's looking for, but it feels like it's almost impossible. And like, why would business enjoy go together? But actually I did find that funnily enough, through this relationship with money, but the biggest thing I find is that people start to accept and take responsibility, but recognizing the power of money and that if you have money flowing through your.

life You're either contributing some really good work through business somebody's business or your business, or if you're investing, you have the power to do something with your money. That makes a difference to the world. And every single investment you make makes a difference to the world. That's for sure.

But what difference is it making? And I have been shocked sometimes to talking with friends recently who are very principled and very into the environment and farm regenerative family, and these kinds of things. And then you realize that when it comes to their investments, it's like all of that goes out of the window and they don't think about the consequence of what their money is doing in the world.

And that creates a kind of cognitive dissonance, because it means that you just abandon your values because it's got something to do with money that doesn't feel good. 

Adam Coelho: Yeah. It gets away from the power of money, the power that it has to affect things, to connect people, to create opportunities in good or bad ways in the world.

So if you just ignore that. I'm missing the point. I think, 

Sarah McCrum: I think so. And look, it's very understandable because there's been a long history of people making ethical investments that failed and, you don't invest money to lose one. It can happen, but it w it certainly shouldn't be the intention, but the world has changed a long way.

From that. I remember in the eighties, I inherited some money and I was trying to talk about ethical investment with my stock broker at the time. it was like the kind of thing, which would make his eyebrows wiggle, because he really just didn't have that language at all. And it was very worthy on my part.

It was about rather serious stodgy worthy approach. But I think the world is a very different place now. And we're beginning to see that I'm seeing people even in love too. We raised some seed investment last year and I saw people invest with their hearts and say that it changed the. It literally, I saw a couple who said that it changed their relationship in their life because they had to think about purpose and making that investment.

It wasn't a huge amount of money and ever since then, it's helped them to be on purpose. And I've seen someone else's says every time I'm having a hard time in my business, she runs a property business. I just remember that I've invested in something that's doing good and it lifts me up. So I think there's a growing hunger to bring our values, our deep values in line with our actions, whether it's the work we do or what we do with our money and how we are with our family, with all of our life to align it, because it just feels so uncomfortable not to do that.

Adam Coelho: Yep, absolutely. Yeah. speaking of purpose, one of the things that attracted me so much. The language of the book and some of what you've already shared here today is the idea of money connecting people. I've come to find that my purpose is creating opportunity through connection.

And so this very much aligns with that. And 

[00:16:05] Money as currency of connection between humans and connection and creativity 

Adam Coelho: I often think about connecting people together to create opportunities, helping my friends find jobs or introducing them to each other, like Morgan introduced me to you. She's been on the podcast three times. And a lot of opportunity has come from me meeting Morgan randomly at a water cooler, literally a water cooler at a dance party after a wisdom, 2.0 event. So it's just these chance connections can really make a huge difference. And so applying that to money and hearing you talk about money as currency of connection between humans and connection and creativity is totally aligned with how I think about everything really.

So 

Sarah McCrum: it's pretty cool.

Yeah. And if you allow money to be an energy of love, which is a connecting energy and you allow it to be less transactional and more relational in that way, then it becomes. Really understandable how it connects people like love in a relationship, connects people.

If I would see my husband as a transactional contract, I'm here to get something out of him and he's here to get something out of me and, you know, 

I have to give something for what I'm going to get and he has to give something to me that's not love. And that doesn't feel like, oh, that's the kind of marriage I want to have, but just doesn't.

So it's the same with money. Like if you can have this connected space in your relationship with money, it becomes really natural. And I think what's interesting then. And we're beginning to work on now is how do we value those people who connect to people? Because I know many people who are brilliant connectors and actually they never really get rewarded for them.

Because it's not mostly recognized or they have to do things that don't feel good to them, like get affiliate fees or, some kind of commissions and you don't connect people from that space. You connect people because you see connections. Not because you're trying to get some money out of the situation.

And I've had people have really clunky conversations with me. Like if I introduce you to this person and it works out, what do you pay me something? And it's like, it feels tacky. Some 

Adam Coelho: feel good. It doesn't feel good. Yeah. It really, even if 

Sarah McCrum: I love money, it still doesn't feel good. It's putting the money in the wrong place.

So that's one of the things I'm very interested in is how do we really value the people who have those connections and nurture them and bring things together and make them work. 

Adam Coelho: I'm curious if you have an example of. the kind of love and connecting energy of money you talk about this in the book a little bit about like how, when we spend money to another business, that's creating value.

We share in that, 

Can you give an example of, how, money flowing from one person to another is a connecting, loving energy? I think there are layers to this at one level.

Sarah McCrum: This is really obvious, but I think it's worth stating If I spend some money on something I received something that I want. Presumably. So that's an enhancement my life. I've got something that I want and it's more valuable than the money that I paid for it. But the interesting thing, when I pay some money to somebody is I give them a piece of freedom.

That's how I always think of it because I give them not something that I've got. That they might or might not want. I give them the freedom to to get whatever they want with that money. So I see money as being in a way I give freedom in exchange for something that I've chosen from my freedom. So it's an expression of freedom in that way.

What I think is really interesting. And again it's a concept that's quite well understood, but it really best telling the story again, because this helped me to understand how much freedom there is in money. If I'm holding a hundred dollar bill in my hand here, and I give it to you, you give me some service, you sold me something that I want.

So I had a hundred dollars to begin with and that's all, it was a hundred dollars and it was a piece of paper. It didn't even really have any value. It's just a promise when I pass that from my hand to your hand it gains value because actually I valued something that you have. If I don't value anything that you have, I'm not going to give you that money.

And so it's going to stay a piece of paper. And if I keep it under my bed, it could pretty much lose value or become obsolete. Literary. It doesn't have any intrinsic value for all of, whatever anybody says, but if I pay it to you, by my valuing, you, I put that value really into that a hundred dollar bill.

But what's really interesting now is that $100 has given me a hundred dollars worth of value. And it's now giving you a hundred dollars worth. So it's now got $200. Actually, if you put it onto your bed, it's going to stay at $200. But if you find something that's valuable to you, you transfer that value into that a hundred dollar bills so that it's not paper anymore.

And It's done $300 worth of work. So as long as the money keeps circulating, a small amount of money just keeps growing and growing and growing and growing. 

Now, obviously when we have an entire economy built on debt, there's something eaten away at that money all the time.

But let's take that out for the moment because that's not a fundamental principle of money. The fundamental principle of money is that it's expansive and generative and our economy should be built on that. Not on eating pieces of money for personal gain, because there's so much of it. We don't actually need to have that kind of small minded.

Approach to it. 

Adam Coelho: Yeah. That's a really interesting example of when you give that person the a hundred dollars, it becomes $200 the value, right? Because you received what they gave you, which you valued at a hundred dollars and they received the a hundred dollars, which they can, have the freedom to buy anything they want or invest or buy a house or 

Sarah McCrum: whatever.

And it might be worth a whole lot more in that case. Cause they might invest it and it also becomes more. And like it's so fascinating when you think about it and if you make good purchases, you buy something that is worth more than the money and gives you more than the money. So let's say I buy a bit of education, for example that helps me to become more skillful in my business.

So I make more money that a hundred dollars was it could be worth. I don't know, a hundred thousand dollars actually, in terms of real value, a million more way more than that. If we look at real value rather than a very limited conception of value, that's determined by our current markets. 

Adam Coelho: Yeah. That is very interesting.

Very interesting. again, it's make sense, makes sense. But it's counter to how we think about it now. How we're taught to think about money, it makes obvious sense. 

Sarah McCrum: I don't think it's counter to nature. I don't think it's even counter to human nature.

It's just counter to our current culture, which is built on what we've learned. Exactly how we view things at the moment. I just see that it's a bit of a flawed view. 

Adam Coelho: YeahSo Sarah, we were just talking about the expansive nature of money and how it doesn't really have value until we transact with it or till we connect with others in it.

Sarah McCrum: Until we give it value and we can only give it value by sharing it with somebody. 

Adam Coelho: Exactly. So as we share it with others, it expands in value. Using that example, we just went through, you bought something for a hundred dollars now it's worth $200 and it goes on from there. And so I'm interested, where does that take us?

[00:23:21] How we can maximize our value by changing the way we relate to money. 

Adam Coelho:  I know that you're a big believer that our creative potential is connected with our relationship with money. So we'd love to hear you talk about how we can maximize our creative potential by changing the way we relate to money. 

Sarah McCrum: I meet a lot of people who are very purpose centered. They really care about the worlds or some part of it.

They care about people's health and wellbeing, or they care about nature or something. It means a great deal to them and they feel that they're not able to achieve their potential and almost all. They haven't got to grips with money. Sometimes they hate money. They feel guilty about it. They reject it in all kinds of ways.

And it's really helpful to use that example because when somebody feels like that about money and therefore they reject it, of course it, it reduces their ability to reach their potential because it means they're going to limit the number of people they work with. They're going to limit the business opportunities.

They can create, they're going to limit themselves at every step, because if you're afraid of money or you don't want too much of it, or you think it's immoral or it's going to corrupt you, why would you go and make your capacity for doing good in this better cause you have to work with more money then, and it doesn't matter whether you're non-profit or for-profit a, non-profit just has to ask for money all over the place.

The more good they want to do, the more money they have to ask for. It's actually easier to be for-profit because you can give somebody something in return, a nonprofit kind of just has to give some status or prestige or, you'll feel really good about yourself if you do this. So businesses in many ways easier.

So to me, if you have a sense of purpose and you don't deal with the material aspects of it, then you never really experienced that fulfillment and you never really released the full creativity of who you are equally. If you're very locked in the material and you don't have that expanded sense of purpose and of who you are as a human being, the world will always feel like there's something missing.

And you'll search every way, whether you're searching in the next car and the next house or the next investment return or the next business, whatever it is, you'll keep searching and keep trying things. But as long as your focus is very material, it will always feel as though there's a hole. It's like there's a hole in your soul, literally.

And what I find is when we bring these two together, we bring the material in the spiritual or the purpose and the stuff that makes purpose work the down on the ground, tires, rubber on the road, kind of stuff that makes your purpose work, that will always include money. And it will always include an expansion in your financial capacity.

That's also where fulfillment lies.

Adam Coelho: So this podcast is all about the financial independence retire early movement, but with a mindful spin on it, often people in the financial independence retire early community are so focused on the money.

So focused on getting to X dollars so that they can retire and live off of Y dollars per year. And it becomes like they put on the blinders and they just go for it. And frugality is a huge part of that in a lot of cases. And that is pretty good in a lot of ways because they're not spending on things that they don't need, but that focus on just the dollars and cents of things without the larger purpose guiding the vision of like, where am I trying to go? What life am I trying to live? A lot of people get to the finish line and they're like, oh, now what, and something you said earlier around, trying to find fulfillment in the next car or the next house or the next experience.

And I relate a lot to that. we were talking before we started recording how I had this vision of this house that I wanted to design and build. And this room that I'm in is that vision and I've fulfilled it. And now that I have this, it's just like, oh, now I want to build a skate park.

Kasita in the yard. And I could talk for an hour about that and I have on other podcasts, so we won't go there. It's always just, if only this then I'll be happy. And so how do we marry the two, right?

[00:27:35] How do we find that balance between, being open to receiving and having a vision for our life, but not getting so caught up in one or the other that we really lose the balance.

Adam Coelho: How do we find that balance between, being open to receiving and having a vision for our life, but not getting so caught up in one or the other that we really lose the balance?

Sarah McCrum: Very interesting. I'm thinking that I'm probably going to be very unpopular with your audience.

I don't mind. I met Vicki Robin a few years ago. Who's one of the people who was the leader of that movement that you're describing there. And she talked about how, in many ways, it's it got not exactly hijacked, but it would gone off on a thread that I think was probably not really intended.

And I have seen that and a different version of. It is really different. But in Australia where I live, 

I would say the Australian dream is to retire at 55. So you guys are probably wanting to get there a bit earlier than 55, but honestly, it's to retire at 55 and get a place by the beach and have a surf board.

But it's a different version of the same thing. It's like, when I'm done with this, then I'll be able to live. But this that you're trying to get done with more quickly is life. And if you don't learn how to live now, when you get to wherever it is, you're trying to get to, you're not going to be any better at living.

Then you may actually be worse because you've cut off so many things as you went along in trying to reach these very tight goals that you actually cut off some of your capacity for life. Yeah, 

it's a challenging one. I think it is, possible to be frugal for sure. And look, there's nothing. I don't think there's anything wrong with whatever financial goals you have.

But I think what's important is to recognize that your life is not about money. Your life is about you living and you being a contribution to the world.

And so we talk about purpose, whether you like the word or not human beings, generally when they feel they're doing something that's valuable, genuinely valuable for others, they feel good.

They feel fulfillment. They feel like, oh, I'm doing my potential. I'm on track in my life. This is what life is supposed to feel like when we're chasing the next thing. We usually very focused on what's missing. And we always think the next thing is what's missing. So when I get it, I'll have it. But as you said, when we get there, it's still missing.

Actually what we're doing is missing. That kind of life part because we're chasing the thing. Now, the interesting thing is when you turn it around the other way, if you open yourself up to life and to really living now, and that doesn't mean you have to throw yourself away, or you have to get really extravagant, but if you open yourself up to the generosity of life, I think that's a good way to put it.

Life is actually much more generous than we tend to think of it. And a lot is possible. You could reach your financial goal. And at the same time, it leads you into a very purposeful, really beautiful, enjoyable life. Continuing from the moment where you reach financial independence. So financial independence just becomes a milestone that you pass through along the way.

And some people will get there earlier and some people will get there later because of the choices they make 

and that's all it is really. So it isn't the goal. it's like, if you're going for a walk, it's one of the stones you walk past on that walk. But the purpose of the walk is not to get to the other end.

It's to enjoy the walk it's to enjoy the experience, have a rich experience.

So I often talk about having a rich experience. I think that when we look for financial freedom and financial wealth, we're actually looking for richness in our life. And we think it's going to come just from money.

A rich life comes from living a rich life, and it's very difficult to do with that without money. And it's very difficult to do that. If money is the focus.

Adam Coelho: Yes. All of that. Yes. I assume you saw me nodding. I'm like, yeah. Yes. Oh my God. Yes, that is so true that, what you said about, we are racing towards the point of financial independence so that we can live and all the while missing our life, that's happening every moment.

And that is really what I'm focused on with this podcast is let's live mindfully in this moment, all the moments of our life. And I liked what you said about financial independence, just being a stone along the path that you walk past as you're living your best life, all along the way, that makes so much sense.

[00:32:07] Mindful Fire Final Four[00:32:07] In the book, you talk a lot about enjoyment as a kind of barometer of success. Can you share your thoughts on that and maybe a practice or two of how we can actually cultivate the capacity for enjoyment?

Adam Coelho: All right, so Sarah let's switch gears into the mindful fire final four. So the first question is in the book, you talk a lot about enjoyment as a kind of barometer of success. Can you share your thoughts on that and maybe a practice or two of how we can actually cultivate the capacity for enjoyment? It seems super obvious on its head, but. At the same time. like we talked about with the book at the beginning, it seems so simple. So obvious, but like with a work, how do I actually do it?

Yeah. 

Sarah McCrum: So let's think about enjoyment for a moment. First, imagine that you're enjoying your work, whatever it is, whether you have a job or a business, or you're independent already, or you're enjoying the way you spend your time, you're enjoying your family or enjoying your money. You're enjoying your house and where you live.

You're enjoying your whatever activities you do when you're not working. Does that sound like a good life? Pretty good. Yeah. Enjoyment is just a very simple barometer. It's something you can. If I talk about joy, it's like, oh, joy. That's a much bigger thing, but enjoyment, a five-year-old can enjoy something and a 99 year old can enjoy something.

We can all get that. So I think enjoyment is just very useful. And I've talked a little bit in this conversation about being attracted towards the pleasure. Of things, the pleasure of life, and that's a full, rich pleasure. It's not, the pleasure of getting something it's the pleasure of living.

So enjoyment comes with that. How do you do that? More enjoyment is a lot simpler than we think. And I'll give you an example. I had a client a few years ago who was suicidally depressed and I'd met him for the first time. And he was going off on a trip to some kind of adventure theme park or something with his kids.

And I said, look, could you just make a deal with yourself that you enjoy the day with them? Cause he was dreading it because he was going to be the drag on the whole family, because he was so depressed. He came back to me the next day. He said I had the most amazing time. Sarah enjoyed every bit of it. It was just as depressed actually.

Like he hadn't really solved his depression because he didn't make the click that, that he just decided to enjoy the day instead of not. So often we have a habit of thinking, oh, work, oh, that's not really enjoyable. And working. I know people who see work as a dirty word, whereas to me work is something for enjoying.

But if you think, oh, this is a boring email, I've got to write like, yeah, but I'm going to enjoy it because why not? Because you can, you will find that you can, if you make the decision to enjoy something, you will enjoy it. If you make the decision that it's really hard and heavy and you don't want to do it, it's going to be really hard and heavy and you're not going to want to do it.

So it's in your hands. Enjoyments is in your hands. 

Adam Coelho: Sounds like to summarize enjoyment is a choice. 

Sarah McCrum: Enjoyment is a choice. I agree. 

Adam Coelho: There you go. All right. 

[00:34:58] What piece of advice would you give to someone early on their path to financial independence?

Adam Coelho: So the second question is what piece of advice would you give to someone early on their path to financial independence?

Sarah McCrum: would say, really look for freedom, not just independence. Independence is a bit of a myth because we're never independent. You're not independent of the, of nature of people, of society, of the system.

Any of it, we're very interdependent. I would say, look for freedom, but for true freedom, which includes financial freedom, inner freedom, whatever it is really explore that because we're very attracted to that as human beings, just, yeah. So that it's not all about the money. It's about the money plus. 

Adam Coelho: Yeah, very good.

And I would also have. Okay. Read Sarah's book, love money, money loves you. I think it will help quite a bit as well. Because this conversation in your book has really made my kind of view of things around financial independence. More well-rounded I would say. Yeah. 

[00:35:57] what piece of advice would you give to someone getting started with meditation and or mindfulness?

Adam Coelho: So the next question is, what piece of advice would you give to someone getting started with meditation and or mindfulness?

Sarah McCrum: Well, I teach a lot. I teach relaxation, but it's as good as any of those things that you've talked about. The biggest mistake that people make is they think they've got to do it, right? we're not in the territory here. We're not at school. We're not going to get marks.

And the mind can throw curve balls and do all kinds of weird things inside you. And it doesn't matter. It's something to practice and get better at and just never worry about doing it right. Also, don't worry about doing it wrong. It's just not about right or wrong. It's different, it's an experience.

It's something that works as you get better at it. 

Adam Coelho: Very well said. 

[00:36:41] How can people connect with you online and learn more about your book, your workshops, everything that you've got going on in the world?

Adam Coelho: And the last question Sarah is how can people connect with you online and learn more about your book, your workshops, everything that you've got going on in the world? 

Sarah McCrum: The best place to go is my website, which is liberate humanity.com.

Also have a website, my name's Sarah McCrum.com and you'll be able to find the book there. I'm very lucky that I have an unusual name, so you can look me up on Google. Sarah McCrum you'll find. 

Adam Coelho: Very good. I will link all of that up in the show notes so you can check it out. Thank you, Sarah.

This has been absolutely wonderful. this is by far one of the best podcast conversations I've had so far, so I'm really grateful for you to take the time and to share all of your wisdom with us. 

Sarah McCrum: Thank you. It's been really fascinating. I've never talked to this audience before around this theme of financial independence.

So it's been really fascinating for me to have that experience. 

[00:37:33] Outro

Adam Coelho: Thanks so much for joining me for this episode of the mindful fire podcast. I hope you enjoyed part one of my conversation with Sarah McCrumb. 

As a reminder part, two of our conversation will drop in two weeks. 

So make sure to hit, follow wherever you're listening to this. So you're the first to know when that episode drops. 

Sarah was also kind enough to share with our audience. One of her money activations focused on enjoyment and money. 

This activation is a meditation of sorts and I'll be releasing it next week as episode 74 of the podcast.

 I'd love to invite you to join our mindful fire community. Each Friday, we joined together to meditate at 2:30 PM Eastern time. It's totally free and I'd love for you to join.

You can sign up at mindful fire.org/meditate. 

As a reminder, you can find the full show notes for today's episode mindful fire.org/ 73. 

Thanks again, and I'll catch you next time on the mindful fire podcast.