96 : Don't Wait to Live The Life You Dream About, Slow FI & Coast FI with Jess of The Fioneers

Adam: 0:16

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

Jess: 0:20

Thanks so much for having me.

Adam: 0:22

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

Jess: 0:37

So I'm Jess from the Pioneers. I currently live in Boston, Massachusetts, and I started the blog called The Fine Years in 2018 to chronicle my journey to financial independence. and at the time I was working in a toxic, really terrible, more than full-time job, sprinting toward that fire finish line, thinking that I needed to save as much money as I possibly could. and I was completely miserable. and so I realized that. and I had recently learned about fire and I realized that was not the path that I wanted to be on the miserable sprint to the finish line, path to fire. and so I decided that I wanted to do something different, than that. And so I think one key important thing that I think aligns with this idea of mindful fire is in 2018, I ended up, around that time having a pretty severe mental health crisis and started experiencing severe anxiety in panic attacks and needed to take some time away from work and away from everything to just reset, and figure out. like, who am I? What do I actually want? and it required a lot of mindfulness skills, to get there. And so that was the foundation of my financial independence journey and changing that approach to focus on how can I use the financial freedom that I've built to design a life that I love today? And so contrast that, from 2018 to now, I, for a while I worked, when I went back to work after our mental health crisis, I worked part-time. I built up a passion based business asking myself what would I love to do after fi even if I didn't generate any income from it. And, used it as an experiment to say, can I generate income? Doing the work that I'd wanna do for after fi, realized that I could, built up that business, quit my job. Now I'm a full-time entrepreneur, though I only work about 25 hours a week. my husband and I always had a goal of being location independent. and so I've built up my business enough that he's actually quitting his job tomorrow. we built out a camper van over the last year and we're hitting the road in two weeks for a three month road trip. and to be able to travel all around national parks, work from the road. and so there's been, a significant transformation in my own life from when I learned about fire to now. And so that's what's going on with me.

Adam: 3:26

That is incredible. And yeah, congratulations to you both for reaching this point in your journey. so it's not really the finish line, right? Because I heard on your slow fi meetup, which you host every month. I joined last week and I heard that you are actually not at fi and so I think that's an important point you like to call out, but congratulations on reaching this point in your journey and realizing the vision of wanting to be location independent and hit the road in the camper van you've been working on for the last year.

Jess: 3:55

Yeah, thank you then. That is a really good point. I think sometimes people hear the story and assume, oh, they must have reached financial independence already. but the reality is that we're less than 50% of the way there, or it's actually, I think when we last, like calculated it at the end of the year, we're only about 40% of the way to ffi. but feel like we're living something that's really close to what our post fi lifestyle would look like. and that's been in many ways our guiding force over the last five years is how can. Like envision what our post fi life would look like, and then how can we make that a reality before fi? Like what does that thing we want require, and what are the ways that are possible to make that happen? In most of the time it's not by retiring early to be able to do that, there's so many other possibilities and ways to make those things a reality.

Adam: 4:57

Yeah, I love that because I know that I feel this way, but I, I think a lot of people feel this like, if only what I call the if only mindset, right? if only I could, drive around the country. If only I could retire early. If only I could teach mindfulness and get paid for it. The list goes on and on. The more we realize that we're in control and we can just shift our attention and look at our life in a slightly different way and realize that we already have that or. we can create that with just a few minor tweaks. Like it's not so far outta reach. Mm-hmm. I think most people's vision is not so grandiose that they like need to be retired to achieve it. So I love that. that's like a core part of your teachings and your blog and all of that. It's, I think it's really empowering.

Jess: 5:43

Yeah. And even I think even too, sometimes things do feel grandiose in pie in the sky, but they're still possible, So for example, in 2018, I actually have a blog post that I wrote in like the fall of 2018 that articulates like, this is what our ideal life looks like. And it was location, independence, the ability to travel as much as we want to do, like entrepreneurial ventures that are just very fun for us, that we totally just enjoy. And it's so funny when I look back on that now, because even then in 2018, I was still like, oh yeah, I'll probably have to retire early to be able to do that. And then, but looking back, I realized like, no, we realized that there's actually a lot of different ways to be location independent, right? You could have a remote, completely remote job, you could be a freelancer, you could start your own business. You could te be temporarily fully locationed independent by taking a mini retirement, or you could retire early and never work again, right? there's a lot of different options and they don't, most of them don't require being financially independent. and I also think when I was originally thinking about it, I was like, oh, I could run a business, but I'm probably not gonna make much money doing it. So like all of those limiting beliefs upfront being like, it won't be fun if I actually need the income. All of those things. And then realizing, let me try to build this thing on the side of a day job and make the decisions and build the business as if I don't need any income from it. And just see what happens. See if I like it, see if it's the kind of thing that I would still want to be doing if I didn't need to generate income. and I realized that it was, and so by all means, let me invest in that, the, you time and effort in that so that I can then basically be living my post five lifestyle at 40% of the way to

Adam: 7:46

five. Yeah, that's, I love that. And I'm glad you went into that point, because I wanted to ask you about that. The, mm-hmm. what would I love doing, even if it didn't earn any income, So like, I guess any, maybe you already said it, but any practical tips to help people who want to explore that for themselves? how did you go about it? What would you recommend?

Jess: 8:09

Yeah, I would say it's not necessarily a very fast process to figure that out. I think it requires a lot of introspection, idea generation and experimentation to figure out what some of those things are. and so for me, part of what I did, was I went through a, like lifestyle design process with a group of people, so similar to what I now do in coaching. and we looked at a few different things, and. I would say I can walk through a little bit of the lifestyle design process that I went through and then now bring my clients through. and so the first step is introspection of figuring out what are the elements of my ideal life, right? What are the things that I love to do that I'm truly passionate about, right? What are my core motivations? Like what gets me excited, energized, and up in the morning? and then what is the context in which I can build a thriving life, right? And so it's like those pieces and I think of them as like, my, what? My, why am I? How? so how, and I think the how is tricky because that's the piece we a lot of times don't think about. but I think of that as how do I carry out my what and my why in a way that like feels really good in life giving. and

Adam: 9:24

yeah, tell me more about the context before you go on. Just, I'm curious about the, is the, how the context,

Jess: 9:30

the how is the context? Yes. Tell me a little bit more about that. Yeah, so the how is, what is the amount of time that I want in my day focused on different things. So for me there, and I guess it'll be helpful with, to have an example. so the how for me is I'm introverted, right? And so I need to make sure that I'm having a good balance of time between time spent, like recharging and time spent with other people. and typically I like to spend more time with like small, intimate groups of people. another thing about how I like to do things is I actually like to go really deep into a small number of things and build mastery doing them. And so I like new things and I really like to go deep and say No. for example, one thing that's really fun for me is I like to play these really complex collaborative board games. And I think that's like a microcosm of my how in some ways because I, I love to go deep. And so the ones where you have a character and the character builds over time and you get better and better at figuring out the game, right? So there's something for me, about building mastery, as well as wanting to be doing it in a collaborative rather than a competitive way. So for me, I know that, about myself as well. and then I also know that after a certain amount of time spending you. time with people, I wanna step away, right? And I need my time to rest and recharge. and so those are some important pieces of context for me is like, and when I think about it in, in terms of my coaching and the work that I do now, I have a certain number of groups that I'll run at any given time, but I know that after a certain point, like, like being with small groups and helping people work through a process is really energizing to me. But if I do too much of it, it's gonna like tip over into the draining. and so it's important for me to know, like this is the right balance that I need for my business to actually feel really good, and for me to be able to bring my best to that, and to the other areas of my life.

Adam: 11:53

Got it. So you essentially use that. How in that context to really craft that life, right? To create the containers of the various things so that it has that balance. You need to feel really good. which is ultimately the point of this whole exercise. Yes. Yep. Exactly. Got it. Thank you for going in to that and for the example,

Jess: 12:12

Yeah. yeah, so in, in the lifestyle design process, we start with that. And there that, there's that introspective piece. I think there's a few activities that can help with that. one it or a couple are more reflections. So reflecting on like, what is my ideal day, week, month, and year look like, if I could totally design it completely myself, or in reflecting on what peak experiences we've had throughout our lives, can tell us a lot about those, our what, why, and our how. by generating that, I wouldn't recommend someone sit down and say what's my what, my why and my how. I would say reflect on other things and let those things arise, and generate. and then one other activity that I do in my coaching, that has a lot to do with mindfulness. Is over the course of like a five week period of time, all of my clients will track their days and they'll write down the activities that they do during the day and then rank them on a scale of one to five, how energized was I by this particular thing. you know, one would be like, oh, I'm so drained afterward. And a five would be like, yes, this is awesome. I wanna keep doing it. I have more energy now than before I started. So let's scale one to five for energy and then for engagement as well. So how engaged and engrossed were they in focus on that particular thing versus like, were they bored and attention wandering and, all of those things. because that can also tell you a lot about. What you really enjoy doing, and the things that you might wanna start to minimize and eliminate immediately. and I think that activity is really helpful because one, it helps you understand long term what are some of those things that you wanna incorporate. and it also helps you to start making immediate shifts of like what stuff I wanna do more of right now. and then what are things I wanna eliminate and minimize, immediately. and so yeah, so I would say that's really the first step is getting a clear picture of what you want and who you are. And, my personal process wasn't quite that linear, right? That was all of the stuff I learned over like a period of. two years and like stuff I incorporated, into my own life. and then from there the process focuses on dreaming big. So I know you talk about envisioning, I think this is a similar process to that, where we do, and I like to do this as a group, and I personally did this as a group where I did some mind mapping and brought some ideas to the table of like, here's things that I could do. and then as a group, we just, I generated a ton of ideas of what could be possible. and then I like to, and I have my clients, and this is the process that I did as well, was to create three distinct, awesome life plans, rather than one. I think like the kind of issue when we only envision one plan, is. Like, we just envision one thing and we iterate on it rather than like allowing our brains to expand and thinking about things that are completely outside of our current experience. so when I have people do three plans, and when I did as well was plan number one is like, this is the idea you're noodling on, or like, this is your current life going forward for the next five years. The second one is, imagine the main element of that life. One is no longer an option. What would you do instead? And that's where like the creative ideas get flowing rather than iterating on the one plan. and then the third plan is if money or status were no object. like, what would you do? And so you've already got the ideas flowing with, okay, I can't do the main component of life number one. then it helps to, be able to brainstorm what I would do if money or status were no object. and this activity, I really love it. It's actually from a book in a course called Designing Your Life, from professors at Stanford. so it's like the lifestyle design process or the design thinking process applied to life your own life. and so I pull that resource into my coaching program and that was the process that I did as well to start to envision what were the possibilities. and actually in reality, I did that process with a group back in 2019. and. I am basically living the life three that I created now. So over the course of four years, I've created that. Even though I remember in that moment with the group as I was sharing my life, three, I was like, this is such a pie in the sky idea. I'm nervous about sharing it. And they were like, of course, why can't you? Why can't you do this though right now? And I was like, okay. I think I could take some steps and, start to like make that a reality. and so over the last four years, take in consistent small steps in experiments and, tested stuff out, adjusted, learned from it, and now we're.

Adam: 17:41

I love that so much. I really love that the three distinct life paths like that is such a good idea. clearly I have not read far enough in that book Designing Your Life. I was reading that, but I did not get too far into it I, that's a key one that I wanna spend more time with because it's such a good idea and you have experts in design thinking, teaching you how to apply it to your life, like pretty good. but yeah, that's such a good idea and I love that you do that for yourself and with other, with your clients as well. Yeah. even if we, some people, it's very hard to even envision past what they currently have. but, and so what I like to do is I like to say, Hey, look, set aside all of your current limitations. constraints, limitations, ideas of what is reasonable and rational. But I love this creating three distinct ones because it forces even more curiosity, even more creativity, and thinking completely outside the realm of, of what's currently, what your current reality is and your current ideas of what you want. So I think that's fantastic.

Jess: 18:44

Yeah. and one, I think one thing too that is important, in that process is. to get people in the right mindset to be able to do that and right. And to be able to get to a place where they're not just thinking something and immediately shooting down the right and saying all the reasons why it won't work. and so one thing that I like to think of, as I'm doing work like this, and one thing that I encourage my clients to do as well is to get into this yes and, or like this improv mindset of we're just generating ideas here. you don't have to do any of these. You can write stuff down. You get to choose which ones you do and don't do. I think sometimes people think if I write something down, I have to do it. but like we're just coming up with ideas and we are not evaluating them at all. We're not saying this how it would work or nothing. like, we're letting ideas come and we're saying yes, and let's see what comes out of this idea because it, because this idea might not be the thing that you wanna do. But it could lead us down the line that sparks something for someone else, which sparks something for someone else, which sparked something for you that then you decide that you might be interested in pursuing that thing. But had you. Shut down idea A, like you wouldn't have never gotten into ideas B, C, D or E. and so that's an, I think an important piece of getting into the process too, is getting into that mindset of IgE idea generation without criticizing

Adam: 20:24

Yeah. And I think that's where the mindfulness piece comes in, right? like mindfulness is all about being kind and curious and open. to whatever's arising. that's the kind of the opposite of how we normally act. Yeah. Or that's the opposite of our normal mental chatter. So I think yeah. Really encouraging people in setting the container that like we're just generating ideas here. We're not evaluating them, we're not planning them, we are just generating ideas.

Jess: 20:52

yeah. And I think one important thing about the process too, and speaking of mindfulness is, Like, if you do realize that you're evaluating the ideas and shutting them down, like that's okay. We all do that. Like similar to meditation, it's like, oh, if I realize my mind has wandered, the purpose of that is to say, oh, I'm noting it. My mind has wandered, now I'm gonna come back. And that's exactly what we wanna do with brainstorming as well, is we wanna notice, oh, I'm criticizing, okay. I wanna let that go. I'm not gonna let brain myself for it. I'm just gonna say that's a natural human thing to do, and now I'm gonna come back to, focusing on the possibilities and the ideas, being generated.

Adam: 21:38

Very good point. Very good point. I've heard it described as not making it into a problem. Just noticing it and then coming back. Yeah. that's powerful. You mentioned you like to do this and you did it yourself in small groups. how many people are we talking?

Jess: 21:53

Yeah, so when I went through the process, I did, so it was a group of four people. and now in my group coaching, I do groups of three or four, with me being a facilitator of those practices. So

Adam: 22:06

it's you and three other people yeah. In a session where you do this not like a larger group. And then you break people into smaller groups.

Jess: 22:14

I know so well, yeah. So every group that I run has three or four people in it. sometimes I run a couple of groups at the same time. I see. but we meet at different times. and they're their core group. They're with those people the whole time. They have their core group that they're with over the course of a four month period of time, that they're working through this full process

Adam: 22:35

with. Why do you keep it so small? Why not eight? Just curious. I'm just curious. Yeah,

Jess: 22:42

so I would say the main reason is, I guess there's a few reasons. I think one of them is I'm an introvert and I know, I'm not sure I like, I don't think I would be comfortable moving through a process where I am like deeply sharing the things that I'm learning with eight other people. I think that would feel hard and probably a little bit scary. the second reason is just I want everyone to have time to be able to share their insights in the things that they're learning and ask questions and get feedback from the group. and that's just not possible when you have a larger group, I think, right? Like we have 90 minute sessions every other week and the sessions are like bursting at the seams. We have so much that we're trying to cover. and every person has like their time to share, here's what they learned in the pre-work and get ideas and, questions and, comments from people in the group, helping them connect the dots between the things that they have said in previous sessions. and Yeah. I think without having like three hour sessions every other week Where people would not be able to stay focused until the end of it, like I've decided like four is really the max, yeah. For the program in at the level of depth that I want people to be able to go Yeah. to be able to really get like, learn and transform the way that they're approaching their life.

Adam: 24:20

Yeah. Yeah. It's funny, I'm like laughing a little bit because it's like, oh yeah, there's those things you described when you were designing your business, right? depth and, the introverted, the balance of introversion Yeah. Versus the extroversion. and ensuring that you are designing this in a way that feels really good for you and helps the people do the thing that you're trying to help them do.

Jess: 24:41

Yeah, actually that's interesting. That's a really good point, because that's exactly right. it's like the, how is I wanna go really deep with, and you can't do that with a lot of people. Number of people. Yeah. Yeah.

Adam: 24:51

Yeah. And see, so you're designing it where it's like you have these various groups, probably more work for you, honestly. certainly more work for you but it achieves your desire to go deep. and I agree. You really do need to go deep. And I can see a huge benefit from that, like pinging ideas off of each other, right? where you just don't get that when it's like a, one to many Yeah. Situation. And I ask this because I lead an envisioning workshop within Google and outside of Google, and it's great, but when I, when it comes time to invite people to share, to try to achieve that goal, One time I did it, and literally 25% of the people on the call dropped off the call. They left they just left. And so people don't like to share in front, especially in front of their coworkers.

Jess: 25:45

Yeah. I would say that's definitely a big broad, I can imagine that it would be a har a harder barrier too.

Adam: 25:54

Yeah. So I gotta find a way to, I have some ideas on how to, like, incorporate these smaller groups maybe with some more space. just so that they can do that and, to the degree that they're comfortable. But I see the, a lot of benefit in the way that you're doing it, with you as a facilitator in that small group. I'm sure there's a huge level of trust that you establish with them before you really put them on the spot, not like me talking for an hour and being like, Hey, share your deepest vision with your boss,

Jess: 26:21

Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Exactly. Yeah. learning so much already, Jess. Yeah. And I guess one thing that I would say too is I do, once people have gone through that main program, I do have a, like annual clarity process that I can bring people through to set, like what are, what's their vision for the coming year and actually creating that into a plan. And then people can participate from there in mastermind groups and, get support and accountability, to carry out their plan for those I have done. Retreats and sessions where like I'm teaching and then they're breaking into small groups. But at that point, these people have been through the full program and understand the, I think norms and the ethos of the community and this like approach toward possibilities. and but when people are going through this process for the first time, I think it's hard for people to recognize and to call each other out in a or in a really nice way when they, someone isn't focusing on possibilities or they are getting into that critique around their own ideas. and so having a facilitator there, I think for people as they're working through it, this, that first time as they're building some of the mindset and skills, to be able to do this, like design work, effectively it's helpful to have a skilled facilitator with them.

Adam: 27:54

Got it. I agree that makes a lot of sense. And yeah, it sounds like you're kind in the first phase, you're teaching them the skills, like you said, and later on they can almost be, The culture carriers, so to speak, they all understand the process because they've been through it at a deep level and can all kind of create the space and hold each other and all of that. once they have those skills. Very cool.

Jess: 28:14

then after you create those three life plans and envision this process, envision the life that you would want moving forward, right? Then you don't just say, okay, I'm gonna take like life three off the shelf and I'm just gonna do that one. I think the, I, the purpose of creating those three life plans is to generate more ideas, o of things that you could want to pursue. And then what you get to do from there is to say, okay, from these three life plans, what are the ideas and the activities and the things that I'm interested in exploring more? and then you move into the third step of the process, which is experimentation, or I call it experiment and adjust. Okay. And so you take each one of those things, and it's interesting. It's a pretty systematic process. You actually can write down what are all of the questions that I have about this particular thing? which could be things like, would I actually enjoy it? How do people make money doing that thing? Like how do you get started? What does the day-to-day look like? All of those kinds of questions. and then we continue brainstorming, right? And so we go through another brainstorming process to say, what are all of the ways that I could think of that I could answer those questions? and not just through internet research, right? Through experiments. And I think of experiments as a conversation, an observation, or like a beta test, right? So you could be, you could find someone who you could have a conversation with, to figure out, like they might be a couple steps further down the path or an expert in the thing to help you answer some of those questions and to get a sense of it, for observation. so an example of an observation would be, one of the things in my, one of my life plans was to, that I wanted to potentially plan a retreat. and that was like, oh, like I can't even envision how I would get started doing that, right? And so part of it was talking to people who did retreats, and then another one was actually like going to retreats. Not hard right? Not rocket, but actually like investing in saying like, I'm going to go to these, and when I go to them, I'm gonna approach them with a mindset of not only what can I get out of it, like and learn for myself, but also to, look at it as what would I, what do I really like from this? What would I do differently if I planned my own retreat? So that, that's what an example of an observation. and then the third is actually like doing a beta test or like a, shrinking it down right into something that you can try out in a day, a week, a month, and then you can scale it up from there. and so for me on the sort of retreat idea, I was like, okay, how can I shrink this down and test it out to see if I can answer some of these questions? And one of the ideas that I had was, can I plan a local meetup for my like local women's personal finance group, right? And so I did that and then really actually enjoyed it. People actually came, right? So it built my confidence to then take like the next slightly bigger step, over time, right? And so I think that's the power of taking an experimentation approach is one, you're focusing on answering the questions. And so it's okay if something isn't conventionally successful, right? Because it's successful if you learn something valuable from it. so for example, I had a client who was considering starting her own tax prep business. and so she decided to do a tax season with h and r Block. cuz. she could get the training and see if she liked doing taxes, and it was like a defined period of time. I think she was just like working two days a week for three months or something. and so she came out of that being like, really didn't like working for your h and r block because of the bureaucracy and like all of the thing and not being in control of the schedule. But she's like, but I loved working with the people. Like I, and realized that there were things that she learned from it and then decided like, yeah, I would actually really enjoy doing this on my own, if I didn't have this bureaucracy and people telling me what my schedule was and having to go to these like, unnecessary meetings and, things like that. and so for her though, she walked away being like, didn't love it. was a very successful experiment though because it helped her answer all of the question, like answer a lot of her questions, and it helped her move forward to move on to the next bigger experiment. and yeah, so in, in my path, I feel like in some ways it's like everything has been an experiment and I see it that way. I did that local meetup. So that was my like first step and then my second experiment was, okay, I am gonna lead an hour and a half workshop for my local Choose five group, which I did and that was great. And then Covid hit and so then I was like, okay, can't really do anything live for a bit or can't do anything in person for a bit. And then was like, okay, let me see if I can get my audience to come to a workshop that I do virtually. So I did that. like 80 people showed up. It was awesome. And I was like, okay, I might be able to do something with this. and then from there I started being like, okay, like let me then try to launch coaching, which I did in the summer of 2020, or the, late spring of 2020. And in some ways that first coaching launch, that was an experiment too, right? And different strategies of trying out different things has been an experiment. which then I think leads me toward then this year I'm actually doing it. I'm running my first retreat. And all of these things have been like experiments that are leading up to that. and so I think taking that experimentation approach can allow you to. Learn a lot in the process, not be too hard on yourself along the way. and to orient yourself around, like, how can, what can I learn from this? And how do I want, how can I move forward? rather than focusing on has this thing been conventionally successful? because there's been plenty of things in my process that like didn't go as well as I hoped that they would. but I learned a lot from them, and that they've brought me forward to where I am today

Adam: 35:02

man, that's good stuff. That's good stuff. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah. I love this idea of having an experimentation mindset and for me, I find that. I have a lot of ideas, like not hard for me to come up with ideas, not hard for me to envision future possibilities, but when it comes to choosing one and moving forward and like actually making a plan, that's when things get a little bit scary. and I find that I have this, it's I don't know if it's a mindset or whatever it is, it's this thought that if I try something, I need to like commit to it for the rest of my life. like it's an exaggeration, but that's the feeling, right? It's heavy. it's oh, if I go this route, I don't know. Then I start like racing forward into the future and be thinking of all the next steps and Exactly. And it just feels so heavy. But I love that this, and I know that I should treat things as an experiment. but sometimes I get away from that. So I really like this idea of like, write down all the questions you have about this potential life path or this aspect of it, and then write a list of the things that you could do to start moving forward and to try to answer those questions. Anchoring on the questions and the ways that you could try to answer those questions feels much lighter than committing to that path for the rest of your life.

Jess: 36:33

Yeah. And you get to decide that you don't wanna move down that path anymore if you want. Absolutely I've, and I've also had plenty of clients who have said, okay, I wanna try out this thing. I tried it. I really didn't like it very much. Which is, was like, great, that's a successful experiment, because now you get to know that you don't wanna move down that path anymore. So let's try, let's move down another path, rather than

Adam: 37:03

let's take that option off the table right now. We don't have to worry about that one. We tried it. Now we can try this one.

Jess: 37:09

Exactly like you tried it. you realized that you didn't like it. That's great. Let's move. Yeah. Like, let's try the next thing. And you didn't have to commit to doing that thing forever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. that's powerful. So you mentioned that you have some things that you're envisioning, but it's really challenging to take, like, it can sometimes be at least challenging to stay, take steps forward because you, like, walk them down the path and think about all the future implications of them, rather than just figuring out like, what's the small step that I can take to answer the question and build the confidence and learn the thing. so yeah. Would you be willing to tell me, a couple of those things and we can actually talk through them?

Adam: 37:55

Sure. Yeah. Let's see. So there's a few, Okay. I'll go with one that, that gets wildly out of control in my mind very quickly. Okay.

Jess: 38:05

Uhhuh. Great.

Adam: 38:05

it's always been my dream to design and build my own house, and I've envisioned this for years and years. and actually this room that you're looking at, even though this is currently a virtual background, I am in this room right now and this is exactly what I envisioned, to a large degree. I envisioned it as like the great room of the house, but this is, a sunroom and, but it's I didn't have to build this, I was able to just buy this house and I feel like things just align beautifully and here I am in this room doing all the things that I envision wanting to do. that said, I still have this dream of designing and building. what I call, and I've talked about on the podcast, the skate park, casita I was a roller blader, this is all sounding ridiculous. this all sounding very ridiculous. But when I was younger, I was a aggressive inline roller blader and I would do tricks on roller blades, essentially in skateboard and stuff like that. And I always wanted, I went to this camp called Woodward and I always wanted to create my own camp Woodward. And interestingly, it was that kind of merged with this idea of always like, I wanted to be an architect and that's why I wanted to design and build my own house and. I'm getting, see this is what I'm talking about. It gets very complex in my head. But, and I'm not even,

Jess: 39:29

this is great though. This is good. I'm

Adam: 39:31

not even to the part where I'm telling you the thing yet. Okay. But it's okay. ultimately, I, I had this vision of wanting to go back to this camp and creating my own version of this camp that was like my dream when I was younger. And part of that would be building this house and all of this. interestingly, the only envisioning workshop that I've done was last year when I envisioned wanting to go to this camp and to skate there again, because I've during C O V I became an adult aggressive inline skater, now as a 35 year old man and father of two So I am now doing that again. and I was like, oh man, like I'm close by now. I could go there. How could I go there? Maybe I could lead a workshop there and. Lo and behold, about a year ago, I did actually go there and lead my first paid external envisioning workshop at the camp. And not only did I go and get to skate in those amazing skate parks that I had dreamed of going back to for all those years, I got paid to do it. So that was awesome. And that kind of, it, it was a mini experiment and it really showed me like, yeah, I really do like skating and exercising in this way and I'd love to do it with my kids and I'd love to actually build this skate park Casita. So coming back to the idea of Skate Park Casita, it's essentially a big version of this with a skate park in it, but at the same time, it also has, it also has like a community center slash retreat aspect to it and an like an office, right? So I would. Do exactly what I'm doing here. basically have my office, run my business, record my podcast, record my online courses, all of that in this like studio slash the bottom floor would be a community space where I'd host like meditation retreats and workshops. And I have this vision of people, companies coming from New York City, like a small team of eight to 10 people or so. They come, they, we host a retreat. I host an envisioning retreat. Help them think about what's the vision for their team and their business, and h what's the personal vision and how do those things overlap and how do those people see themselves making that vision happen and seeing their work leading them to their vision. I've done a few of these within Google to some degree, and I envision having a place where people could come and practice this and I could host retreats there or other people like you could come and host a retreat as well when I'm not using it for that purpose. So as you can see, there are a lot of questions. There

Jess: 42:13

are a lot of questions. So, so interestingly enough, my very first thought actually is like, how cool would this be? And like, could you put tiny houses on the property and like that people could stay in and that would Exactly. So cool. And would you like, like my first thought is like, could this be a coworking space? Could you know, like, So my, my, it's interesting that my, my first inclination is to say like, how could we make this dream bigger? Yeah,

Adam: 42:43

I know you were building on it. Yeah. You were building on it. Yeah. See that's what I do. I like link all these ideas together. and then it's like, now it's like this Frankenstein thing. It's like, I don't know if corporate executives wanna meditate in a halfpipe Like maybe they do, probably not.

Jess: 43:01

Who knows? maybe not, but also does that matter right now?

Adam: 43:06

I don't think so. Yeah. But if I'm gonna buy a plot of land and build a skate park, I guess I'd probably have to answer some questions before I did that.

Jess: 43:14

Probably. here's the thing, you don't need to answer the question of would a corporate executive want to. To like meditate in a halfpipe at this moment. so I guess let's start out with it and think of like, okay, so skate park, casita, that could potentially host retreats, in, in the future for stuff that you're running, stuff that other people are running. maybe it's camps for really cool adults that wanna come and learn about envisioning, yeah, that would be cool. one thing that you could do is start looking for examples of some of these things, of like what people are doing. for example, I recently, which I'm so sad that I can't go, but there's. Group that a company that I follow that's called Location Indie. And they like bring people together who want to be location independent. And every year they do a camp indie where they like bring people together to this like, it's like an adult summer camp basically. And they bring people together to do like sessions and learning and like fun activities, which for you, which could be like, aggressive inline skating, and Right. And so I think of oh, that's like very similar kind of like in my mind to like the thing that you're potentially thinking of. Definitely,

Adam: 44:30

yeah. Moving forward. I I've thought about like, what would it look like? A potential experiment would be like, just host a retreat at Woodward, right? yeah. Like a retreat or a camp. it literally is a camp. They already have the facilities and they only use it for like, I don't know, 15 weeks a year. Like they make all their money in the summer. and I already have a relationship with them. Yeah. So that could be an opportunity. But yeah.

Jess: 44:54

so here's the question. What keeps you from doing that?

Adam: 44:58

A lot of questions around like, one, could I do it with my family? I could bring them along for sure. That could be a possibility. I have the kids and the family and the job, and also it's far away. it's like four hours away from New York City probably, or three, three and a half hours away. yeah, I don't know. it's, I think it's just like all the, yeah, it's what I was describing before. It's like all the things. does anyone wanna pay for this? Does anyone willing to do it? Like all these things that, that need to be answered. So that's, I, I like your, your approach with the questions. Yeah. Because right now they're just swirling in my head.

Jess: 45:31

Yeah. so then the key thing to do here is like, write them down. So I actually have written some of them down, like, how would I do this with my family? And how would I do this? Knowing that you work a traditional job currently, and like, would someone pay for this? So those are three questions. So how could you answer some of these questions? Like, let's start with the, how would you do this with your family? Like, how could you answer that question? Not what's the answer to that question?

Adam: 46:04

I could have a conversation with my wife, That would probably be a good first step.

Jess: 46:07

you could have a conversation with someone who has kids who's done something like this. So find someone who's like, planned a retreat and they have kids, like what do they do during that? Yeah.

Adam: 46:19

Time. Yeah. definitely a good one.

Jess: 46:22

Yeah. and so then the question about how would you do this with a job? How could you answer that question?

Adam: 46:28

I feel like that one's an easy one. I just take time off like I could easily take a vacation, right? I'm not talking about doing this for a month. Like a weekend. yeah. Yeah. That could definitely be done.

Jess: 46:37

pretty easily. And you could potentially like, talk to someone who has planned retreats while having a full-time job. Yeah. So for example, the person who puts on the campfire, the campfire events. I believe he works for regular, a regular, traditional job and like, just does campfire on the side and does like, I don't know, six to eight of them a year. that's a good point. and like it's just, his side thing, that

Adam: 47:05

I think was, and just wanted to do it. And he made it happen like you're doing

Jess: 47:07

Yeah. Yeah. good point. and then, And then like, you have the question of like, would anyone pay for it? How would you go about trying to answer that question?

Adam: 47:17

talk to people who would be potentially interested in it. like put out a, a invitation to chat on my to my email list or on my LinkedIn. Yeah. And just see what people, what they would like and if they would be, how much they'd be willing to pay to attend. Something like that.

Jess: 47:32

Yep. Yep. Yeah, that's a really good option. and then I think there's a l a number of like additional things too, is you could. plan something smaller And see if people like wanted to attend that and or pay for it. So there's a way to like test and scale this up too. it's a good as well as potentially going like, And so yeah, there's a lot of like different ways to do, or you can talk to people who've planned retreats and about like how much do they typically charge for them and what's the structure of it and what do people get at them. to understand what the value is that you would be bringing, to people to be able to like price it effectively too. since sometimes when you ask people what they would pay for it, they might low ball you,

Adam: 48:24

right? that's true. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point. And you gotta really map out what the, what, what the outcome is and what the benefits are. of it and what those are worked to people and yeah. yeah. That's, yeah. Powerful stuff. Yeah. I like that. Cuz you just told me how you did the step-by-step, but then I forgot all about that when I was thinking about my own thing,

Jess: 48:45

It's easy to jump right to the like, oh, I need to do the big thing right away. But it's like, how can we actually shrink it down to something smaller? so here's one example. I have one client who was planning to take the summers off, or wanted to, that was like one of his big goals was he wanted to be able to take the summers off with his wife and his kids, cuz his wife works in education and they took them on a daycare for the summer. and one of his questions was, would I. Like, what would I do? Would it feel good? Would it be exciting, enjoyable? and so he actually took a full week off work to just test out what would the summer feel like. And he like organized his schedule to do the things that he would do in the summer, and that helped him answer the questions of like, yes, this is how I want to feel. and I think helped to inspire him to move forward, to actually become an entrepreneur and quit his job because he was like, I wanna feel like that week, that I took the week off to like, test out what my ideal schedule would be. So that's a, so like, there's so many different kinds of experiments.

Adam: 49:59

Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And Right. setting aside my example for a moment, but I think that it makes, for people pursuing financial independence, right? Like a lot of people are so focused on getting to that end goal and then they get there and they have no idea what they want to do because they haven't done these experiments. So I think things like, sabbaticals or mini retirements or even just a week off, right? I actually did that long, like long time ago I was in Barcelona with my wife and I was staying with a friend and she, my wife went back ahead of me and I stayed for a week and kind of just like experimented what would it be like being a location independent entrepreneur. And I just worked on my side hustle for a week and it was great. it was super fun. I'm like, yeah, this would be fun. I think it's really important to do this experimentation.

Jess: 50:46

Yeah. And then one other thing that I would say, so on the like building of your house, wanting to like potentially build your own house piece, I had a client who had that as a thing that he was interested in exploring. and so a few small experiments of things that he did was one, he actually went and did some volunteer days with Habitat for Humanity to actually build houses and learn about the different components of different things cuz they actually teach you a lot to be able to actually do the work. And he learned a lot and like really enjoyed the time. he then also did like a complete renovation of like one of the rooms of his house, and made like his wife this like beautiful craft room. and. Like really enjoyed that and learned some of the software of like how to actually create it and, work through that whole process. And then his next experiment was actually creating a separate, like office structure for him in his backyard. So like he's using his backyard to create this and he got all the permits and figured out how to do the foundation is like in the process of actually building this external beautiful, very sunny lit office that he can now do his work from. and all of this is giving him information on whether like he's really, like whether he really wants to build his whole like own full house in the future and in the process. He's learning a lot and he's getting to have the same level of enjoyment of the process as he would actually building the house. And so it's not just thinking about it and anticipating it, it's he's actually getting to do the things and experience the enjoyment of that now, rather than waiting until he, has enough money or time or whatever to do his entire house, new house build.

Adam: 52:49

I really like that. that was the initial idea, right? And then I was like, oh, I wanna, maybe I wanna host retreats as well. But then it's like, my wife's like, I don't want randos from the internet coming to my house. where my kids live. That's a reasonable request. so I'm between like, do I just wanna build this as an office and skate park on my property, or do I wanna do this bigger vision? Or maybe it could be both or something. I don't know. But there

Jess: 53:15

are a list of questions could both, like, you could start down these parallel paths of like testing out the building of the house piece and this stuff on your property and doing these retreats. But you could do them at Woodward and then you could eventually figure out how you would wanna marry the two. yeah, exactly. If you do at all. Like they're, you don't need to know the answers before

Adam: 53:43

getting started. Yeah. and a big part of this is, is I want to do the, I want to host the workshops. Either way, right? like, I know that I love facilitation, that I love mindfulness and envisioning and talking about it and helping people connect the dots for themselves. So like, I could get a company to hire me and I could go do it at their office. right? like, I don't need to buy land and build a thing just to hope that they want to come here. probably a lot easier just to go there.

Jess: 54:09

and that's actually a really good thing to experiment with. And then eventually you, one, one podcast that I really love is the Rebel Entrepreneur Podcasts, and they focus a lot on experimentation when you're building a business as well as building a business like, putting a ton of money into it. until you've made some money. Whereas like, I could totally see you being like, Hey, I'm gonna offer these corporate workshops to, and I'm gonna go there and do them, or go to a place and do them. that you don't own. But then over time you could generate the income needed to like open your own retreat center that could be separate from where you currently live. Like all of those things are potential options If go down the path and figure out that it's, if it's something that you really want to do.

Adam: 55:03

Yeah. Definitely. thank you for going through that with me, Jess. That was, definitely illuminating and hopefully people can apply what you were walking me through to their own situation. I think that there's a lot of value in that. So Jess, speaking of retreats, you said earlier that you're going to be leading your first in-person retreat later this year. Would love to hear more about that.

Jess: 55:24

Yeah, so the very first retreat that I'll be running, is the slow fi retreat, and we're gonna be holding it in late September. and it'll be a three day retreat. and it will be hosting it in Winter Park, Colorado, so right outside the western side of Rocky Mountain National Park. So bringing toge people together in a beautiful location. I feel like you all know a lot about me so far. I like to have smaller, more intimate experiences. So the max number of retreat attendees is 35. and so it'll be a smaller group of people, with the opportunity for people to be able to all get to know each other pretty well over the course of the time. The focus of the retreat, as I said, is on slow fi. and so I, I think of slow fi as intentionally designing your life along the path to fi so using the financial freedom that you're building, to make life changes along the path. and so what we'll be doing at this retreat is focusing on lifestyle designs that are available to people, along the path. So I have a bunch of, speakers coming who are already living lo-fi lifestyles. So people who are actually one of the speakers is actually on a year long family gap year, where they're traveling around the country in their RV with three kids. another one who actually decided once he realized he reached Coast five, scaled back to do self-employment, and contract work about 15 hours a week just to cover him and his family's expenses. and so he'll be speaking there and then someone who's living a semi-retired lifestyle doing financial coaching, and someone who has focused on building up a ton of different income streams. and so it, yeah, I think it'll be really fun to be able to explore like, what are the different lifestyle design options available to people? What are the kinds of things that people want to. and then we're gonna spend some time digging into like, what does this actually require? I think sometimes we assume that the thing we want to do requires a lot more than it actually does. and so we're gonna actually work through the numbers and look at our financial situations and say like, what is required for me to do x? and figure out how to get on a path to where that's possible or to say it is possible already for me right now. How do I actually work through the fears of scarcity that come up when I think about making a change? right? And so we're gonna do that, and then we're gonna also talk about and work through experimentation, right? And so how do we start taking those steps and answering those questions to get us closer and closer to being able to make the things that we want a reality? and so yeah, so that's the focus of the retreat. It's a sort of, working through in some ways the lifestyle design process with focus on envisioning the kinds of things that you want, moving forward and then experimentation and going a little bit less into the, like brainstorming and a lot of the self-reflection, Hoping people will come in having done some of those things, to be able to, to you. Work through, here's some ideas that I have and here's some steps that I can take, coming out of the retreat.

Adam: 58:59

Got it. So it sounds like people will come in with a handful of ideas that they might want to map out or dive into

Jess: 59:06

more Yep. Yeah, partially, and that there'll be a panel, so with the speakers of like all the different kinds of things that they've done so that people can learn and start to get a sense of like, oh, this person is taking a full year off, or this person has started a business doing X or this person has, is working seasonally, doing, X, y, Z thing. So to just get a sense of here are the things that are possible. and what ones am I interested in exploring more of.

Adam: 59:40

And then they can go have conversations with that person who's doing it. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Exactly. I love that. that's, really what I'm trying to do with the podcast, right? Like expose people to people like yourself who are living this already, but the retreat takes it to a next level where you literally can go up and talk to that person and ask 'em a hundred questions that are on your mind. Yeah. So how can people learn more and sign up?

Jess: 1:00:07

yeah. So people can find all the information that they need on my website, which is the pioneers.com. and if you go to the website under the programs, tab, or if you scroll down on the page, you'll see a place to be able to sign up for the retreat. I do have, I think there's like six or seven spots still available, for the retreat. And so if you wanna sign up for that, people can do that, still as well.

Adam: 1:00:32

All right, very good. Yeah, I'll put a link to that in the show notes for sure. and hopefully by the time this comes out, there's some spots left. maybe I'll fast practice so that we can get it out there. cool. as you. we're thinking about, okay, now's the time for the retreat. I've taken the small experiments, I've realized I really like this, and I would love to do a retreat. how did you go from, all right, I'm gonna do a retreat to, it's booked, people are signed up and we're

Jess: 1:00:58

doing it. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a really good question. and so I think part of it was, throughout, right? I started my coaching business at like the very beginning of Covid. and so I may have done retreats sooner, potentially had it not been, the sort covid issue. but I had built my confidence by, building up that business and having regular clients building up my email list. and I've mentioned it over the years of like, I'd love to run retreats. That's one of my ultimate goals. Waiting until, things are better with Covid. And then I actually had some people on my email list reach out to me to say I just wanna put a plug in here. I want you to run a retreat and I want you to do it soon. cuz I wanna come to it. And so that to me was like, okay, great. So now like this might be the right time. And, and I was starting to also get back into going to live events, and retreats again. and so was like, okay, this is the time to actually dig back into it. And so then at first I was like, okay, what are my first steps to actually make this a reality? and so the very first thing that I did was I made a list of the people who I know who run retreats and I reached out to them, by email, had a couple conversations. I thought about the events that I had been to in the past. I was starting to think about like, okay, what are the kinds of venues that people do? Like, what are the different options? and then I actually talked to my spouse who has done retreats for work. And he was like, just go, oh. Cause I was looking at like, if we went to a hotel and whatever, like it could be really expensive. And he was like, find a retreat center that like, has everything included. And I was like, okay. That's a good idea. And I started looking into that and realizing it's really a, easier, less expensive way of doing it to be at a place that's designed for retreats. and so yeah, then I just started to reach out to places and have conversations and ask them questions. And I didn't worry about, would I be asking them a stupid question? I think there was one, I just called up a guy and I was like, this is my first retreat. I'm just trying to get a sense of what you guys even offer. And so I started having conversations with people and then just like pretty easily honed in on one place being the best option for me for this year. and so then, yeah, I booked it and then I created the plan of here's when I'm gonna announce it.

Adam: 1:03:33

one of the things that comes to mind a lot for me is like, how do you pro, how do you put a value on the outcome of somebody's life being more enjoyable. it's like really valuable, but like, how do you put a dollar amount on what that's worth to Yeah. Any thoughts? Oh, yeah, we don't have to go down that

Jess: 1:03:51

route, but it's just No. Yeah. No, I think like this, yeah, this is something I'm actually passionate, I'm passionate about helping people do. It's how do you actually price something in a way that's gonna be valuable for you and valuable for the person, and be like a good match for that. And I think like some of that is experimentation. Some of it is figuring out like, what, have other people charged for similar things and how am I differentiating myself? and then I think some of it is just saying like, this is what I think is it's worth, and figuring out like, what do I need? what do I need to generate from it? And. going from there and then saying okay, now I, and now this was the first one, then I can increase prices over time if I want to. Yeah. and that kind of thing. But I definitely think that people tend to charge too little for things, especially in like the pie

Adam: 1:04:54

space. Yeah. Cuz they assume nobody wants to spend money.

Jess: 1:04:57

Yeah. Whereas like people will spend money on things that they value that are going to have an impact on their lives. Yeah. and I do think that if people pay more, they're often more committed to the getting the outcome as well. Yeah.

Adam: 1:05:15

Yeah. Absolutely.

Jess: 1:05:16

so cool. thank you so much. Yeah. It's an art for sure. Yeah.

Adam: 1:05:20

Yeah. No, it's something that I was just like reading something. I don't know, it was a LinkedIn po It was a, there's this guy on LinkedIn, Justin Welsh, I dunno if you ever come across him, basically has courses about LinkedIn and like okay. He had a, he had like a newsletter about pricing and he was talking about like, yeah, think about the value of the outcome to them. I'm like, how do you value, like yeah. Having a vision for your life. Yours is much more than that. Yours is, mine is, I'm focused on the envisioning piece. yours is much more on like operationalizing it and like making those changes immediately. Yeah. Which has a more immediate value. So, real quick, so a couple of terms you mentioned throughout Jess are Coast Fi and slow fi. I'd love if you could just define those terms and maybe talk about the differences between them or similarities.

Jess: 1:06:08

SoFi is an idea that we coined back in 2019, and I think it has its roots in the slow movement. And so if you think of slow food or slow travel, and I think the idea behind that, the slow movement is not necessarily about speed. It's about intentionality, and it's about how you're making intentional choices to go at the pace that you want to go, right? like, people in the slow movement are always saying, I have to have every meal. Four hours a day and I have to like, cook X, Y, Z, and everything has to be a hundred percent local. It's like they're saying, I wanna be intentional about the way that I'm doing this. and so that's how I think about lo-fi as well, is it's each person being intentional about taking a path that works for them in their situation and designing a life that they want to be living, all along the way and using their finances and balancing them to be able to focus on the now. and the long term Coast Fi, I would say is a subset, like a sort of subtopic, offi, so slow. I would say underneath slow. There's various different. Financial freedom stages that can unlock new lifestyle designs. Kofi is one of those things. So Kofi is the point where savings becomes optional. So it's the point you've saved enough for your traditional retirement, depending on your age, and the, the expenses, annual expenses that you want in the future, where the market's gonna do the heavy lifting for you. And so you've saved that as, as long as you don't pull anything from it, it'll grow to provide you with your comfortable traditional retirement at 60 or 65. and so that gives you a lot of freedom now to say, I only need to cover my actual expenses. and then that opens up a lot of opportunities to be able to design the life that you want now, because if you're not trying to save. 40, 50, 60% of your income anymore, like you can make half as much. and so that's the part somewhat of the path that we're taking is the Coast Five approach. where we have reached Coast Five, I think we're Coast five, that it would compound and we could retire in our mid to late fifties. so if we never added another dollar. so we're focused on covering our expenses, and, getting to a point where we're saving a little bit. So we wanna save like 10 to 20% of our income for like, medium term kind of goals. and things that we want to do between now and when we decide we wanna fully retire. Very

Adam: 1:09:01

cool. yeah, if you went hardcore coast Fi, you wouldn't touch your saved money that would be growing. and you would generate enough income minus taxes to live off of in the given year. Right? Yeah. And so if then if you wanted to do something else, say like buy an RV or buy a house or something, you would need to build that into your plan and include an additional amount of income that you're saving for that intermediate term goal because you wouldn't wanna pull out from the savings, cuz that would mess up the timeline for traditional retirement.

Jess: 1:09:34

Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah. And yeah, it's like thinking, I guess it's thinking about it in the buckets or for us, one way that we think about it too could be to say, okay, this one decision would mean. retirement at 57 instead of 56. Are we okay with that? And so we could pull it from that bucket, if that is a trade off that we're willing to make, or we are able to build up some of, some sort of cash reserves or investments that we can use for some more of those interim term, goals, which, you know, the, I'm actually a pretty risk averse person, which is interesting given the kind of work that I do and the kind of lifestyle that we're actually living. But like, we have a plan A and a plan B and a plan C and a plan D, and like we've worked through the, like, if this doesn't work, we have this and, Like that kind of thing. And it's not a worst case scenario thinking. It's more of a like problem solving thinking of if this happened, what would we do? And yeah, I think for us though, to have that level of comfort that gives us the freedom and flexibility to like move forward in the way that we want. Like we have, we feel like having that 10 to 20% savings buffer, still makes us feel comfortable with our plan moving

Adam: 1:10:51

forward. Yeah. and the nice thing is you're an entrepreneur. You can, your income can scale as much as you want it, and you can work as much or as little as you want to achieve the income that you're hoping for and needing to support your life. especially once you've dialed it in, Like you have Yeah. Like you've gotten the business up and running and in a good state.

Jess: 1:11:09

Yep. Yeah. Yeah. and actually one of the questions that I'm constantly weighing is sure it would be good to make a little bit more money, but can I do it in less time? can do I wanna make the same amount of money but do it in less time? And so there's always that trade off going through my mind as well. is I don't wanna pursue scale or a higher income for scale or income's sake. I want it to have a purpose. and if I do end up generating more income, what is that money for? so good question, question.

Adam: 1:11:42

Yes. Yes. That, that is, the perennial question in my mind is the, what is enough, right? and which means once you have enough, what is the extra money for yeah. So let's switch gears to the Mindful Fire, final four. You ready, Jess? All right. So the first question is about envisioning. we've talked about a lot of the things you've envisioned, but Is there any, anything that's you're currently envisioning for your life?

Jess: 1:12:09

That's a really good question because I feel like I'm at a stage where I've achieved or am about to achieve the things that I like fully envision. So planning this retreat, my husband and I bought our camper van, we're hitting the road, we're gonna be on the road for close to six out of 12 months this year. and so part of me feels like I'm actually in a stage of observing and like stepping back and seeing like, how does this feel? How is it going, to then figure out how I wanna move forward from here. and Yeah, I do feel like after this year will be a period of time, I'm ready to jump back into envisioning, like, okay, what is this? What is the next big thing? now that we're, moving forward from, from having actually achieved and done these things that we've envisioned.

Adam: 1:13:07

Yeah, I, I'm glad that I asked that question. I was feeling a little weird about asking it cuz like, you're achieving everything that you envisioned and then I ask you this, what else? And which kind of gets back to the question of like, what is enough and the constant chasing that we do as human beings and that I certainly do, but I really like your answer because you're at that point where you're just. you're, you've done it and you're sitting in it and observing and going and appreciating that, and then you know that some other thing might emerge and you're open to that. I think that's, that's a part that's a stage within the envisioning process that I hadn't thought about. I just think of like, getting there and then what's next. you're still in this middle, right? You haven't really, you haven't done the retreat yet. and even at the retreat, and even after the retreat, it'll all still be in this like, wow, I made it happen.

Jess: 1:13:55

right? yeah. So there's this place to pause and reflect and celebrate, and then figure out where I, yeah. Where do I want to go from here? but I don't feel a pressure to. Be creating a new vision Now that I'm like closing at the sort of end of this one, like I know I will eventually get to that place. but I'm really happy with how things have evolved.

Adam: 1:14:22

Yeah, that's amazing. I'm really, yeah. Really happy to have that emerge from this conversation. All right. The second question is, what piece of advice would you give to someone early on their path to financial independence?

Jess: 1:14:37

Yeah, that's a great question. So I think advice that I would give someone early on their path is to figure out what you're saving for and what do you actually want your life to look like. I think that's the hard thing. That's the hardest part of the process and the most valuable part of the process. and cuz as we were talking about, you don't want to get to the FI finish line and be like, oh, I have no idea what I'm gonna do. that's a recipe for disappointment and depression and, or just one more year syndrome and just continuing to feel like you don't have enough. and so figuring out what your ideal life could look like and starting to ask some of those questions about, what is actually required to make this happen? And usually it's not full financial independence.

Adam: 1:15:37

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

Jess: 1:15:44

Yeah, that's a great question. I would say the one thing that people could do would be to do guided meditations. I think those are extremely valuable for people who are just getting started. I personally really like the Headspace app. I've used that for years and years now. I think I recently saw that I had 1800 minutes of meditation over the last five years or something crazy. so yeah, I would highly recommend doing some guided meditations. I even after five years of it, I don't do unguided meditation. It's very challenging. so yeah, I, I would start there.

Adam: 1:16:25

Great advice. Yeah, there's a ton of great apps out there, and of course you can find a bunch of guided meditations on this podcast as well, wherever you're listening to this, all different types. But yeah, it's definitely helpful to start with guided. And the last question, Jess, is how can people connect with you online and learn more about your blog and your content and the retreat that we were discussing? Yeah,

Jess: 1:16:46

so I can be found on my website, which is the pioneers.com. So it's like pioneers but with an F for FI or financial independence. and then you can find me on any of the social platforms, at the pioneers. And then I do have a private Facebook group who are for people who are interested in SoFi in lifestyle design. and you can find that@thepioneers.com slash fb for Facebook.

Adam: 1:17:15

Wonderful. I will link all of that up in the show notes so people can find that easily. And, yeah, thank you so much Jess, for being here. This was better than I could even have imagined, and I'm very grateful for you coming and sharing your wisdom with me in the audience. For sure. Thanks so much for having me. All right.