472 | The Cure for the Boring Middle | Fioneers

26:42Like I don't, I don't want it to be passive. Like I actually enjoy the interaction and the engagement with people. And then another thing. So for the YouTube channel, one of the things that I focus on is doing a lot of YouTube lives. And so I'm actually able to engage with people directly on those live conversations. And they'll ask questions. I'll ask them questions for response. And so that fits with me a lot better than this sort of passive, I'm going to put something out there and see if people download it or watch it or read it. Yeah, that's really interesting. Because right, like from your perspective, if you had even 20 people live giving you comments, that has to feel a whole lot different than, oh, this video got 50 ,000 views.

27:35Because that, it's just abstract as opposed to, wow, these are real human beings sitting here in real time with me going through this. And it's not to say one is better than the other or all YouTubers should only be doing lives. We're not saying that. But like you've realized that that's way more important for you. And that's, yeah, this is cool. So, okay. A lot of this process, this first stage, which I suspect is just such a critical part is find where the energy is, right? Like you're asking yourselves these questions, but at the essence, it's what am I getting energy from? Or what am I just putting time and energy into that feels like a suck, right?

28:11That like just feels like a net negative. Yes, exactly. Yeah. So, okay. So that's stage one. Stage one, I would say is the part where if you're going through it like the first time through a lifestyle design process, that is where you're going to spend most of your time. It's figuring out like, who am I? And what do I like? And what is my nature? So once you have an understanding of what some of these things are, there's two paths to start focusing on. One of them is, how can I start to implement and shift and do some of these things immediately? And sometimes I think of the short-term changes as how can I make this one area of my life 20 % to 30 % better immediately?

28:53Are there things that I can incorporate into my days and my weeks and my months that would enable me to do this? I think the important thing about doing that is one, it immediately makes life better, right? And it provides you with more brain space to be able to go through the rest of that process and to dream big and do some of that experimentation. So before we jump into the second thing that you can do, which is dive into the long-term changes, Brad, I'm curious if there's anything in your mind that you're like, huh, what might I do differently in my day or my week or my month to incorporate some of these things more regularly?

29:34Yeah, okay, so I love where we've gone with this. And yeah, then it's like, I understand these things that give me more energy now. But I know you've talked about like, okay, maybe look like what is an ideal day look like to you or a week or a month or something like that, but even down to the micro of a day. And this is where I sometimes get caught up even with myself. Like yesterday when I got home, my wife asked like, oh, how'd your day go? Blah, blah, blah. And I was like, I felt unsatisfied with it. Even though like in a fairly short period of time, I recorded an amazing podcast and And I had just a ridiculously good workout.

30:14I studied Japanese on a walk. Like, you know, I did these three things, but in my mind, this day felt unsatisfying. And I think it's because I have unrealistic expectations of like what a day is. And I don't know how this ties into this or if it does necessarily, but like, even when I've built some of these things in that, like, I think are super important, I suspect that should, it's like that should comes into it of like, oh, but I should have done these four things on my to-do list that didn't get accomplished. Like how would you help counsel somebody like me in that scenario where like objectively that was an amazing day.

30:51Like it really was, but yet I felt unsatisfied because probably because of the shoulds. So I actually wonder if it's the shoulds. Like I do think that there's something about like when we're designing a life that we love, right? We have to focus on the short term and also the long term. And, you know, I actually, I'm thinking of like Doc G and his taking stock message and how the people who are most satisfied in life have a climb that they're working toward. Right. And so I think there's a combination. And actually in my coaching programs, we do a few different activities. One's focused on this ideal day and another is focused on what are these peak experiences that we've had throughout our lives.

31:38And that lifestyle design is both of those things. And so I'm curious if it's the shoulds or if it's that you're doing all of these awesome things on a day-to-day basis, but do you have a vision of like, what am I moving toward and how am I moving toward my purpose? Yeah, I probably don't. You know, I could contrive an after the fact, like, you know, whatever post hoc reasoning or whatever it's called of, oh, I plan to go to Japan. And that's why, you know, I've always wanted to climb out Fuji and that's why I'm learning Japanese. But like, if I really thought it was imminent immediately, I would be studying harder.

32:19I would be doing, you know, like, again, that would be a rationalization for why I'm doing. And the same with the exercise of like, oh, I want to get in X shape or I want to live longer, be healthier. Like, but yeah, it doesn't feel concrete to your point. Like it feels like I'm just kind of going through the motions on some level, even though again, like I'm doing these things that are fun and useful and like, I'm seeing great results in all these different things, but you're right. Like it doesn't feel like there's any climb. I mean, even with the podcast, frankly, right? It's like, you know, obviously we've, we've been so fortunate and, you know, on many levels and lightning in a bottle and all that stuff of like being very successful with the podcast, but yet it doesn't feel like there's another level or anything I'm shooting for.

33:02I'm just showing up week in, week out and recording another podcast episode. So yeah, like, yeah, your point is very well taken on all of those counts. Yeah. And I've been thinking a lot about the way that Doc G thinks about purpose. And I actually had him on one of my YouTube lives recently. And he's writing his new book about purpose specifically. And it doesn't have to be like, I'm going to be the biggest podcast in the world, or I'm going to create a cure for cancer. Sometimes it's more about who do I want to be and how am I living into that? For me, it's interesting. I have this legacy statement that I feel like is the guiding force for my life.

33:47And it's that I abso-freaking-lutely love my life and inspire others to believe that they can also do the same and that I take action through my words and my actions. I help create a world where more people have the opportunity to thrive. And it's like every single day, any action that I do can support that legacy statement. And like, that is the thing that I want to be known for. Right. And so for me, I feel like that's the sort of purpose statement that, you know, not every day is perfect and not every day do I feel like everything is, you know, working toward that. But yeah, I think there's something about thinking through and figuring out what is this bigger, meaningful thing that you're choosing to work toward, whether it's, I want to abso-freaking-lutely love my life.

34:43Yeah, that's really, really interesting. As you can tell, I'm at a kind of a loss for words. I think a lot of us struggle with this, right? It's like, does it have to be more, more, more, or like you were saying, like having that goal or something to shoot for, something to climb towards or like is satisfaction and just enough? Like, is there some place for that? Some significant place for that in a life well-lived? And I think, I think there very clearly is, but there's, there's this constant antagonism between the two, I think on some level. And I mean, I, I feel this, I mean, to be perfectly honest, like, even though I think by any measure, My life has been more impactful on other people than I could have ever dreamed.

35:33Like it would have been laughable to suggest that I could have this kind of impact on the world 10 years ago. Like absolutely laughable. Jessica, I'm not going to lie. Like every week I feel like I'm not doing enough and I don't know where that comes from. I think it's because like, I feel like there's so much more that I could be doing or could have done to like help people that are new to financial independence that it just, it never feels like I've done enough, even though obviously by any objective measure, I've done a lot. So it's this weird constant tension. Yeah. That is really interesting.

36:09Yeah. I think there's something around figuring out the right balance of satisfaction and growth, like being happy with where and being satisfied with where we are at this moment and knowing that we're always going to want more. That's always going to be the case. I think, you know, as I'm listening to you, I do feel like one thing that might be helpful is to pay attention to the shoulds. Like, are you feeling like you should be doing more things that are impacting other people? And, Actually, I think that's a pretty common barrier for people as they're working through, do I even deserve to have this life that I really love if there's so much more and so many more challenges in the world and feel like I should be spending my time solving these challenges?

37:08So there's this balance to strike between how are we satisfied with the life that we are living today and also wanting some sort of climb or dream that we're working toward. Because I think a lot of satisfaction actually comes from being on a journey toward something. and this is you know something that people have found in studies right that the satisfaction comes from the act of working toward something so I think this brings us into this like stage two right which is to dream big about what you really want and so you've figured out some of the things that you really love you have figured out are there ways that I can do those things more often in my days.

38:01And then I personally love to do the dream big stage with a group of people. So you can start with brainstorming like, hey, what are all the ways that I could bring together teaching and curiosity and inquiry-based learning and physical activity and problem solving together? You're going to come up with like five ideas. But if you have a group of like four to five other people, they're going to come up with a million other ideas of things that you probably would never even consider. And so that's why I feel like community along this process is so incredibly valuable because we don't see that far for ourselves.

38:43We need other people who are like your kids almost. That's like, you are so capable of doing this big, crazy thing and that people are like, yeah, you can do that. Something like switches in our brain. That's like, huh, maybe that would be possible. Yeah. Right. So I feel like that's what we do during this dream big stage is, you know, brainstorm with other people in here. What are the crazy pie in the sky ideas of things that could bring all of these things together? And it doesn't necessarily have to be work stuff too, right? It could be passion projects or something that you want to do for fun.

39:22right? I think sometimes we think too small about this and we think it has to be something that's conventionally considered worker productive. Yeah. So that's the dreaming big stage. And then from there, then we move into the experimentation. So for the dreaming big stage, then say you come away from that part of the process with like five or six things that you're like, huh, this is really interesting. I would be interested in exploring it more. It feels big and scary and pie in the sky. And I don't know how I could possibly make this a reality, right? Some of those things. And then the next part of the formula is experimentation.

40:04And it's actually like a pretty systematic process to say, okay, I have this big, crazy idea. The first step is let me write down every single question that I have about this thing. I know you talk about limiting beliefs on the podcast a lot. When it's a limiting belief that comes up, I always say, how can we turn that into a question instead? And then that's one of the questions that you have. So someone might say, one of the limiting beliefs might be like, I could never, ever make money doing that. The question is, how do people make money doing that? Or I don't have what's needed for that. What resources and skills are actually required to move something like this forward.

40:47So some of them are going to be questions that we have. And some of the questions are going to be, do I even like this? I think that I would like this, but am I actually going to when I try it out? Right? My hypothesis is yes, but I don't actually know until I take action. And so you write down every question that you can think of about that. And then we get back into brainstorming. So then you brainstorm, what are all of the ways that I could answer these questions through experiments? And I think of experiments as internet research is not an experiment. I think of experiments as you have a conversation with a person, you go and you actually observe something happening, or you do like a beta test of your own, right?

41:36So for example, for me, when I first went through this process, one of the like big ideas that came out for me was like, what if I ran retreats in like beautiful places around the world that I slow traveled to, right? All of that stuff. And so the questions were like, would I actually like doing it? Would people show up to it? Is this something people can make money doing? Is it worth the time? You know, like that sort of thing. And so experiments were conversations, observations, and tests, right? So conversations where let me talk to people who've run retreats before and see what their experience is.

42:12What's the pitfalls? What worked really well? What didn't? What should I know? The second thing was observations. Great. If I want to run a retreat, I should go to a Camp Phi or a Sense Positive, the one that Tanya Hester used to run, right? Or Chautauqua or any of those sorts of events to like just get a sense of what that looks like, what I like from that, what I would do differently. And then the last was, how do you actually do a beta test of some sort? And so instead of saying, okay, I'm going to go in and I'm just going to immediately plan this three-day retreat, I was like, hey, let me go and do a one-hour workshop at my local Choose Fi group, which is exactly what I did.

42:53That was my first step was go run a workshop at my local Choose Fi group. And then the pandemic happened. And so we ended up not doing in-person stuff for a while, but that was my first step to say, okay, I'm going to do some virtual stuff. I'm going to start the coaching. All of this stuff that got me to a place where five years ago, that idea felt so pie in the sky. And now I'm running retreats. And that's a part of just what I do. Yeah. So you experiment through conversations, observations, or beta tests, and then you reflect on it. What did I learn from this? Did I actually enjoy it? Do I want to keep going in this direction or do I want to pivot?

43:35And what way do I want to pivot? And the important thing about experimentation, one, it answers your questions, right? And so the focus then is less on, is this beta test or this thing that I'm trying out conventionally successful? And it's more focused on what am I learning from this and how am I answering my questions? And then that's the thing that then will propel us forward. And then we learn a lot about ourselves and what we really want, which then is where that process starts over again. So we go sort of back into stage one, where we say, okay, based on what I learned from this experiment, does this refine what I truly know that I love to do my core motivations and the conditions that I would need to be able to do this in the best way.

44:28Then taking action opens our mind to new possibilities and we start to build confidence that like, oh, these things actually are possible. And then it allows us to, as we move into stage two again, to dream bigger. Interesting. Okay. I love that because yeah, as you were describing it, I was wondering how we were going to come back to stage one, because in my mind's eye, I was like, okay, we'll just go back to stage two, where we had these five ideas we came up with, or maybe we had a small group and we came up with 30, 50 ideas. At some point we picked one, right? And I do want to dive into that a little bit, if you don't mind, is going back to that stage two to three the first time.

45:10But right. So once you've gone through that, you've experimented, you've adjusted, you've learned about yourself, then you come back to stage one, it's probably not as deep of a dive because you're not a completely different human being, right? Like the first time on stage one, I imagine is really exploratory. That's like an amazing amount of time and thought that goes into that. When you're coming back to stage one, of course, there's still a lot, you've learned a lot about yourself, but you already have this background. Okay. So that enables you to refine and then go back to stage two again.

45:44And yeah, like you might even continue working potentially on the original thing you picked as a dream big, but it might iterate, it might be larger, it might be more focused, whatever it is, but you have all that additional information from having experimented actually live with it. Exactly, yeah. So that's exactly right. I think one thing that I wanna call us back on is you said you choose one thing. I don't ever think you just choose one thing. I feel like you're always going to choose a few things that you're interested in exploring further. And I think some of this goes back to just the idea, like you talk about the talent stack a lot, where we all probably have three to four things that we're interested in exploring at any different time.

46:30And some of them we're going to spend more time on and some of them we might spend less time on. But the idea is that we're experimenting with a whole variety of different things that teach us different things. And then we figure out how to like put those skills and ideas together in different ways over time that we probably wouldn't imagine being, you know, at this moment, there's things that I won't be able to imagine putting together that I'll probably do five years from now. Right, right, right. Okay. I love that. And I'm so glad we came back to it. So stage two, I think that's the only part that I'm a little uncertain on is, all right, so we have this whole list.

47:08Let's say we were able to maybe through our local choose a by group. We got a group together after they hear this episode, a group at the choose a by Richmond local group gets together five, seven of us, and we help each other brainstorm. Right. And we come up with a list when it's my turn. We have 30 different things for the dream big, right? Where do I go from there? Do I clue in on like what energizes me the most? Do I look for things that are maybe like synergistic for lack of a better, you know, non-corporate buzzword, but how do I think about that? How do you counsel people to move from stage two to three?

47:46Okay. So if you have a bunch of ideas and you're wondering, okay, which ones do I actually choose to move forward with? I think that's where you pull out your what, your why, and your how. It's like you have a compass or like a lens at which to look at your different ideas. And you can say which ones are most aligned with the things that I've articulated are most important to me. Okay. All right. That makes sense. So, right. I think maybe it's, as we talked about before, limiting belief, it's maybe a limiting belief that I would have had about that stage two is I probably wouldn't have used it as much as a brainstorming exercise.

48:28And I would have been looking for the four perfect things. So I probably would have culled the list down in my own head and limited it before it ever got to this larger list. And I guess if I'm reading between the lines properly, it's dream big, just brainstorm ideas, and then you can scrutinize it. Yes, exactly. When we're brainstorming ideas, the whole idea behind it is that we don't want to censor any of those ideas. And you don't have to do anything on that list if you don't want to. I think sometimes we make lists and we assume it's a to-do list and I have to do all of the things. No, we're just brainstorming.

49:09And one strategy that I use, and this is really a mindset piece, is I really love the Disney creative strategy. and the Disney creative strategy breaks idea generation into three distinct phases. So you have the dreamer phase, the realist phase, and the critique phase, right? So the dreamer phase is where you're fully just brainstorming ideas. You are not shutting down any possible idea. And you also know there's time later to figure out how to make this work and what could possibly go wrong, right? All we're doing in this stage is dreaming, right? And so it's like, if we can create a container for that and catch ourselves when we're starting to shut down ideas, we can stay in that dreamer phase.

49:57Sometimes I also like to think of the dreamer phase using improv as a strategy. So you have this like, yes, and kind of approach where, you know, somebody's going to share something and instead of saying like, oh no, but this is why that all of the reasons why that wouldn't work or doing that to yourself, which is I think what we often do is to say, how can I just like accept this thing as a gift and build on it? And so I'm going to say, yes. And what about this? And what about that? And what about that? And the whole idea is not that you have to like that first idea. It's that if you don't say no to it, that maybe someone else will say something that sparks something for someone else that then sparks something for you, which ends up being the idea that you get really excited about that you would have never gotten to had that inner critic shown up earlier in that process to shut it down.

50:52Okay. No, I totally get that. I love that. So right. Dreamer stage. I'm so glad that we did clarify that because right. Like stage two, it's just, it really is dream big and dream wide, right? Like just don't let yourself self-censor the ideas, just come up with it and really look at them with that. What, why, and how, and dive into like, what feels the best here? And again, my mind would have said, I have to pick one. I have to pick the perfect one, but clearly you're not saying that it's pick a couple and experiment and adjust. This is about learning more about yourself. Jessica, that's how I'm seeing this, right?

51:27So like when you ask the question, like what is the cure for the boring middle? Because frankly, the boring middle could be five, 10, 12 plus years, right? Very easily on a path to five, maybe more. If you think of this game as just financial, then yeah, those do look like boring middle years. If you look at this as, okay, I've set my financial life on a trajectory that is just going to work essentially on autopilot, and now I get to spend all of these years doing this three-stage iterative process to learn more about myself and what I want my life to look like, well, then it changes the whole game.

52:06That's how I see this. Exactly. Jessica, thank you so very much for being here. This is really going to make a difference in a lot of people's lives because it works. It makes sense. As I'm going through this, this is intuitive to me, but frankly, I would have never gotten there myself. I just wouldn't have. And I think about this stuff all the time. So this to me is a cure for, Hey, what did these years look like? Well, these aren't the wasted, boring years. These are the most important years. So now you have you, the listener, you have a way to work through this. You have a way to think about this.

52:40You have a framework and Jessica, you rock. Thank you so much for being here. How can people find you? How can they get in touch? I know, obviously you mentioned blog and YouTube, which I think is a new endeavor. And obviously in-person events as well, which I'm sure are absolutely amazing. Where can people reach out? Yeah. So people can find us and our content on our blog, which is thefioneers.com and our YouTube channel, which is YouTube at Fine Ears. And then we also have a variety of programs and events if people are interested in going deeper. And so we have, say this is January. So we have our SlowFi retreat, which is happening and focusing on all of this lifestyle design stuff.

53:27That'll be happening in October of 2024. And there are still tickets at the time of this recording. So if anyone's interested in that, but that is a thing that we do on an annual basis. And then I also work with a small number of people each year to go deeper in small group coaching programs to walk through this lifestyle design process. And so if that's of interest to people, you can find information about that on my website. Amazing. That sounds wonderful. And I love how you mentioned slow fi. So you and your husband, Corey coined that phrase slow fi, and I think you popularized coast fi. I actually thought you invented it, but I think you were the ones who really brought that to the forefront.

54:07So, I mean, two of the most important phrases in the entire FI world came from the fine ears, which is just a cool little footnote in FI history. Awesome. Awesome, Jessica. Well, thank you again for being here. And until next time. Thank you. Thank you for listening to today's show and for being part of the Chooseify community. If you haven't already, the best ways to get involved are first subscribe to the podcast. So you're listening to this on a podcast player and just hit subscribe and then subscribe to my weekly newsletter. I actually sit down every Monday and write this by hand and I send it out Tuesday morning.

54:42So just head over to choosefi.com slash subscribe. And it's really, really easy to get on the newsletter list right there. And I would greatly appreciate it. It's the best way to get in touch with me. You can actually just hit reply to any of those emails and it comes directly to my inbox. So that's the way that I keep a pulse of the community and how we keep this the ultimate crowdsourced personal finance show. And finally, if you're looking to join an in-real-life community, we have Chooseify local groups in 300-plus cities all around the world. So head to chooseify.com slash local, and you'll find a list of all of those cities in 20-plus countries all across the world.

55:20And if you're just getting started with FI, or you have a family member or a friend who you think would be interested, two easy ways. Chooseify episode 100 is kind of our welcome to the FI community, and even though it's a couple years old at this point, it still stands up and it's a really great just starting point to get an understanding of what is financial independence? What are we doing here? Why are we looking to live a more intentional life where we save money and use it as a springboard to live a better life? And then Choose a Vi created a Financial Independence 101 course. That's entirely free.

55:54Just head to choosefi.com slash fi101. And again, thanks for listening. Thank you.