Bias Towards Action: The Adventure List(s) | Ep 572

22:53I sold that. And I had wanted to build an apartment in my basement for years. I built my house seven years ago. And this is something I've always wanted. But for reasons, I just hadn't done it. And so I made the decision last year that I was going to put an apartment in my basement and I was going to have an Airbnb. And I finished it and And it has been rented out with short or medium and long-term runners since earlier this summer. And it's been a great way to offset my rent. And it's just another way that like, no, I am not anywhere near fi, but I have, you know, I have the mechanisms in place.

23:26I've got the machine built. And this is another way too, that just kind of helps me explore and try it on. Cause I told myself like I cashflow it. If I hate it, I won't do it, you know, but I can try it. Isn't that interesting though? Constraints sometimes make things fun. Most of the time it makes things fun. It makes you think differently. You literally think outside the box. You have to come up with novel solutions to something. And as Emily W. said, how can I say yes? And I think that's one of the coolest things. So Emily W., I wanted to come back to you real quick. So it's interesting. You mentioned permaculture because I know Jonathan, way back when, probably five or six years ago, had a conversation with you and AJ and almost had you on the show to talk about that.

24:04And I think that was when he left. Or it might have been less than that. But you were supposed to be on the show for that. You could have been on the show for probably a million different things. And I've, you know, I've wanted to for the longest time and I never asked. And the other week when we were at the meetup, I was like, you know what? This was such a fun case study. I feel like Emily and I would have so much fun talking about this. So I sent you a text message and I asked for the first time ever. And now it's happening. But yeah, Jonathan came to our house. He saw the permaculture setup that we told ourselves.

24:33The story that we told ourselves is that this would be enough space. And he saw that setup, which we have since outgrown and we're going from a third of an acre to two and a half acres. So it's getting more chaotic. That's awesome. But yeah, you and AJ just take action. And I love that. I know you mentioned to me one time that after you finished reading Die with Zero, you booked a dinosaur dig in Montana. What on earth? We did. So the day that I finished Die with Zero, I had heard about this dinosaur dig in Montana years ago. And the book Die With Zero, which, of course, you have to mention every episode, right?

25:10Because it's such a fantastic book. But I realized that the season of life where I wanted to camp in a tent in the wilds of Montana for a week while doing this manual labor of digging up a dinosaur was probably not going to last forever. And so, yeah, we signed up. We did this dig. It was fantastic. It was the first time that the group ever found a carnivore. And so we spent the week digging up an allosaurus. It was such an incredible experience. And the book Die With Zero is kind of the thing that made me finally take action on this thing that had always been kind of percolating that I thought sounded cool.

25:45And we did it. That's great. Thanks for listening to Choose a Fi and for all your support of our mission here. The absolute best way to support Chooseify is when you sign up for your next rewards credit card to use our cards page at chooseify.com slash cards. I keep this page constantly updated, so it should always be the top resource for you. Thanks for being part of our community and for your support. That really ties into where we're going to spend the rest of the episode, which is adventure and saying yes. And I love how that's going to stick with me. How can I say yes? because I think it's easy, even with unlimited, essentially unlimited time and resources, right?

26:26Which whether it's unlimited or not, we can argue at the margins, but for most of us in the Phi community, we have time freedom and we have resources and we can say yes to things, but even still, it's hard to step outside your comfort zone because maybe it's lack of imagination. I think honestly, that's probably a big part of it. And what I love about what you two have put together, it reminds me of an episode we did so long ago, probably in 2018. It was with someone who went by Mrs. Adventure Rich. I think it was episode 76. She talked about planned spontaneity. And it was something that stuck with me all these years where she basically had, she had a go bag either right by her door or in her car and had a list of here are the next 10 to 15 places just in my little metro area that I'd like to visit.

27:14And if Wednesday at noon rolled around and they had nothing to do. Hey, let's look at the list. We have our bag already. We have the snacks planned. We have the whatever for the kids. And I think that was the case. Let's just do it. And I just thought that was so beautiful. And what you two have put together is really what I see is like, you know, now the quote unquote modern version of this. And I'd love to get into this. Like, okay, I'm just going to throw it to you because you two plan this. You two have figured out like, what was the genesis for this conversation that you had, I guess, first on the hike, and then it sounds like maybe at Emily C's house.

27:47Sure. So yeah, we were hiking and talking about a podcast episode from Retire Often with Jillian and the new Retire Often book, by the way, fantastic, will be the new book that we have to mention every single episode. But in the podcast, she was talking about brainstorming for 20 different mini retirement ideas. And Emily and I were talking about this and we both have have some things. We both still work. We both have older dogs that we don't necessarily want to leave for long periods of time. And I was like, well, what if we just had it be just 20 things we want to do? And so we both separately and we kind of compared notes, but we created a list of 20 things that we just, what would be really cool to do?

28:28And in that process, I was actually, I was kind of frustrated with myself because a lot of the things on my list were just places that I kind of wanted to go places I wanted to see. And I was like, how can I think deeper about the actual experiences that I want to have the sort of interactions with people that I would want to be having. And that's sort of where I came up with this framework for travel that I'm really excited to talk about. And I can go into now if this is the time for it. Let's do that. Because actually, that was the thing I meant to ask you a minute ago is I know, I think you told me you travel something like 100 days a year or something crazy.

29:01This year, it'll be 110. I was looking at it. And yeah, which is kind of an aside. But The last couple of years, I've tried out because I work part-time and remote, so I'm able to travel. And I've experimented with how much do I like traveling. And it turns out my happy number is about 100. And my husband's happy number, because he is not insane, is maybe closer to 50. So in the last year or so, I've been doing more. I travel with him. I travel solo. I've been traveling with friends a lot. I've been doing a lot of different kind of things. But yeah, I've been traveling a lot. Yeah, Emily, that is amazing.

29:38So 100 plus days a year, that's really something. Hopefully, we're going to come back to that. I hate to leave open loops, but the plan will be to come back to that. But Emily C, let's talk about the framework for this adventure list and such. Where does someone start on this? At this point in our chat here, nobody really knows what we're talking about. Okay, write down 20 things. Are these like, hey, I want to take a walk at this park right nearby? Or is it, hey, I want to spend a month in Guatemala doing X, Y, and Z? I think it can be any of those. Okay. So for me, Emily was over at my house one day.

30:16We were having breakfast and she's like, let's make a list. Right. And so we each kind of went to like our corners and we kind of sat down and mine started with, okay, let's write down a list of 20 things. And what it actually turned into was me sitting down for 45 minutes and brain dumping every cool thing that I'd seen on Instagram or every cool thing that I'd seen anywhere. And so I didn't necessarily constrain myself. It was more of just a word vomit, which I think was really helpful. And so the reality is, sometimes people talk about the boring middle. And I think the framework that Emily and I were kind of tossing back and forth after a couple of iterations was constraints can be a gift.

30:50And there are versions of everything on our list that you can do at any point in your life, depending on kind of how much flexibility you have and how little you can kind of try on or what's the MVP version of it. And I think like, I would love to hear Emily talk about what those four levels are, because I'm going to bet that even when she sent me this messenger a couple of months ago, I would love to hear how you even refrained and refined that in the last couple of months. Yeah, absolutely. So as I was thinking about this, there's really four different levels. And what's really important is none of them are better than another.

31:20They're just kind of different. And the texture of the travel is kind of different at these different levels. So level one is you go, you see, you do the cool thing, right? Right. So a lot of the things that were on my initial list of 20. So an example would be like, I've never been to Egypt. So you go and you see the pyramids, right? That's wonderful. That's a lot of like what we tend to think of like as a vacation. And you can kind of think of like what the memory dividends would be with that sort of trip. But as you go deeper, like a level two trip, that's like a class or a retreat. So you can kind of think if we're going to stay in Egypt, right?

31:56I could sign up for a week-long Egyptology class. I would learn much more than I would just looking at the pyramids. I would maybe meet classmates who are interested in the same topics as me, and I would have a little bit of a different experience than if I had just gone on a level one trip. And then for a level three trip, now I'm going to stay longer. Now I've rented an apartment in Cairo for a couple of months even. And you're able to, when you're doing that, you can, I'm a real self-directed learner. I really love learning. And so I would like be reading books about Egypt. Maybe I get really interested in ancient Egypt.

32:34Maybe I'm kind of following more of like the food traditions and I take cooking classes. And what's great about that, maybe I go to some choose if I meetups, I have my favorite coffee shop and the people know me and I know them. And then when you're going home, you have this like map in your mind of the area that you were in, you feel like you kind of knew it a little bit. But with a level three trip, your time is your own. So you're kind of creating this experience for yourself. With a level four trip, you have some sort of like work or volunteer component where your time is no longer your own.

33:07And so you're kind of, you're really just living life. You know, you have these sort of obligations and this routine. And what's really wonderful about that, and also kind of a drag is it's a little bit, you know, just, you know, you have a kind of a Monday through Friday, nine to five, you're just living life. You have coworkers, you have coworkers that you really get along with. You have coworkers that you get along with less. You see them, you know, on weekends, maybe, but you get to try on a life and try on a life that's totally different than the life that you are living anywhere else. And what's amazing and magical about level four trips is that's where you get invited to weddings.

33:42That's where you end up like outside some rural area of Honduras, like clapping tortillas for a day for this wedding that you're preparing for somebody's second cousin and like getting to talk with people in Spanish. And so I think thinking about these different levels, it depends on your capacity. It depends on your time, but you can kind of think through and it gives language to the different types of travel that there are in a way that I think is really neat. And I'm really excited to be doing more kind of talking about the different levels and how they can be used. Yeah, I like that. I wonder, is it hard to fight the urge to think that like the next level, that level three is better than level two and level four is better than level one?

34:25How do you think about, because I think naturally, especially when we hear this like numbered order, you think by definition four has to be better than two, but you said at the outset, like that is not how you think about it. Talk me through the framework in that sense. Yeah. So I've had the opportunity throughout my life without knowing these levels or having this idea, but to travel kind of at all of those different levels. And they're really just, they're different. And I think that to have a really interesting and rich varied life, you want to be able to travel at all different levels at different points in time, but there is no one that's better than the other at all.

35:03Okay. And I think this is what, you know, Jillian talks about with like the mini retirements and stuff. And I think that everything that we're kind of talking about here, I think runs like in kind of parallel with a lot of the work that she does about kind of like trying experiments, right? So, okay. So you extend your career for a little bit, but you have all these experiments along the way. And this is, I think very much what we're talking about now is that how can you try something on? And I can't go and like live somewhere else right now, like with some of the constraints that I have, but I can say, okay, what would it feel like to go live in a different state for a month because I can do that with my current constraints.

35:39Maybe I don't like living in a different state. Maybe I don't like going somewhere where I don't have a community. And so it's this way that you can be intentional because maybe you want to go see the hot air balloons in Turkey, but you don't want to go live in Turkey. There's no right or wrong. It's a way to help you think about how invested do you want to be in some aspect of your life? And so for me, one of the things that I had on my list was I wanted to travel in South America. And another thing that I had was learning a second language. And so right now, through some work opportunities, I have a community in Brazil.

36:11And I was like, why wouldn't I learn Portuguese? And so I can go down to Brazil for a while while I still work and I do all of these other commitment things that I have. But it's a way that I can think about, okay, how can I scale this? Okay, maybe I can go spend a week in Mexico City, but maybe I can go spend a little bit longer here because my constraints are flexible. And this is something that's important to me. And I've kind of decided ahead of time that it's valuable to me for right now. Yeah. It's really, it's just a tool to help you dream and to give more context and ideas and imagination to dreaming of like really fun and interesting things that you might like to experience beyond, oh, I'd like to take a picture at the pyramids.

36:48Yep. Yeah. And Emily was funny. When I, when I first told her I was going to start slow traveling, she's like, what if you did more? She's like, what if you rented out your house? And I'm like, wait a minute, I am not ready to make that level of commitment because I hadn't tried spending a couple of weeks somewhere else. I hadn't tried any of that stuff. And that's where it's like, to tie it back to what we were talking to earlier with friends, Emily knows me well enough to be able to push me in these different areas. But then I can say, okay, I'm not comfortable with that now. But now that I've had a couple of good experiences, maybe that is something I'd consider in the future.

37:19And it's like, you can think about when trying these, it's building muscles, It's gaining confidence. It's all of that in the different areas that you dream about. You know, there's this saying, and I don't know who said it, but that you don't want the most exciting part of your life to be watching the most exciting part of somebody else's life on TV. And so it's this idea of like, how can you start living now? Like we are by and large, a very privileged group of humans and we shouldn't be complacent, right? Like we should take advantage of that. We should be intentional about dreaming and okay, maybe I can't go live in Australia for six months now, but maybe I can go spend a couple of weeks somewhere else and just make friends with somebody at the pool and go to a soccer game tonight.

38:00You know, like you can do those types of things. Yeah, I love that. Again, it comes back to the constraints can be a gift, right? And you said the perfect example is learning Portuguese. Hey, I have Brazilian co-workers or clients or whomever that literally speak Portuguese. Maybe I can still work, fly down there and do this. I mean, that's brilliant. That doesn't mean like, hey, I'm taking off work. I'm doing a six-month mini retirement and I'm just going to study Portuguese. No, I'm going to live my life. And also I'm going to do this. And there's value in both, right? And this is what I think like what Jillian talks about too, with the like taking a month and stuff.

38:36But the reality is, is right now I'm not comfortable doing that with everything kind of going on in the job market and everything. Like I feel much more confident staying in the job that I have. Like I have a great setup. And so for me, I can still try on some portions of that light, that life. And perhaps I won't like learning another language. Like maybe I won't like it. Maybe I will. I don't know. But then I'll know. And the reality is I get up early in the morning. I can take a 30 minute Portuguese class. I can practice it. And either it will become a priority to me and something I actually put energy into or it won't.

39:09And then I need to adjust things in my life. But it is a way that's like, I think the other thing we're talking about now is how can you stack these things together? right so how can i travel to south america how can i also learn portuguese how can i also do these different things and kind of mesh them all together and figure out how to do phases and versions of these dreams that you've had for your entire life and what i'll say is that like i've planned like the next year or so of travel and all of this started just a couple of months ago like emily was talking she travels like 100 110 days a year i'm gonna have traveled i think like 60 or 80 days since july this year and that's not something i ever did because you have to remember a year ago, I couldn't do any of that.

39:46And so I'm trying on this life of what does it feel like to travel more and to live in a walkable area or just do things differently. And what's so awesome about experiments is like, it's okay if it fails miserably. And so if you try it and it turns out that's not for you, you haven't built this whole life around it. You've built this whole life around experiments and some of them go fantastically well. Some of them don't. And And that's kind of the whole point. So it really like emboldens you to have this just bias towards action to try it out and see how it goes. And Emily, when we're talking about those level three or level four that involve like a real commitment to living somewhere, maybe you shouldn't do that until you've done something similar and you know if you like it in kind of a more noncommittal way.

40:29What is a way that's like easy, you know, fail fast, right? Software. How can you fail fast? How can you learn more quickly before you go sell all of your stuff and live somewhere for six months? And that's where I think when I go back to constraints are helpful. It is sometimes easy for us to be like, oh, yeah, I'm just going to do this for six months. Maybe you'll love it. But while you have constraints, maybe you try something and say, okay, do I like living there? What is something I can do for a couple months? How can you scale those things? And when you have three or four, you should probably do a one or two before you commit to the three or four.

41:01Yeah. And this is where you said, make the boring middle not boring. Yeah. This is the whole fun part about those years is you can experiment. Not only can you experiment, you need to be experimenting. It's critical because you are not going to wake up. I promise you, every single person listening to this podcast, you are not going to wake up and when you hit fi on some spreadsheet and your life is going to be unicorns and rainbows, it simply doesn't work that way. That might've been our thinking in 2013 and it was wrong then, but at least it was maybe more prevalent. Hopefully we've helped dispel that myth over the course of the last almost nine years here at Choose a Vi.

41:38Like we have to experiment. This is about living into a life that you really want to experience. But it takes practice. It takes iteration. It takes, as you both said, failure. But failure isn't failure. You've learned something critical about yourself. You've learned something about the world. That's not a bad thing. That's a positive. And also, die with zero and such, we have seasons of life. just because you love something at 25 doesn't mean you're going to love it at 55. You may, but you may not. And that is fine. It's not a failure. You have to figure this out and you have to test. And I just think it's so important.

42:15And it's funny that we call this, you know, the adventure list because my husband and I have been doing something for several years that we call the little adventures. And it's just a Google doc of things in our town that we would like to do. And so whenever I hear about, you know, an interesting place or an interesting thing to do. I add it to this little doc. And it's very, I did listen to that podcast episode back in 2018 about the go bag. I wonder if that's the, you know, the genesis of this list, but we've been doing it for years and it's so incredible and it's really scalable. You know, it used to be that most of our little adventures were free to no cost and just things that we could do in a couple of hours.

42:50And, you know, now that it's kind of expanded to include things that might not be free, but it's a really great way to have adventure, even in your daily life, even if you have no flexibility with work and you're working a lot of hours to have just a little adventure list of things that you can do next week that would be fun and different. And I think it's good for our brains to go new places and see new things. We don't have to wait until we're able to travel for a month to do that. Yeah. I was talking to a friend the other day and he was like, if you look back on the last 10 years of your career, right?

43:24You get up in the morning, you go to work, and then you get home at night and then that's it. And so you fall into this routine and there's no novelty in it, right? Like your job may be stressful, it may be whatever it is, whatever your thing is that you do every day. And so then the 10 years just kind of blur together. But it's like, anytime you go on these adventures and it doesn't have to be something that costs a lot of money, it doesn't have to be something that's extravagant, but it's like, how can you create novelty in your life?

43:50And I things that you can remember. Like when I went to Maine, I stayed with a friend who has a dry cabin and it didn't cost me anything. Like I just drove up there with my dog and sure that requires a certain amount of flexibility, but I think that there's a way that you can apply this to everything. And I will say Emily C is like some sort of wizard when it comes to finding cool things to do. Like it is genuinely a superpower of hers. And it's, it's so inspiring. And I think this is another thing too, where I feel just privileged to be your friend and like feel so inspired every day of like, how can I find cool things?

44:21Like, this is where I'm at. What do I look for? How do I do that? And Emily W., that is exactly what I was going to ask you next is how do tips on finding cool things? So I know it's funny because you shared that document with me and Aaron earlier, your little adventures list. And I noticed something like Atlas Obscura, which I know I always look for when I go to a new place just to see like what wacky things are in this area. But that is but one of many, like, are there ways that people who are listening to this? So, okay. I feel like also we, there's so much that we're throwing at the listener here.

44:53So let's just distinguish. We're talking about the little adventures list now. So we're going to go back to the bigger list, the list of 20, the one with the four categories, that's the adventure list, but this is the little adventures, which are the day-to-day. And also Emily WU is part of your list of this little adventures is you also write down the ones you've done. So you can look back on a year, two years, five years and say, oh, wow, look at all these amazing little adventures we took. So I think that's really neat. But my question to you again is how do you find these things? Emily, you just said you're great at it.

45:25Tell us. So Atlas Obscura is definitely fantastic. Love Atlas Obscura. I think I also, I just have my, my ear out for it. This morning I went to a Persimmon Festival at our favorite place, Edible Landscaping. And then I went to a book event where they did a foraging walk and then talked about this incredible new book. And so you can look at Facebook, you can look at things online, you can let your community know the sorts of things that you're interested in, and they'll let you know about things. And then I do rely a lot on my little adventure list because I will forget. Emily will tell me something interesting that she did.

46:01And if I'm not going to do it in the next week, it is out of my brain. But having it on this Google document, it takes the mental load out of finding things for in that moment, you have this kind of curated, personalized list of things that you're interested in doing that you can pull from as you have time and capacity. Okay. All right. That makes sense. So right. We're constantly looking for new things. We're also aware of recommendations from friends, reading internet And it's like I'm thinking about, I subscribe to Axios Richmond. I know it's a great newsletter. There's Axios, A-X-I-O-S. They have free newsletters in a whole bunch of cities across the US.

46:40I don't really subscribe to a ton of newsletters, but that's one I absolutely love. It just tells me what's going on in the city. And it's really pretty neat. So that's a cool way. If you're lucky enough to live in a place that has that email, I would definitely recommend it. So we have this list. And then we also have the list of places we've gone, which is cool. But in essence, this is for that plan spontaneity. Okay, so that's the little adventure list. Now, I think everybody listening definitely has that. I think we should all do that. It makes sense. I know I'm looking at Emily's list right now, and I love it.

47:09And it's just, it emboldens me. Because frankly, Emily, I think my bias, I know you said a bias towards action. I generally have a bias towards action in life. But there is something about just relaxing at home sometimes. And it like it maybe lulls me into this sense of just wouldn't it just be easier to take a walk around here as opposed to going and taking a walk at that new park or something. But there is something fun about being able to catalog this, I think. Yeah. And I think the answer is, you know, to do both. Right. But another way that we kind of find these things as as you're doing new things that are fun, you realize that that category is interesting and then you can look it up.

47:45So like I did a bungee fitness class in Richmond and it was the most fun thing. And I was like, you know, I really like weird, like physical stuff. What are other things like that we can do? Oh, well, we went to the trampoline park, the rage room, axe throwing, a ropes course, another ropes course. And so as you start looking for like, these are, you know, areas of interest, then you can kind of find it from there. Ariel Silks class that I was talking to Emily about, and now she has signed up for one. There's just so much incredible, interesting things to do. if you just look for it online, plus your town.

48:20But Brad, I'm going to go back to what you said, because Emily, this is definitely a superpower of yours. And I think this stuff kind of fits into that category one we were talking to with the broader overall. But this is where it's like, I think being friends with you has made me take more action. And this is where it's like, I think that friendship and intentionality, like I talked earlier about complacency and about habit. And if you have a habit of not doing things, You can decide if you want to do that or if you don't want to do that. And in the last chapter of Jillian's new book, she talks about this kind of weekly check-in where you kind of evaluate how have things gone.

48:53And that's something that I fell into when I was in Maine for three weeks. The first two weeks, like I fell into, I was physically in a different place, but I was doing the exact same thing. And so then I got annoyed with myself. But it's like, if you re-evaluate, say, okay, wait, I'm a beginner at doing this. I want to intentionally do this. and the thing that I hadn't done is I hadn't checked in with myself and say, am I doing the things that I want to do? And so I think part one is finding the things you want to do. Part two is actually doing the things that you want to do. Yeah. And I think it's so valuable.

49:22I love the saying, what gets measured gets managed. And I think in the FI community, we're so good at measuring our finances, right? We have that dialed in, we're checking, we understand our numbers and that's wonderful. But by doing a little adventure list and keeping track of when you're doing things or setting intentions in terms of how often do I want to have a new experience? If you're able to measure those things, then you can manage them and prioritize it just like you're prioritizing understanding your financial picture. Yeah. And I, earlier this year, I went back and actually bought a physical calendar again because I found the same thing.

49:59Like I definitely believe in measurement. And that's what I think, you know, a lot of people like about FI is like, do you have a number? You could track it. You just know, but it's sometimes the intangibles. And I think what you're talking about is creating a way to measure some of the more kind of intangible experiences. And that can be as little for me as having it written on a calendar. And so now where I'm at, I brought my calendar and I'm going to plot out and I've made kind of a commitment to myself of like, I'm going to do X amount of social activities and kind of like sit in the potential discomfort of going somewhere by myself in a potentially awkward situation because I want to have those experiences.

50:31And the art of writing it down and seeing a four week calendar of that has been really helpful for me to say, okay, I'm going to the soccer game tonight because they're not having another one in the rest of the year. And so it's like, I'm going to choose to take action on that. And it's all about our priorities, right? Having fun and adventure and friendship should not be whatever is left over at the end in terms of your energy. It has to be something that you prioritize and budget for just like you would budget your finances. You have to budget your energy. And by prioritizing fun and fitness and adventure and friendship, then you're able to actually do those things because you're, you know, paying yourself first to do a analogy with five.

51:10Yeah, I like that. And I also like something you mentioned earlier, which was basically stacking some of these things together, right? So each individual thing we do in life does not have to be a discreet item, right? Like I recently met up with my friend, Chris, who has been on the podcast a number of times and we grabbed coffee at a new coffee place, which was fun in and of itself. But then we decided to walk around this really nice walkable community that I'm in. And after the fact, he sent me a text and he's like, how about next time we just skip the coffee and we go someplace new and just walk around?

51:42It was great. And that way we can walk for an hour and a half. We can explore somewhere new and we can still have the great conversation. And then we're probably, what, five miles into a walk at that point, 10 ,000 plus steps in. That was a really cool. That was just a neat text. And we wouldn't have learned that really until we decided, hey, all right, we're done with coffee, but we don't want to be done hanging out. Let's just walk around for another 15, 20 minutes. That was just a cool way to stack things together. Yeah. And honestly, I think that a lot of that sort of stuff has come up for me.

52:13I stopped drinking alcohol like three years ago. And it used to be, it's so easy in our social lives to do such boring things. We're just going to go and sit at the same brewery and have a beer. and now that that is less appealing to me, that's I think really when some of like being so excited about all these different, interesting, more fun experiences happen because you have just more energy to do more interesting and novel things than just sitting around. Yeah, okay, I love this. We're gonna go back to the main adventure list and I'm trying to distinguish here between little adventures which we've covered.

52:46Now going back to the big list, the list of 20 that we talked about or really the adventure list, I'm gonna call it that. So Emily C, at least as I'm understanding the story, Emily W came up with these four categories. And then you worked off of that. But first, I want you to correct me if I'm wrong on that. But just to touch again real quick on these four levels. So level one is essentially go do the cool thing. Like tours, for example, see the pyramids. Level two is classes or retreats. Like Emily said, take an Egyptology class for a week in Cairo. Level three is longer stay, slow travel, perhaps with some learning or experiences, but no outside responsibility.

53:27Your time is yours. And then level four is a work or volunteer commitment. So for instance, take a job with an archaeological dig for three months. So I'm cribbing here off of Emily W's sheet, so I'm not doing this on the fly. So those are the four levels. So if you're listening to this now and you want to sit down and brainstorm this list, that is really the starting point. These four levels to get as a framework. But let me say, okay, now you have this as a framework. You just went through this whole concept. They're going to be obviously tens upon tens of thousands of people listening to this podcast, probably hundreds of thousands who are going to say, hey, I'd like to try something like this.

54:04But OK, I now know roughly where to get started. But you just did this. How did you do it? Where did you go from there? You had these levels. But what did the next couple of hours look like to you? Yeah. So for me, it started with just brain dumping. Like, how can I get the creative juices flowing? Because like we've been talking about constraints, you can create these artificial constraints in your head or the one day or the some days or things like that. And for me, it was super helpful to brain dump all of those out. And then you can kind of stack rank them, you can kind of order them, or you can put them into the categories and say, okay, I want to go work on a dude ranch for three months in Montana.

54:40Okay, that's not in the cards right now. What is something I can do that is like two or three levels back for that. And so for effectively each of these things, you can create some columns and you can kind of slide them around. And if something sits in category three or category four, you should probably have something to the left of that for category in one and category two, to see how you can try it on for size earlier, and see if you can learn faster, if that is something like, you know, the case study the other week, the gentleman was talking about, he wanted to be a teacher. And he's like, Okay, well, I taught a little while ago, and I didn't love it, right?

55:11But I think I'm gonna like it more now. And so the conversation we were having back and forth was, how can you learn faster before making a major career and lifestyle change to see if you still like that. And so that's what this is. It's brand up everything, put them into categories, shift left. Okay, got it. So now how much of this at this point is, is it purely dreaming or is there any editing going on or is it just straight like brained up? For me, we're all so good at telling ourselves no. And I don't know if it was the Financial Feminist or one of these podcasts, but somebody said, don't be the person to tell yourself no, right?

55:47And so give yourself permission to dream as big as you want to dream. Life will have a way of adding in constraints. You can map out constraints around these things, but start with the ordering of what are the things that like, you know, when you're 80 years old, everybody talks about the regrets that you'll have. You're not going to regret the things that you did. You're going to regret the things that you didn't do. And I think you put included in your newsletter episode this week. It's like these prompts about what are the things you think you're going to regret not doing? Put those at the top of your list.

56:15And how can you shift left some of those experiences to start trying them on and see if these long held dreams or aspirations or things that you've had are in fact things that you think you're going to like? Because what we all talk about with thigh is you hit this number and then you get to start living. Maybe the life you thought you wanted to live, you don't actually want to live. Or to Emily's point, maybe some sort of like really cool physical activity like acro yoga or bungee workouts or something is really cool. and you actually do want to do more of that. And so how can you experiment more?

56:47How can you order and then just try it? Yeah, this is great. So talk to me about, I know you, Emily C, are undertaking a bunch of mini experiments or certainly have been. Talk about some that you've done. Yeah, so I grew up going to the beach every summer. We'd go down to like Nags Head. That was what we did, which was great. It was a really cool way to spend time with family, but I had always kind of had this traveling bug, but I was always afraid. right? Like I didn't have a partner that could go with me. Solo traveling wasn't something that people did around me. And so again, it's like who you surround yourself with is kind of what your normal becomes.

57:23And I've slowly been kind of expanding my network. And really this year, it's just like, you always just stayed in a hotel. And so I was like, what if I stay in a hostel, right? Like some people have had really great hostel stories. Some people have really bad hostel stories. But I'm like, you know, at this point in my life, I'm in my early 30s. Like, I don't care about staying in a hostel. It's like a great way to meet people. And I was like, What if I try that? And so I put out into the world back in January. I was like, I want to go to Portugal this year. I'm probably going to go ride horses.

57:49Anybody want to go? And not three weeks later, a friend posted that she was going to a hot yoga retreat in Portugal. And I was like, I mean, same, same. I should just go do that. So mind you, I don't do hot yoga. I am not a yogi. And so I ended up reaching out to my friend that I haven't seen in 10 years who lives in Florida. And I was like, do you care if I come? And she's like, no, this would be great. She's like, do you want to travel on either side? And I was like, sure. She's like, let's go to the Azores. And I was like, what's that? So the Azores are the Hawaii of the East, Hawaii of the Atlantic.

58:21And so we ended up spending five days in the Azores staying in a hostel. The only issue we had was adjusting the thermostat was because the Spanish girls were warmer than we were. So we were sweating. But I had this incredible experience. Went to the yoga retreat and then kind of roamed around Portugal for another four or five days with two other complete strangers in a rental car. And so I've just been more willing to just kind of expand and send it. And I was at Camp Fi this summer and my friend that I ended up going to Portugal with messaged me and she said, Hey, she's like, do you know anywhere I could stay around the area for two weeks with my dogs?

58:58And I was like, what if you stay at my house and I go stay at your house in Florida for two weeks? And then long story short, I was like, what if I stayed for like four weeks and just got an Airbnb? So that's where I'm at. And so I've just been kind of willing to say, okay, like, yes, and right, how can I make this more of an experience? What is something that fits within the current constraints that I have, both physical constraints, like things that are actually real about your job and mental constraints, right? The stories you told yourself about traveling solo or whatever it is. And so I've been kind of building this muscle of driving 12 and a half hours with my dog, I'd never traveled with him before.

59:33And so I've just been kind of practicing for the last few months. This is great. I absolutely love the idea of just a practicing of experimenting of just doing right. As you said, like the constraints make it fun and why not just say yes. It's so easy. It is so easy to reflexively say no to everything. And I think what you both have spent the last hour telling us is we can not only dream, but we can do, we can actually make this happen. And it's not that hard. You both are living normal lives on the face of it, but really extraordinary lives because you've been intentional about it. And I think that's, that's just so cool.

1:00:09So Emily W, I wanted to double back to you as we kind of want to close here is, okay, so you came up with this list. You have these levels. Can you give us some, I know you give one or two examples, but like, what are the next things for you? Like, which springs to mind? And I don't want to get too down in the weeds to list everything, but give people a little more flavor for how are you thinking about using this? Because you've been doing this for a while now. How are you thinking about doing this as you think about the 100 days you're going to travel in 2026? Sure. So I think for me, what's really great about the list is not that it's 20.

1:00:46I think it's important for you to brainstorm 20, but then it's what rises to the top. What are you most excited about? So there's like five or six things that came up that I've taken action on. And so the one that is the soonest is I'm going to a intensive on learning about goat cheese and making an aging goat cheese was I leave for that next week, which will be really fun. But there's lots of different kind of approaches that you can take to it. And it's also this is not a to do list. I am in no way committing to doing all 20 of these things. It's just what is coming up and then what am I really excited about and how do you kind of go from there?

1:01:22The level four trip that I'm most excited about for next year is running a bookshop in Scotland. And I did some ancestry work. I have a lot of like ancestry in Scotland. So I'm going to run this bookshop for two weeks and then go to the different places where I have different family and do some hiking and stuff. So I'm really excited about that trip. In terms of how I'm thinking about travel, it naturally kind of divides up where I'm staying about 25 nights for free in a Hyatt, which is incredible. about 25 nights for free in other ways. So I joined Trusted House Sitters this year and spent two weeks taking care of a dog on the Upper East Side, going to Broadway shows.

1:02:01I had a wonderful time. And then about half are stays that I'm paying for. So, okay. If I'm listening to this, I'm saying, this is awesome. I love it, but I feel the constraints too much, which are, I have some flexibility. I have some resources, but I still feel like, okay, I can only travel for three weeks a year. I want to go to Disney World or I want to go to Hawaii. I want to do the traditional stuff. I don't like, I love the idea of the goat cheese and the archaeological dig. But like, I guess, Emily W., you're not trying to convince anybody, obviously, that's not the question I want to ask you.

1:02:33But you've done all of this. You've traveled for years. You've done the traditional stuff. And now you're doing, certainly over the last number of years, you're doing more of these adventures. Can you compare in your own life? Because you know that there's someone out there listening to this saying like, yeah, I've only got two weeks. How can I spend three to five days of those doing goat cheese? Right. I think it's all about the memory dividends. It's about the experiences that you're having and the people that you're meeting. One of the things that I'm excited about for goat cheese is it's at this folk school that they have all of these different craft classes.

1:03:07You can take blacksmithing or painting or basket weaving, all these different things. They have a cafeteria and they provide all of your meals so you don't have to worry about your meals. But how interesting are the people that you're going to meet that you get to spend a week with? And, you know, maybe it'll just be interesting people to talk to, but maybe it'll be these friendships that continue on through that. And that's a different experience than what you're having as you're doing the go to Disney World and see it things, which is also really fun. So it's all about your priorities. But I would say that as you're, you're able to create that in little adventures too, you don't always have to do the bigger things.

1:03:42You can do the smaller things locally to have those sorts of experiences. But the more you say yes, the more you'll want to say yes, because it's so fun. Yes. And clearly, there was no disrespect to Goat Cheese. I actually went to a when I was in Maui, I went to a Goat Cheese place and it was awesome. And this also ties back to like, be weird, do fun stuff, do something different, right? Like, it doesn't always have to be I'm going to go to the Atlantis in the Bahamas, or I'm going to go to London this year. Maybe I can do something different. And we haven't really talked about my job much, you know, But the restraint that I have with my job is that I need to check in every day.

1:04:16So I'm able to travel, but I need to do a little bit of work. And so I used to be frustrated by that. But you don't need to be jealous that I have this flexibility. You can think about, well, what are the restraints that you have? Maybe you have, when you're able to be fully off, you're able to be fully off. So it kind of all evens out. Yeah. And the thing that I want to add too is the things that we're talking about right now all have massive time commitments, right? And Brad, I think that that's what you're getting at is that, okay, you get three, weeks, you get to choose how you spend that three weeks.

1:04:45And like going to Disney is not the wrong answer, right? Like whatever you want to do is the right answer. But I still think that there's a lot of value in sitting down and okay, writing out your dream list, like your life list, and then shifting things left. And how can you learn more of that? But then I think the other piece that has been this just like underlying theme is how can you interrogate the beliefs that you hold about yourself and the beliefs that you hold about your constraints and review that with some five friends or with some friends who see you sometimes better than you can see yourself.

1:05:15And I call it the gift of awareness is I have some friends last year in October that I was visiting and they're like, that's weird. Like, why do you do that? You know? And at the moment it was one of those things that like I was shedding identities and something was really difficult to hear. But now I look back and I think that was actually one of the massive catalysts that allowed me to make some really big decisions in the coming weeks and months. And that's where it's like, okay, maybe you're not at the point where you have a job that doesn't have location flexibility, right? Maybe you're not at some of those points.

1:05:43Maybe you don't have the disposable income. That's fine. I think the thing that we're talking about is how can you take action? How can you confront the things now? How can you go for a walk on the weekends with friends, but walk somewhere new, right? Don't walk in the same place. How can you put yourself in these places to have these experiences with different people that create novelty in your life and not just another day has gone by that is going to blend in with itself for the last 10 years. And I think that is something that is approachable to everybody anywhere. Wholeheartedly agree. And it's funny because I told you both, I jot down a ton of notes when I'm recording a podcast.

1:06:18I have more direct quotes from this episode than I think any other one that I've had in many, many, many years. And yeah, I mean, we've said, how can you create novelty in your life? Right? Like that is critical. Like the bias toward action, critical, right? And you're learning more about yourself. And I think that's the fun part. And I think that's the distinction that I hope really everybody leaves here with, which is, yes, it would be lovely if we all had unlimited time off and unlimited resources and we could do everything we wanted. But there are constraints, as we've talked about many, many times this episode.

1:06:50And I think those make it fun. And it also lets you experiment in small ways, which both Jillian talks about and just from the fine ears has talked about on the podcast also sometimes you just need to try and you learn things about yourself right we've talked about multiple yogas here right like acro yoga and and hot yoga like i did something crazy with my daughters when i went to london we did a trapeze class and it was fantastic it was one of the coolest things ever and it wound up that of the 10 people in this class the three of us were probably the three best in the class and We were able to do this fun, advanced technique that they only let the three of us try, basically.

1:07:29And now my daughters want to try another class. There's one in Washington, D.C., where you can do the level two trapeze. And it's like, this is something I never, I'm a 46-year-old guy. I would have never thought I'd do trapeze. But it was really great. And it was that fun adventure that, what's the downside? I forget what it costs, but let's say$50. It was$50 and a couple of hours. That's the same thing. you can do an almost unlimited number of things in your metro area, your state, your region, that are going to take you under a day. It doesn't have to be, I'm going to fly to Egypt and stay here, or I'm going to fly to Montana and do an archaeological thing.

1:08:07Those are amazing things. Those are absolutely, those would build a wonderful life, but you can test small. And then when it comes time to having a week-long adventure, you have a little more information about yourself, right? Like self-knowledge is really critical in life. And I think you both have painted this beautiful picture of, of both doing this as a self learning process, but also living life with friends. And I think it can be both. And that's the beautiful thing. Absolutely. And as you come up with all these really fun things, invite people, invite people that you've already hung out with, invite people that you haven't, Because as you have these really fun ideas, like what I did today was with a five friend, Robin came to the gather book and foraging walk thing.

1:08:51And that was just such a fun way to spend, you know, an hour or two on a Saturday. That's beautiful. But do it with your five friends. I think there's a quote about that from some economy thing. Five is better with friends. Oh, Diana's famous, famous quote you hear many times at economy. And it is true. Five is better with friends. And I think that's why it was great. We met up at a local Choose a Vi event. There are local Choose a Vi events going on all across the world. So if you are not part of a group, go to choose a vi.com slash local. And it's free, of course. It will always be free. Please join and reach out and be vulnerable.

1:09:25Be open. Maybe step outside your comfort zone. And you're going to be amazed at what comes on the other side of it. I think all three of us are a testament to that. So Emily and Emily, thank you both for being here. This has been extraordinary. I said to you before we hit record that we could probably talk for five hours and do three to five different episodes. I suspect we're going to do a follow-up or two, but this seems like a perfect place to close out episode one, part one of our chat. So thank you both for being here. Thanks, Brad. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you. All right. Well, thank you for listening.

1:09:58Thanks for being part of the Choose a Fight community and use this as a call to action, that bias towards action that Emily mentioned. This is so important in life. This is the time. They just gave you this amazing framework, both for the little adventures, but for the bigger adventures with those four levels. Really take the time after you listen to this podcast and think about this and write them down. I've seen them now on digital paper and it makes a difference and it emboldens you to take action. Thank you for being part of the Chooseify community and until next time. Thank you for listening to today's show and for being part of the Chooseify community.

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1:11:13And finally, if you're looking to join an in real life community, we have choose a local groups in 300 plus cities all around the world. So head to choose a by dot com slash local and you'll find a list of all of those cities in 20 plus countries all across the world. And 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 choose a FI 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?

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