Slowing Down with Entrepreneur Stephanie O'Dea

0:28Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. Work-Life Balance. And we'll talk about FIRE, F-I-R-E, and oh so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Stephanie and our sponsors. Fire Nation, this is your year to get unstuck and to grow a successful business. Attend the world's highest rated business growth workshop taught personally by Clay Clark and now featuring football star Tim Tebow and President Trump's son, Eric Trump at thrivetimeshow.com slash EOFIRE. Again, request life-changing tickets today at thrivetimeshow.com slash EO fire. Stephanie, say what's up to fire nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

1:10Thanks for having me. Most people, I think people move goalposts constantly and they hit their goal and then they're not happy and they're not fulfilled. And so then they keep moving that goalpost and happiness needs to start now. It's not a destination. It's not a number in your bank account. It starts from within. I truly live by that too. I mean, it is so important to just be in the moment with happiness. And there's a word that I use a lot, Stephanie, which is enough. Like, does anybody really truly know what their version of enough is? Because when you do and you get there, then you can just say, I don't need to keep striving.

1:53Like I've got here. I can be happy right now in this moment. And again, to your point, we should be happy in this moment right now as well as we're striving to that enough. But it's not just continuing to move the goalposts and to forever, you know, be just out of reach of whatever goal that is that you're setting. So I love that. And this is why we're talking about slowing down. And you actually made a pivot, Stephanie, from slow cooking to slow living. Tell us more. Yeah, absolutely. So way back in the day, I made a New Year's resolution to use a crockpot slow cooker every day for a year and write about it online.

2:29And this was not because I had a passion for cooking or for crockpotting. I wanted to find a legitimate way to make money from home while taking care of my kids. So my passion is taking care of my kids and essentially being a mom. And everyone says, okay, you should monetize your passion. Thankfully, I was smart enough to realize that. If I monetize that and like, what does that mean? Taking care of other people's kids? I don't know. So thankfully I had enough intuition to realize, give the people what the people wanted. And so I liked the idea of starting a site from scratch, no money down. And I liked the idea of a recipe site because you're essentially creating something with super tight SEO right from the, from the get-go.

3:18You're giving the people what the people want when they're searching. and I'm not a cook. I really don't like it. I like the idea of using Crock-Pot because you can push a button and walk away and never think about it again, and so I could spend time with my kids. So I loved every bitty bit of it until about 2016, and the Instant Pot hit the market, and my literary agent and book publishers are like, oh, well, you should translate everything to the Instant Pot. And so I bought it, and I goofed around with it, and the tech is neat. You bet. You can cook a frozen chicken in 45 minutes. Like that's amazing.

3:55But that's not me. I wanted to stay out of the kitchen and not have to cook at four or five, six p.m. when I'm already hungry and a little bit cranky. So I didn't like it. And I said no. And then I got fired. So I still the site is still plugging along and it's still making passive income. But as far as like writing books, nobody would touch me because I didn't want to stay in my lane and and still write recipes. So I took some time off from the Internet and I kind of slowed down and went within along with the entire world, because by then COVID had sort of taken off. And so I started the Slow Living podcast really as a way to prove to the market that people want to learn and listen about slow living.

4:48And so from there, I now have written the Slow Living book and it's called Slow Living Cultivating a Life of Purpose in a Hustle Driven World. And it really comes full circle of what I wanted to begin with was I wanted to goof around with my kids. I still wanted to get paid. I still wanted to get money. But I wanted that like elusive work-life balance. I wanted to live and enjoy. And that's what we're all about. And a little insight to our households. Now that we have a child running around the household, you know, our time has become even more valuable. So I can tell you that Kate was into the slow cooker before the birth of our first child, our son, Beau.

5:30But now it's like next level. We had that slow cooker going like on our kitchen counter almost every single day. And I wouldn't say every day because I'd say like maybe two or three times a week because one of the things that we love about it is it just makes like this meal that just keeps on giving for the next few days. Like the leftovers from that slow-cooked meal that Kate continues to make on a week-to-week basis just is such a great meal for the day two, day three, and so on. So we've been slow-cooking for a long time. We love it. I think we can maybe take a couple lessons in slow living.

6:01Although we do a pretty good job down here in Puerto Rico, we can always improve. And you actually have a three-step success formula for slow living. So let's hear that now. Absolutely. So it's mindset plus action plus consistency equals success. So the idea is, first off, slow living is a state of mind, and I'm a huge fan of acronyms. So the acronym that I use for slow is to simply look only within. And so when it comes to that, that's the mindset piece. When you're in a good mood, ask yourself, okay, what is it that I'm working towards? What is it I'm supposed to do? And then go quiet. And then the answers will bubble up depending on your belief system.

6:46Maybe it's the voice of God. Maybe it's the universe. Maybe it's your intuition. You do you and what feels right. But that's your action steps. And then you do those things every day, no matter what, even when you don't want to. And that's the consistency piece. And so that's how success happens. Because the thing is, is we're living in such a fickle time and the algorithm is shifting and changing and we're chasing shiny objects like, oh, this is the way to do this. And oh, no, wait, this is the way to do that. But chances are, if you just followed through on whatever your first instinct was in a consistent way, you would get from where you are to where you want to go.

7:30And I can tell you that's only becoming more true about those shiny objects with AI and of course, you know, that meaning artificial intelligence and everything that that's bringing into the game. So real quick before we move on, just bang, bang, bang. What again was that three step formula? You bet. Mindset plus action plus consistency. So for me, the way I set myself up for the day is a journal and I take some time for myself. 10 minutes before turning on my phone, before emailing, ask myself, what is it I'm trying to achieve today? How is it I want to feel? And then from there, I write out my to-do list and things I've got to do.

8:08Those are my action plans. And then do the thing, even when you don't want to, even at three o 'clock when it says, oh, I'm supposed to go call this person or I'm supposed to go do this workout. Just do it. Follow through when the idea you had, when you're in a good mood, those are your action steps. Oh, it's 3 p.m. I got to do this stupid interview with JLD. I just got to suck it up. So I want to talk about work-life balance because you did use the word elusive, Stephanie, when you were talking about that earlier. So is that a myth or is it a real possibility? I think you set yourself up for failure when you think it's a myth.

8:43I think anything you want to do, you can achieve in a thoughtful and slow way. So no, I feel like even when we had toddlers and preschoolers in the house, I had balance because this is something that I chose. I chose to have these kids. I chose to bring them into the world. And it's a gift. I get to take care of them. And now they're super old. I've got one in law school, one in UC and a freshman in high school. And so life is different now, but as far as work-life balance, absolutely. Because I've always prioritized family first and then business and different things. So as far as like the fire philosophy, we've always been a very frugal family.

9:27So even when the kids were young, we were foreshadowing, well, how is it we want to be in our forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, and then working back from there. So it never really felt like we were trying to play catch up because we knew we were thoughtfully making decisions now that would pay off in dividends later. And we're actually going to be getting more into FIRE in a little bit, as well as actually getting started slow living and a little bit more when we get back from thinking our sponsors. When I first launched Entrepreneurs on FIRE in September of 2012, I had a feeling it was going to be big, but I didn't know how big.

10:08Fast forward to May 2014, not even two years later, and Kate and I were traveling Europe on our first ever completely unplugged vacation. No emails, no interviews, everything for the business was handled ahead of time. From the beginning, location independence has been a high priority of ours. We love to travel and we love the freedom of being able to pack a bag and hit the road on our own terms. While we were away, we thought it'd be great to make some extra money to host our place on Airbnb. We figured since we're going to be staying in homes throughout Europe, why not also host ours in the States?

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11:55Paid for by Public Investing. Full disclosures in podcast description. Stephanie, we're back. And if somebody wants to get started when it comes to slow living, where should we begin? Absolutely. So I said earlier that I'm a huge fan of acronyms. And this is because when I was in about second grade, my grandpa, who's retired military, he shared the acronym for snafu, which was situation normal and then all effed up. But he actually used the bad word. And so the idea of my like seven, eight year old brain that grownups were hiding bad words and other words was just fascinating. So since then I've kind of geeked out on all things acronym to the idea of slow of simply look only within is what is serving you and what isn't.

12:47And the first step is to declutter the things that aren't serving your needs and in your wants right now. And for a lot of us, it's, it's decluttering probably social media and, and probably noise and nonsense from people who aren't you and aren't in your life and aren't in your family that maybe you're, you're listening to or watching or feeling envious for, but, but pause, just, just maybe declutter them for a little while and then go within and ask yourself what the next best step to take is. And chances are you already know, and you're not going to find the answer in some TikTok reel. Fire Nation, loving all this advice.

13:27And again, we talked about FIRE earlier. So this is entrepreneurs on FIRE, Stephanie. So it's pretty on brands. And you believe that FIRE is actually a big part of slow living. I mean, you've been doing it yourself with your family for a long time. So let's really do a deeper dive into what FIRE is, how you're doing it, and any recommendations you have for people that might kind of want to adopt a little bit more of that lifestyle. Yeah, so absolutely. So FIRE, of course, is financial independence, retire early. I throw a B in there and turn it fiber because, well, we could all use more fiber in our diet.

14:00So in life, so it's financial independence before retiring early. I like the idea of knowing where money is and what it's doing. And I get super excited to put money in the bank and watch it make baby money. So that's just how we've always been. And in the beginning, maybe, maybe you feel a little left out sometimes, maybe some of your friends are traveling or buying extravagant. I don't know, I'm a girl. So the purse thing and shoes and all that kind of stuff. Sometimes I felt a little left out until I realized that the money's making baby money. And at some point I can have all of the things that I want, but maybe not right now.

14:47So it's the idea of delaying gratification. And Fire Nation, I can tell you one thing about delaying gratification. Once you get that thing, you actually appreciate it so much more. I mean, this world that we live in of Amazon, we can just click something and that same day it shows up. We just kind of expect like this instant gratification. It kind of dulls the excitement. And that was a weird thing actually about moving to Puerto Rico. When I was in San Diego, it was same day delivery. And then when I moved to Puerto Rico, it was like sometimes seven to 10 business days before stuff arrived. I mean, I would actually have stuff arrive that I forgot that I even ordered.

15:22And it was like opening up a gift and I'm like, oh man, that's right. I'm so excited about this. So that was like a forced form of delayed gratification in a lot of ways. But if you think about it, Fire Nation, there's just a lot of goodness within that mentality. So how the heck, Stephanie, can we slow down if we have an active family, if we have active kids and we're just running around in circles and our days are just jam packed and our calendars just look like a mishmash of you fill in the blank. I mean, what the heck can we do? You bet. You bet. I wanted to point out that, um, we have a lot of like, like FOMO and feeling like, like we're missing out on things.

16:00If we're lucky life is long. Sure. We could all get hit by a bus tomorrow, but I don't think it's, um, it's necessary to plan your life in that way. So So be thoughtful and methodical. You've got kids in the house now, per se. Enjoy them. Enjoy this season and not try and like rush them through it. Often I get on the phone with people and they're like, oh, well, when this phase is over and, oh, I can't wait until this happens. Or, oh, I can't wait until I lose this weight or I can't wait until the child hits a certain milestone. So let's rethink that and let's kind of enjoy the here and the now.

16:40because whatever you have now, you didn't used to have. And, and this is, this is it. This is the only thing that we can really kind of focus on. And, and so enjoying the teeny tiny little things. I have a slobbery basset hound. Gosh, I love that dog, but he's never going to be a golden retriever. And so me wishing he would be a golden retriever and play fetch and do this stuff It's not going to happen. So what I get then is lots of very long, slow, meandering walks and huge trails of drool all over the hardwood floor, like snail trails. Okay. That is what it is. And I will love him nonetheless.

17:23And I can tell you having a golden doodle, which is of course, half golden retriever and half poodle. So you get the best parts of, of both. There's pros and cons even to that. I mean, yes, friendly, but tons of energy, always wanting to run around in circles and jump on people and do all the things. So there's just pros and cons in Fire Nation. You just need to realize that every time you quote unquote get what you want, certain other things are happening at the same time that maybe that law of unintended consequences. So Stephanie, you mentioned a book. Tell us a little bit more about that. Yeah, so absolutely.

17:58And one thing to your point, John, that we're entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs are type A. And so that idea of shifting those goalposts and not being happy in the here and the now, because you think happiness is like just one more milestone away is really something to kind of highlight and underline and pay attention to. Because if that's you and you are not happy, like truly happy in your bones, pay attention to that and work on that. The book is out. It's called Slow Living, Cultivating a Life of Purpose in a Hustle Driven World. And it's essentially everything we're talking about. I talk about the three-step success formula, which is mindset plus action plus consistency equals success.

18:46That's how the book is broken up. I also teach five steps to slow living And then I apply it to a peace pyramid. And the idea that everything we do in life, it's because we're chasing a feeling. We think we'll be happier. We think we will be at peace when we get to wherever it is we want to be. And I want you to rethink that and choose that feeling now and then reverse engineer it. Stephanie, if Fire Nation is really connecting with what you're saying and they want to learn more and maybe connect with you. What is your call to action for our listeners today? The website is stephanioday.com. Stephanie O'Day is spelled O-D-E-A.

19:28I'm a real person. You can write to me at any time. I'll write back. I do have a podcast, the Slow Living Podcast, and the book is Slow Living, Cultivating a Life of Purpose in a Hustle-Driven World. Fire Nation, you're the average. Of the five people you spend the most time with, you've been hanging out with S-O and J-L-D today. So keep up the heat. And for links to everything we talked about, visit eofire.com. Type Stephanie in the search bar and the show notes page will pop right up. Stephanie, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side.

20:02Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Stephanie for sponsoring today's episode. And Fire Nation, are you an entrepreneur on fire who is looking to share your amazing message with the world? If yes, we are now accepting guest applications for entrepreneurs on fire. To learn more, visit eofire.com slash guest. I'll catch you there or on the flip side. Fire Nation, this is your year to get unstuck and to grow a successful business. Attend the world's highest rated business growth workshop taught personally by Clay Clark and now featuring football star Tim Tebow and President Trump's son, Eric Trump, at thrivetimeshow.com slash eofire.

20:40Again, request life-changing tickets today at thrivetimeshow.com slash eofire. Thank you.