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172 : Navigating Job Transitions with Career Coach Susie Ade

2025/4/1
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The Mindful FIRE Podcast

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#career development#life coaching#personal growth and self-discovery#navigating life transitions#personal finance and investment#mindfulness and meditation#personal finance and career#personal fulfillment#entrepreneurial mindset#work-life balance People
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Susie Ade
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@Susie Ade : 我是一名职业教练,帮助千禧一代的专业人士确定目标并规划职业道路。我在谷歌工作了十年,期间经历了多个不同的角色,最终在职业发展的过程中发现了自己对教练工作的热情。我获得了教练资格认证,并在工作期间开始接手一些客户。在产假期间,我继续从事教练工作,并最终在2023年10月辞去了谷歌的工作,全职投入到自己的教练事业中。我的业务主要依靠口碑推荐,我与客户建立了良好的关系,并通过提供高质量的服务获得了他们的信任和推荐。为了更好地平衡工作和生活,我每周只工作三天,这让我有更多的时间陪伴家人,并专注于自己的事业发展。 在创业初期,我与一位教练合作,通过设定目标和克服恐惧来规划我的事业蓝图。我设想了自己作为一名自信的教练,出版书籍,举办研讨会和工作坊,并与家人有更多相处时间的理想状态。我将我的价值观和信念作为事业发展的指路明灯,并通过视觉化练习和教练的引导,不断调整和完善它们。我的核心价值观包括服务型领导者和连接,它们赋予我的工作以更高的意义。 在财务方面,我通过多年的储蓄和投资,实现了财务独立,这让我能够承担更大的职业风险,并追寻更符合我个人价值观的事业。我与一位独立的理财顾问合作,对我的财务状况进行了评估,这让我更有信心辞去工作,全身心投入到自己的事业中。财务独立让我能够更加从容地面对事业的挑战,并以一种富足的心态去经营我的业务,而不是过度依赖销售业绩来获得安全感。 在冥想和正念方面,我将这些练习融入到我的日常生活中,即使时间有限,我也会通过专注于当下的小事来提升身心健康。我鼓励我的客户也这样做,并帮助他们找到适合自己的冥想和正念练习方式。 @Adam Koyo : 作为Mindful Fire播客的主持人,我与Susie Ade探讨了她从企业生活过渡到创业的经历,以及正念、财务独立和个人价值观在她职业生涯中的作用。我们讨论了财务独立在职业决策中的重要性,以及如何将正念练习融入日常生活,以增强工作效率和个人满足感。我们还探讨了如何将职业选择与个人价值观相结合,以实现长期的职业满意度,以及如何建立支持性社区和人脉网络,以获得意想不到的机会和推荐。

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Susie Ade, a career coach for professional millennials, shares her journey from a decade-long career at Google to becoming a successful entrepreneur. She emphasizes the importance of aligning work with personal values and the role of mindfulness in achieving career fulfillment. Financial independence facilitated her transition, allowing her to prioritize well-being and passion.
  • Transition from corporate life to entrepreneurship
  • Importance of aligning career with personal values
  • Role of mindfulness in achieving career fulfillment
  • Financial independence as a facilitator for career change

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Welcome to the Mindful Fire podcast. If you're enjoying the show, please leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. My dad will be so grateful. See you next time on the Mindful Fire podcast. ♪♪

Welcome to the Mindful Fire Podcast, a show about crafting a life you love and making work optional using the tools of mindfulness, envisioning, and financial independence. I'm your host, Adam Koyo, and I'm so glad you're here. Each episode of the Mindful Fire Podcast explores these three tools through teachings, guided meditations, and inspiring interviews with people actually living them to craft a life they love.

At its core, Mindful Fire is about creating more awareness and choice in your life. Mindfulness helps you develop self-awareness to know yourself better and what's most important to you by practicing a kind, curious awareness. Envisioning is all about choosing to think big about your life and putting the power of your predicting brain to work to create the life you dream of.

And financial independence brings awareness and choice to your financial life, empowering you to make your vision a reality by getting your money sorted out and ultimately making work optional. And here's the best part. You don't have to wait until you reach financial independence to live out your vision. Mindful Fire is about using these tools to craft that life now on the path to financial independence and beyond.

If you're ready to start your Mindful Fire journey, go to mindfulfire.org and download my free envisioning guide. In just 10 minutes, this guide will help you craft a clear and inspiring vision for your life. Again, you can download it for free at mindfulfire.org. Let's jump into today's episode. Suzy, welcome back to the Mindful Fire podcast. I'm so glad to welcome you back.

Woohoo! I'm glad I'm back. Yeah, for the audience, Susie joined us on the podcast on episode 80, back at the start of 2023. That was a really popular episode. I invite you to go back and check that out.

to hear all about Susie's sabbatical, how she thought about fire and how fire has helped her craft a job that is perfectly suited for her. But today we're getting the update and seeing what has happened since then in almost a year and a half. And so Susie, I'd love to have you share just a little bit about your journey overall, what's happened since we last spoke and yeah, what you're up to these days. Today, I'm...

a career coach for professional millennials. I'd say if I were to bottom line it, I help them figure out what they want and how to get there. It's funny just to reflect on how I got here, but I'll breeze through it. I had a 10-year career at Google. It was awesome. It was actually several careers. I started in sales and then just slowly kind of figured out what do I like within this that kind of hops me into the next

So I moved into marketing, then project management within YouTube. And then actually the last time we had spoken, I had left San Francisco, moved to Atlanta to join a team leading professional development and learning and development within Google Cloud.

That was awesome. That also kind of sparked this whole interest that I had around group training and facilitation. My last role was I ended up job crafting it into one that just focused purely on like two things that I cared so deeply about mental health and well-being. So

I was creating programs for around that. I kind of like about six years into my career, I got into coaching through leading that same program we both taught, Search Inside Yourself, which essentially teaches the fundamentals of emotional intelligence, mindfulness, self-awareness.

empathy, active listening, compassion. Like these are, as I say, these out loud, like if you have those qualities within you, that's what makes a good coach. So anyway, I figured out, I love this type of work and I didn't know that coaching existed, but fell into it through just being in that pool of people who were also getting certified through, um,

a particular school called Coactive. And then, yeah, I got my... I don't know how to describe it, but I got bit by the coaching bug. So once you sign up to go through certification, you have to get 100 paid hours. And it kind of just takes over your life. So while I was still working, I was seeing tons of clients and just building that muscle of how to coach and what it means to be my own coach. And then I got pregnant. And I

actually a day before my baby was born, I sat for my ICS exam to become a certified coach. And then literally after that, hours later, I was in the hospital giving birth to my daughter, Ava. So that kind of put my coaching work on hold for a minute. But even on mat leave, I was still coaching a little bit on the side. Like I had a couple of paying clients that I would see. And then it was funny. I came back to work thinking like, okay,

okay, I'm going to have fresh eyes. Maybe I'll see work in a different way because I didn't mention this, but before I left, I felt a little disenchanted by what I was doing. Even though I job crafted this perfect role, when you tie mental health and well-being with strict business outcomes, it kind of takes the magic and luster out of it. I was someone that felt like if I'm going to be taking all this money that I'm earning, having somebody else take care of my daughter, this

the time that was away from her had to be really meaningful and worth like every penny. So I was like sitting at my computer and I was like, this is not worth it. I would rather be with her than like do this work that I just didn't feel like connected with me anymore. But I still didn't want to give up on my career. So I did some deep thinking and was like, what is it that would actually be worth that exchange of time? And coaching was just the natural answer. It's something that I do that I feel like

I'm in flow and it uses the best parts of me. I really come alive.

I ended up hiring a coach and we worked together just to kind of figure out what were those fears that were holding me back. I was so entrenched in corporate America. I'd been there for 10 years. I was obviously scared to lose the paycheck and the benefits, but we just worked through with it. And I kind of envisioned what my business was going to look like. And then I think the biggest thing was me starting to tell people that I was going to leave in October. So October of last

last year, 2023, I put in my notice and left. And I have to tell you, Adam, it was like the greatest feeling. I sent a message out on LinkedIn and sent some emails out to my network. And then I just got flooded with people who were just really supportive and also said like, hey, I'm looking to work with somebody too. I want to change jobs. I want to find fulfillment. And

I just built my whole practice from that. And then the beauty of this business is if the coaching is really good, I mean, someone will refer you. So like, I don't have to do marketing. Like the work speaks for itself. I

I just got referrals and that's just been filling my funnel since. Because there can be like lulls and highs within how many clients you have, I've also been supplementing my income and doing trainings, corporations. So I joined a company called Crew and they do group coaching and kind of like a

kind of a design thinking principle where it just walks people through like how to design your own career and really make it fulfilling and take that into your own hands. I've been doing that on the side and yeah, it's just been such an incredible experience. I wish I would have done this much earlier, but I'm grateful for the six months that I've had so far.

Wow. I didn't realize it was just October 2023 when you made that decision. It felt like a lot longer ago. Yeah, a fixer seven months ago. But I feel like probably that whole last year, though, I was like mentally I was leaving and was preparing for the moment. I'm such a preparer in that way. Like I wanted to make sure I had my LLC, my site, you know, a strategy, everything in place before I left the golden handcuffs.

Nice. Yeah, I've been preparing for the last 13 years, except doing none of those things.

I can't wait to celebrate the day you do decide to leave and go all in on this because, yeah, it's definitely where you're meant to be. Yeah, one of these days, you know, one of these days. The opportunities are still presenting themselves within Google. So as long as that's happening, I will continue that. But yeah, like I'm also building for the future as well. So one thing you mentioned there is that you envisioned how your business would look.

Tell me a little bit about how you thought about that and what that process looked like for you. Yeah, I did a lot of work with my coach on this. Like somebody asking you to dream really big as though you had and imagine you had no fear. What would your business look like?

Who would you serve? Like these larger questions. And I just closed my eyes and kind of imagined myself. It's funny, the things that kind of came to mind were just me feeling really confident as a coach. I had written a book. I had been leading retreats and workshops. I just felt like so connected to what I was doing and the message that I was bringing forth. I just had this very like servant mindset.

And I also picture too, like just having more time with my family, which I think this has really allowed me to do. I only see clients and work three days a week. So Monday I get to come into the week. You need almost a day after a weekend. I feel like this is such a luxury to say, but you know, just a day to like,

do things around the house and do admin for your business. And then for me, I work really hard Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. And then Friday is also a day where I can take off early and be with my daughter or I can use that time to network and meet other people or that sort of thing. So I like to truncate it that way. And my vision for the future, it was very much like...

control how I react to how I feel. If there's a day where I'm really tired and I want to take a little break, I can. If there's a day I want to explore how to create a new workshop, I'll do that. And it just feels so enriching in a way that I'm like, I don't know what I convinced myself that the other way was better. My whole day was structured on meetings and

an email and just like feeling like I was a robot. Now it's like, I feel more in flow with life. And definitely when I was envisioning that, like that was, I think you have to imagine what you're doing physically, but also like, how do you feel inside? And that's, I think the most important part, like who are you being and how do you fit your environment to really mesh with that?

I love that. And I appreciate you walking through that because, yeah, that's something I think about a lot. Naturally, I'm all about envisioning. And when I help people envision the next chapter of their life, sometimes people looking for their next career move, mostly people who are

At or nearing financial independence, but feel stuck because they aren't clear on what they want or how to move forward into the next chapter because it can be scary. I focus on taking all the constraints, putting them in a little box and setting them to the side and thinking really big without any.

or ideas of what's realistic or rational and just like what if anything was possible and success was guaranteed. And so I think that is huge for people to do because they never do it, right? Anytime we think about our life, it's usually within the constraints of our current situation. They don't even feel like constraints, but they, but they

But they are if you're dreaming big like there are constraints, right? Like they don't feel like constraints in everyday life. I think you're absolutely right about the feeling piece, right? The feelings are why we do everything like we eat because we feel hungry. We drink because we feel thirsty. You know, we partner up with a mate because we feel attracted to them, right? Like everything is driven by feelings.

It makes sense to envision how you want to feel. And I love that you've been able to craft this schedule that really works for you. And I mentioned to you earlier that I'm currently on leave. And as I first embarked on this lead, like the first day, I was just like, jump right into like, let's build this business and let's do all this stuff. And it's like, well, that's not really the point. And it felt terrible.

Right. It felt like I was just replacing one bad work boss for my putting myself in that position. And I've thought a lot about how I want to feel when I'm building this business.

But I was very much not doing that. And I was falling right back into the patterns that I've had other times I've tried to do things where it's like never good enough and always more doesn't feel good. I'm trying to reimagine that I'm trying to really like use this time off to like live my ideal day.

I have not successfully done it yet. I also love how you said like your your goodbye email brought you all the clients you could need at the start to kind of get that flywheel rolling. I love that.

But like, when do you do all the other stuff? All the business work. The business work. Yeah. The non-coaching, not necessarily in flow time. Yeah. I think you have to figure out when you first start out. I've heard this from many people. It's like you actually should be doing more of the business work up front just so that you start to build a pipeline and also set yourself up.

so that you actually think through like, what is it that I'm offering to people? Who is it that I want to serve? How do I want to serve them? Like these questions that I think thinking upfront, if I'm going to write a book, how am I going to market the book? Who's going to actually read it? Like just things that you have to think through ahead of time that like requires deep thought that oftentimes like

Maybe we don't give ourselves four straight hours in the day to really think through something. So I'd say, yeah, starting off with that at the beginning is...

And doing more of that is more important. But I also wanted just to say something earlier, too, to what you said about like, you know, feelings is what drives us. The other thing I think that drives us, too, is like our values and beliefs. And certainly our beliefs, like a lot of those, like we just inherited through conditioning or through our parents. But I think that's another exercise my coach did with me, which was like we actually took different pictures. Like I made a vision board of like just images that really attracted me.

And like from that, I showed it to him. And then he kind of devised like, oh, I can sense like there's these certain values within you, like love and time and family and

hard work, things like that. It just was an interesting reflection of like, yes, these are values within me and actually I would tweak them in this way. And then values change. Like now that I'm a mother, being a mother is the most important thing to me than anything else in the world. That would come first. So they change depending on where you are in your life. And then your beliefs is something to really work through and think about because you're

I say like we hold ourselves to certain things that we don't even know are in the subconscious. So like writing those out, ones that actually like inhibit you or ones that really make you feel powerful that you really could envision the life that you want. Which are the ones that you actually need to

put to the wayside or just find a way to reframe them, change the pattern in your mind. You absolutely can do that. But the first step is to write them down and see them for what they are and how they impact your life and then figure out if they're actually still valuable. Because I think for me, as I built my business, my values of self and my beliefs of self, that's my North Star. Like I can have six figure goals or these certain KPIs for what I want to do. But sometimes in the heart of the day, it's like,

that's not going to motivate me. What's going to motivate me is like, yeah, these deeper values and beliefs that are guiding me, that actually make me think of when I am writing an email or doing something that may feel not as purposeful, it ties me to a higher purpose so that I really remember what this is about, why I'm doing the things that I'm doing. And so when I get out of that place of like, oh, I just have to grit and bear it, then I realize I've lost the whole point of what this is for, why I'm actually here on this earth.

Can you give me an example of that? Those beliefs like about yourself that are motivating you, kind of pulling you forward and making it all come together. One of the big ones I have like written here on my computer, it's just that I'm a servant leader. I really feel that when I'm with somebody, like to me, that means it's whenever I'm with somebody, it's not about me. And I think as soon as I can let go of that, like I think the real transformation and the real coaching happens. It's like when

when I try and problem solve or I'm worried about how I may come off, then even if the conversation goes fine from their perspective internally, I'm a mess. And then at the end of the call, I just feel like I feel in regret. So that's to me, that's a, that's a really strong, it can be both a value and a belief of mine.

And then I think this one may sound silly, but connection to me is a really strong value. I always undervalued that value. I was like, yeah, people love connection, but I really thrive off connection. So when I think about how I structure my day and who I'm with, there has to be components of that. And it has to be genuine connection. It can't just be something that's

flip it so i'm always kind of holding that in my mind as like did i have connection today oh if i didn't maybe that's a little bit why i you know today didn't felt a little off or something wasn't quite right yeah i have them actually like posted here on my wall i look at them every day lately i've been doing the miracle morning routine uh which seems like so much to do in an hour's time but i find myself if i don't have like the full hour to commit to and i just

Look at my vision board, look at my values and beliefs, and maybe sit for one minute and meditate. And that's kind of, that's me checking the box of the miracle morning. Yeah, thank you for sharing that example. And I relate a lot with that connection for sure. I mean, for me, my number one, I call it my purpose or my number one value is creating opportunity through connection. That's great.

What this is, that's what the podcast is. That's I was telling you about the legends dinner that I hosted at the economy conference where I brought together all these people that.

I didn't know yet, but got them together and met each other and had a great time. And that's connection between me and bringing people together. That brings me the most joy. It's easy to lose sight of that in the day-to-day grind, whether it be at work or in my own side hustle business. I like what you were saying before about like having awareness of when that grind feeling comes up and seeing like, wait a second, can I shift back into this?

Keeping creating opportunity through connection top of mind and see how what I'm doing links to that value and can bring more meaning to it. And I've realized this over the years at Google. I mean, I'm in sales, right? Like that should be what I'm doing most of the time. But it's very easy to get lost in that environment with the doing, doing, doing constantly. It's good to come back to, you know. And interestingly, I'll just say.

Add this that like a former guest I had on the podcast, Marty Adler, who is like my informal guru, mentor, coach. We catch up every once in a while. She just always has like such insightful advice for me. She's like, what does that even mean, Adam? Like create opportunity connection. That could be anything. She forced me to clarify it. And for me, it's right now I see it as I connect people with themselves and their biggest vision for their life.

And that feels very real to me. And so I love what you are sharing about like keeping that front of mind, seeing when I'm doing that, when I'm not doing that, because the more I can see what I'm doing in that lens, the more meaningful it's going to be. The other thing I'll say there too is like there's that thought like in theory, like you feel the grind and then you remember like, oh, what is my purpose? What's my value? And sometimes you can realign and think through it.

But also, like I've noticed even with my clients or the work I've done with other coaches, is something like that. You actually, you have to find the feeling. Like what's a sensory emotion when you talk about connecting others to build opportunity? Yeah.

And what is that within you? And then how do you even embody that? What does that feel like? As you talk about, I feel like it's very expansive. It's very tender and loving. That's what comes up for me. But ask yourself these questions. And sometimes that's almost like a direct line. If you're feeling like you're in the grind, sometimes you're hunched over, just notice what your body is doing. And then if you're able to connect to that bigger, broader vision, broader value of yours, change your posture and see like,

What does that do instead? How does that change the way you see whatever it is that's in front of you? So

Just another way to connect deeper to what I'm talking about here is the mind-body connection, the mind-body and emotional connection to what we're talking about. Great advice. Yeah, definitely. I got to explore that a little bit. But yeah, it does feel uplifting, joyful, kind of expansive, like anything is possible. And then another thing I'll add about this that I feel a lot is just this never enough. And this book that I really enjoy is called The Gap and the Gain.

Are you familiar with that? Yeah, I've read it. It's by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy. They kind of collaborated on this book. And it's basically this idea that if you compare yourself to where you think you should be, which is essentially an ideal and it's like the horizon, you're never going to get there and you're never going to feel good enough. But if you instead look backwards and look at the things that you've accomplished, whether it be a small thing in a day, like sensuality,

Sending that email you needed to send or playing with your kids uninterrupted without your phone, right? Like these little things, if you focus your attention on that, you're going to feel much more content than if you are constantly feeling like you're not where you should be. And I am one that very much...

defaults to I'm not where I should be in these days where I'm like trying to make progress on these things I care about. I'm always like, oh, you know, I didn't it always feels like I didn't do enough. But when I realized, like, wait a second, I was introduced to and connected with J.L. Collins yesterday, the author of The Simple Path to Wealth, whose book changed my life. That's a pretty big deal. Why don't I focus on that instead of some arbitrary, ambiguous,

Feeling of not being where I should be. And that I think is, is a very powerful practice. And actually I send that book in the welcome kit I sent to my, my new clients because I think it's so important and so powerful in creating the life that you want, because the more you realize that you have the things that you want already, the more of those things that you're ready to see and kind of bring into your life as you go forth.

So I think it's really powerful. Yeah. Where attention goes, energy flows. And it's even just prompting yourself at the end of every day, which is like, what's one good thing that happens today? What's one thing I can celebrate? And you just start to see that compound over time versus, yeah, I think our natural default is to have a negativity bias, see where we're lacking, see how we can compare it to somebody. But

That's, again, just a thought that you can acknowledge and then choose something to replace it with. As I know I'm a mindfulness practitioner, you start to understand how that works. It's like, not that you can control your mind, but you can also make your mind work for you in a lot of ways just through these types of questions. What is the gain that has happened in my life versus what's missing today?

How do you replace a negative thought with something that's slightly more positive? How does that change the way you feel about certain situation? It's really subtle things that like, I think sometimes we just feel like we are our thoughts and there's nothing we can do about it. But we have a lot more power than we think. It just takes self-awareness and a little bit more attention.

Yeah, we were talking before about a challenging situation I had at work where I had a boss that wasn't a huge fan of me, to put it mildly. We'll see if we get a full episode on that at some point long into the future. But basically, you know, I was in this very defensive position and just like, this feels terrible. And I'm

I'm feeling like a victim, but I don't need to feel like a victim for two reasons. Number one, I can look at this situation differently. I can look at this as the universe or whatever moving me towards where I should be going. I can see this as I was given this manager to show me that this is not for me anymore and I need to move on to the next chapter and start building relationships.

With more intentionality, this next chapter of my life, which for me is a business focused on helping people envision their next chapter of their life or teams and companies think big about what they do and how that all fits together. And also that I have built a level of financial independence and I have FU money, whether I am at FI or not at FI or whatever situation you're at. If you're on the path to financial independence, you have FU.

Options. You have a level of FU money and you don't need to take this.

you know, what I was taking. So I realized, wow, like I don't necessarily need to do anything about it right this second, but like, I don't need to be in this victim mentality. I can actually realize like, wow, I have unlimited options and I have skills and I can do this. And maybe this is happening for me rather to me. That was very helpful for me. Yeah. I think that's the thing I'm taking away. It's like thinking of life is not happening to you, but for you. Yeah. Even these massive setbacks, like a

really toxic work environment, which almost feels like it would derail you entirely. It's like, what is this teaching you? What is this trying to get you to do? I think that's the point. It's like you hit this point where you can't go any further. And that's an amazing place to be in a lot of ways because it forces you to act.

It's not the first time I found myself there. You know, when I envisioned myself out of a job at the end of my time in OPG, where we both worked, you worked there, right? Yeah. I thought so. I'm always confused. But yeah, when I reached the end of the road there, it seemed like, oh, my God, this is terrible. And it turned out like that was just the

end of one chapter and the start of a new chapter where, I mean, all of this came from that. All of my interest in mindfulness, all of my interest in teaching and facilitating and coaching and the podcast and all of it came from that low point. Certainly didn't feel like that at the moment, but when I got through it, I look back, it's like, wow, this is actually, that happened for me. Here we are. All right. So I'd love to talk a little bit about

How fire financial independence retire early or you can leave off the R.E. because you're certainly not retired, but how financial independence played into your decision to make this leap from corporate into your own business? All along my career, I've been really close to my money, seeing how much goes in, how much goes out.

And I was really fortunate where I stashed a lot of it away for retirement and took advantage of every mega backdoor Roth, extra 401k money, post-tax that could go into it. Obviously doing the math of how much money would I need to sustain myself with

without an income. I knew exactly what that number was. Before I made this decision, I reached out to a woman. I think her name might be like Sarah Baer. She's an independent financial advisor. She just does like one-time consults for like $300. But I showed her all my finances, my husband and I did. And she just was like that extra point that was like, hey, yeah, you guys are okay. You could go quite a long time without making money. And

know that like you're still going to continue to work and you will continue to make more money. But at this stage, you are fine. You are set for retirement. And just having her repeat that back to me made it feel like, oh, wow. The main one of the main reasons why I wanted to stay at my job was I thought that I wanted the 401k benefits. I wanted health insurance. I wanted all the perks and the amenities. Like I thought like I couldn't live without that. And then just looking at the hard numbers, like

No, I actually, I really could. And so she also was really helpful in us. I think the biggest question mark was how much is insurance going to cost? Because that's huge if you live in the United States. And we modeled it out. Yeah, it's expensive for...

Me, my husband and my daughter. But I see that as like, that's the cost to live a life that's free. And that's fine. You know, right. We can both run our businesses independently. And it's funny to actually reframe like what that benefit means. It's like it really is just a benefit that the company is paying.

They are subsidizing it at a cost that may make it a little bit more affordable to you. But also the U.S. government will also subsidize health insurance for you if you make a certain amount of income. And right now, yeah, my income dropped drastically since when I was at Google. But I see how that is fruitful in other ways. Our premiums are lower. And the funny thing, too, was we got to keep all the same doctors, everything. Our network didn't change.

So to get to your question of how FIRE kind of influenced this decision, it was just a moment of clarity that I could take a much bigger risk, one that felt more aligned with what I wanted to do in my life, and know that I would be safe to take that and be comfortable. Even if I made zero dollars for the next year, we would be okay. However, my goal financially, though, is to make at least enough to cover our expenses, which I feel like

It's just a good goal to have. Like that feels like what I'm doing is providing value to people. It's worth their dollars. And also our money will continue to grow. And I'm covering what we pay for our food and our housing. And that feels really good. I want to contribute in that way. I love that. Yeah. And just to confirm, it is Sarah Behr, B-E-H-R.

At least that's who I found someone with that name who is a financial advisor. So I think that is simply financial or simplify financial. I can't recommend her enough because she, I had always been looking for a financial advisor that didn't charge a percent based off of what you had. She just charges, yeah, one-time fee. And she's worked with the big banks and she's got a fire mentality. So we see her once a year, just like for a cleanup.

And it's really worth, her fee was $300, I think, when I met her last, but I would pay her

10 times that for what she provides. That's quite the recommendation. So I will link to her website or LinkedIn, whatever I can find in the show notes so people can check her out as well. And there's also another new service similar. I think it's advice only financial advisors. And I think it's like $150 an hour. It was started by Jeremy. He's got like a big Instagram following about a personal finance club. He started a company called Nectarine.

And it's basically that you just, you go, you have a question, you go, you ask the question, you get your answer and you're done, right? You don't have to be tied to somebody forever, uh, having them earn money off of your investments year in and year out. So that's at trinectorine.com.

And I will add that in the show notes as well. But yeah, I think there's so much value and I have not yet done that. Actually, I need to do that where I need to go with my wife and sit down and say, hey, look, financial advisor, expert in this space. Here's our questions. Here's our situation. Tell me we're good. Because I, you know, I think without that, my wife certainly and myself even, it's like, well, what if this? What if that? What if this? You know, and it's like having that expert eye

eye on it can really add to some peace and some confidence in the plan. Feels like it's never enough. And I think we'll always do that until you have somebody that's actually going to pressure check the numbers with you and

and model it out because we do live in this scarcity mindset. And I will say having fire and having an abundant mindset when I approach my business and building clients, it changes everything and how I show up. I'm not being overly salesy or demanding. I'm not coming from this place of I really need to close this deal. And I think that just, that makes me want to wake up every day and actually really do this work.

So it's a it's a really big difference to have have an abundant mindset when you're approaching a business that really feels scary to do on your own. Yep, absolutely. And I resonate with that so much because, yeah, like when I'm I mentioned to you that I'm currently enrolling people for a group mastermind to help people who are at or nearing financial independence get clear and start living their next chapter of their life.

using envisioning and mindfulness and all of that. As I was going through this in these conversations, when I was having the people, it felt like I was trying to sell them. The feeling was like, I'm trying to convince you to do this, but that's not the reason I want to build a business. That's not the reason I'm pursuing FIRE. The reason I'm pursuing FIRE is because I want to create and build this business from a place of enough and sufficiency, completely detached from the need

for it to make a ton of money or have that feeling like this has to work or I won't put food on the table. It's not that I don't want to make money or that I don't want to get compensated for what I'm doing, but it's, there's a difference between needing it to work and like wanting it to work.

And like needing this person to say yes versus like if it's a fit and they want to do it. Wonderful. Like, I don't need to trick them into doing it. Like, I mean, I would never want to do that, obviously. But like, if it's a fit, let's do it. If not, wonderful. Can I help you in some other way? Like, that's something that I felt very acutely.

When I was doing it and even still like I now I feel the opposite where it's like, well, it's a little bit more expansive person that joined yesterday. We talked for like three hours before and he's just an awesome person that I had great conversations with and came to the point where it's like, well, I think that what I'm building could really help you. And he's like, yeah, I think so, too. So let's do it. Like, that's it. Totally different feeling.

Yes, it is. Yeah, it's you track the people that really need what you have to offer versus you feel like both parties are forcing it because I do feel like if you feel that sense of something is off or I'm forcing this or I'm not having a good time, chances are the other person's probably in the same boat and they're just putting on a face to.

So yeah, there is that aspect of you just being honest and genuine and you track the same thing. All that is to say though, if you do need extra money, there are other ways to supplement your income. I think that's the most important thing. If you can't make ends meet and you feel like you're paycheck to paycheck, doing your own business, starting as a coach or whatever it may be, may not be the initial path for you. Having some form of

a baseline income to keep the lights on is really important so that you don't, you know, stress yourself out and really put too much emphasis on something for it to work. Creating your own business, it's like a, you know, it's a wine. It takes

of time and maturation. And even after it comes into the bottle and you pour it out, it needs to breathe. You know, I had heard from a couple of mentors of mine, like at a minimum three years before you really call it on something. Yeah. Lots of work and, and breath and air. Love that. And I think back to the environment that, that,

that I still work in and you worked in for 10 years, like there's no time to breathe, right? It's just go, go, go, go, go, go, go like a bias towards action. And yeah, that's maybe okay. But like, that's not what I'm trying to build. And also like, so when you come into this thing that you're creating, and you're figuring out like, it needs that space. And that's uncomfortable in itself.

I feel that a lot. And it sounds like that is something that you've worked through over this last six months. Now, let me ask you this. You said that like you had this clear picture of like, you know, the number that you needed to reach. If you didn't make any more money doing this for a while, you'd be fine. Like, did you reach that number? Were you at this fine number or coast fine number? Like, how did you think about that? And if you're willing to share, there's no pressure at all.

I think I mentioned this to you on the last podcast, but it really helped having two people in the equation as we were building Torfy. So yes, we've hit our number. And part of it was I kept that really stable baseline income that allowed my husband to take more risk.

with his business. And he has done really well. He just sold his last company and he's on to another one. And now we're, yeah, we're kind of to the point where we both are at a place where I can take a bunch of risk as an entrepreneur and he can too. And all along the 10 years that I was at Google, I stashed everything away into retirement funds. So we're really great there. Like I worked really hard to get to that point. And I've kind of been wrestling with like, oh, I feel

bad even saying it like I don't know somehow guilty that I have you know this money but I worked really really hard to get to that point and so now it does feel like huh okay I'm here and I can enjoy this and it's just kind of working through like not measuring myself against money in money out it's like measuring myself now against what did I create today and how did I give back which

which is very different than what you're talking about of the go, go, go mentality, measuring yourself against meetings and a certain level of productivity. But yeah, I think that's a lot healthier. And also it prevents what you're currently having to recover from, which is burnout. The lifestyle you were leading, it's not sustainable and there's definitely repercussions for it. So now I feel completely on the opposite end of that.

Very interesting. One of the things, what you were talking there, I thought of another guest, Sarah McCrum, who wrote a book called Love Money, Money Loves You, which is a very unique book, to say the least. But those episodes were so interesting.

interesting because they were so different than any other way I've thought about things. But one thing she says, she's like, measure your success by how much enjoyment you feel. How much am I enjoying this? That's the metric for success rather than like,

How much am I earning for this? How productive am I? Just like, am I enjoying this or not? Is there something I could be enjoying more? And like using that as a yardstick is like pretty interesting. It is interesting and it just seems so counter culture. Like when you think about the beliefs that we had, it's like work should feel tiring. Work should not be enjoyable or purposeful. It's like you do it and then you or somebody else when you come home.

But we don't want that anymore. Yeah, for myself and my husband. And we talk about this a lot now that we're both running our own businesses. Like it's obviously there's there's down periods where it's really frustrating. But then we always come back to each other. They're like, wait a minute, you're running a pickleball startup. And I'm doing this coaching business where I literally just get to get paid to help people realize their goals like that.

How can we make this more joyful and fun? And what are we doing to like intentionally self-sabotage by making it harder or, you know, letting fear or lack of confidence really get in the way? And so you just those feelings are always going to be there.

But you start to pierce through them and see that it doesn't have to really dictate my life and how I feel toward my work all the time, which feels very freeing. I'll definitely pick up that book. She says that it was channeled through her, right? She didn't write it. Money wrote it. The idea of money was explaining itself to humans through her, which...

Sounds pretty out there to me, to be honest, but it's a very interesting book. And the conversation with her. Yeah, those episodes are really good. And, you know, we go into like the scarcity mindset that I have, like, you know, I used it as just as a as I normally do as a free therapy session. And it was just really powerful episodes. So those are episodes 73 and 75 for those listening. They want to check them out. All right, Susie, let's shift gears now into the mindful fire final four. Are you ready?

I'm ready. Let's do it. Okay, so the first question is about envisioning. I'm curious, what is your big vision for this next chapter of your life as you're building this business and your family and your life? What do you envision? It's happening right now. I'm writing a book with a colleague of mine. It's on how to bring spirituality into coaching, how to coach the whole person and what really happens when you

take a thought and see how that materializes both in the mind and the body and the emotions.

And maybe in like a spiritual realm or higher power, whatever that may mean to them. So it's kind of more of a guidebook. And that's been just something I wanted to do for a very long time. Yeah, that's the actual literal chapter of my life that's coming up. And the second piece is for me, it's like now that I'm in this space where I can really just create and figure out what's interesting to me, I

I am a very spiritual person. And right down the street from us is this, it's called Ignatius House. It's a Jesuit retreat house tucked away in the woods. It's really beautiful. I've been going there for like day retreats since I moved to Atlanta.

And I have an idea of just creating like a half day workshop for working mothers and just getting them away from the work and giving them some, as we talked about, just time to breathe, time to be in nature and to also reevaluate what they do.

what they bring forth as both a mother and a working mother. Like we're pursuing two dreams at once. So what does that do to someone? Yeah, so I'm planting the seeds for that, but I think that's gonna happen at some point in the future. Yeah, I love that. That's really cool. That's really cool. Obviously, if I can support you in either of those visions at any way, please let me know. And when the book is ready, we'll have you back on and promote that book. Okay, so the second question is,

So what piece of advice would you give to someone early on their path to financial independence? I'm trying to think of something I said differently. Last time I said, you know, it's not what you earn, it's what you save.

I would say for people early on is like we were talking about, like make money your friend. Like I think actually like really evaluate what is your belief of money? How come maybe you talked about it or you always felt like you never had enough or maybe you felt like it was a tool that was not good for society, whatever it may be. But figure out how do you actually find money and relate to it in a belief that's really going to empower you to

make it a tool and really use it because that's ultimately what it is. And then the second piece I'd say is, which is what you're doing is like how to live a life that really feels like you already have enough. You know, it could be a really subtle ways, but

taking time for yourself to go on a walk or eat a really delicious meal or splurge and travel. I'd tell someone who's early on in their fire journey to explore what a rich life looks like for you and how do you really incorporate that into your life today. Ramit Sethi, I was telling you that earlier, he's always been a really good voice for me to have me imagine what my rich life looks like.

and putting my dollars toward that. And also in saving in areas where it's less of an important part of our, of, of who I am and what I really want to spend my money towards and not feeling guilty for splurging on a trip or something else. But I'd say the last thing is it doesn't cost a lot of money to be happy and joyful. It's, it's really in the,

in the present moment and how you choose to live each day well said well said and the third question suzy is what piece of advice would you give to someone getting started with meditation and or mindfulness this one's changed for me i'd say now i really see meditation mindfulness especially as like a mother where i i don't have a ton of time to really sit on the cushion as just uh

as integrative and really being okay with that. Like it's going to have different seasons. Like sometimes you're going to have a lot of success sitting for a long period of time, or you'll have time to go on extended retreats. But depending on where you are, find a way to make it part of everyday life.

And by that, I mean, just if you're going to commit to something, go through with it, focus on it. And as you start to lose your attention, come back to it. And just, you can do this in very small ways at first, like brushing your teeth with the non-dominant hand, or when you go to the bathroom, don't take your phone. Or when you're working on an email, don't have your phone anywhere near you. Just work on the email. Reflect on the end of the day and say like, where was I actually truly present and engrossed in the tasks that I was doing?

That, I think, starts to build your muscle for meditation and mindfulness that you may not get in the traditional sense. Well said. You know, as Sharon Salzberg always says, we're not meditating to become better meditators. We're meditating to become better at life. And so what that means is incorporating mindfulness into your day-to-day life. And yeah, it's a lifelong practice. And I think that's really great advice. Because as a parent, I've thought, man, I really...

You know, I wish I had more time to meditate consistently. I wish I had my morning routine, my miracle morning that you mentioned. I wish I had that still. But it's just like you got to be okay with this season of life. This looks different. And the way that the mindfulness is going to show up is going to look different. And you can practice in different ways. And I love giving your full attention to something because, yeah, I'm constantly pulled away from what I'm doing with meditation.

Text messages or whatever distractions I create myself or whatever. So it's a very good reminder. And the final question, Susie, is how can people connect with you online, learn more about what you're up to, your coaching and all that you are bringing to the world?

For sure, LinkedIn, you can find me. And then also I have my website, just suzya.com. I offer a job seeker course that you can sign up for that if you're trying to pivot your career or unsure what that looks like, I have a five-step method that you can use and I can help you in terms of coaching to really get to that place. So you can find that on my website at suzya.com slash job seeker. And at any point, if you just want to reach out, have

a chemistry call or a free coaching session for 30 minutes. My calendar is wide open. You'll see that all on my website. Very good. I will put all of that in the show notes so that you can go and access all those resources, connect with Susie and live the life they are meant to live. Well, thank you, Susie, for being here. It's been an absolute pleasure once again. And I look forward to having you back again with the release of your book, if not sooner. Thank you so much, Adam, for the opportunity.

Thanks for joining me on today's episode of the Mindful Fire podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, I invite you to hit subscribe wherever you're listening to this. This just lets the platforms know you're getting value from the episodes and you want to be here when I release additional content. If you're ready to start your Mindful Fire journey, go to mindfulfire.org and download my free envisioning guide.

In just 10 minutes, this guide will help you craft a clear and inspiring vision for your life. Again, you can download it for free at mindfulfire.org. Thanks again, and I'll catch you next time on the Mindful Fire Podcast.

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