216 : From Corporate Job to Financial Freedom with Courtney Rosiak Quinto

1:16 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 Coelho, and I'm so glad you're. 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. And here's the best part, you don't have to wait until you reach financial independence to live out your vision. Mindful fires about using these tools to craft that life. Now on the path to financial independence and beyond.

1:58 If you're ready to start your Mindful Fire journey, go to mindful fire.org/start 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@mindfulfire.org slash start. Let's jump into today's. Episode. Courtney, welcome to the Mindful Fire Podcast. I'm so happy to have you here. Thank you so much, Adam. It's a pleasure to be here.

2:39 Yeah, I've been looking forward to this one for quite a while. I don't really know when we first connected. I think it's been a couple of years, since I was introduced to you when you were on the Choose FI podcast. That's right. That was a huge influx of new listeners to the podcast and, around that time, I think you and I chatted about, the group coaching program that I was doing. and it was so interesting to hear all the things that you had going on and the ways that you were starting to build your next chapter after your career, which we'll get into quite a bit here. Your W2 career, and I know you were starting a flower business, growing all the flowers in your own yard, which is so cool. Yeah, I think it was just we've kept in touch over the years because we have a very similar story.

3:22 I tell people when I talk about you, I say, Hey, she's me at Apple, right? I was involved in the mindfulness community at Google. You were involved in the mindfulness community at Apple, and we both are now in these new chapters. And so yeah the shorthand how I mention you when I'm talking about all the cool things you're up to is you're the Apple version of me. I think it's an honor. Obviously I wouldn't have reached out to you if I wasn't inspired by your own story in recognizing the parallels that we shared. Yeah. Let's get into it. I'd love for you to start by sharing a little bit about who you are, your journey and what you're up to in the world. So my name is Courtney Quinto and I am a, recent W2 graduate as I identify, I also identify as a recovering high achiever.

4:09 And I am up to so many different things that it is incredibly exciting and I really would not be looking down this path of where I'm at without having had the wonderful career that I had with, approximately 18 years, in corporate. And so just really looking forward to this new chapter and discussing that and inspiring your audience today. Yeah. So tell me a little bit about that, that trajectory that you had. And I know financial independence was a big catalyst for you. How did that come into your life? this is the burning question, right? So I did come to it through, a negative space in the sense that I found myself one day.

4:53 I was, I think I became hyper aware of being in debt early on in my tech career, but I looked around at everybody around me and I'm they have the fancy cars, they have the nice clothes, they have the, I always say the wine club subscriptions'cause it's one of my horrifying moments of how many wine club subscriptions I had. And, it just at one point became, it just boiled over and I was I cannot do this anymore. I felt I was constantly grinding and getting nowhere, and I'm there has to be a different way. And I found Dave Ramsey, as many people do, who are in, significant amounts of debt. And it, for whatever reason, what he said just resonated with me.

5:35 And I went full rice and beans, dug myself out of the six figures of consumer debt, which I'm not afraid, and I'm embarrassed to admit because I think a lot of people would relate to the fact that high amounts of debt are, it's hard on you as an individual. It's hard on your family. And so we just need to normalize the fact that some people are in this, phase in life and not shame it. And so bringing that out into the open, exposing myself, making sure that my family was on board, of course. And I think it was probably somewhere between 12 and 18 months. I went back to try to find these numbers and unfortunately I don't have the old spreadsheets, but it was a long time and it began in 2019.

6:16 It began with the purchase of two new cars. I immediately found Dave Ramsey. 'cause I was oh gosh, these are a lot of money I'm paying and car payments, every month. And we had a trip scheduled to New Zealand about four weeks after this. And so you can imagine the pit in my stomach of being oh, I'm in some significant trouble. So I developed a road plan. I went through the steps that Dave Ramsey recommends and I got to the end and I was kinda invest, invest. What does that mean? I don't even know what that means. What are you talking about? Don't I invest in my 401k? And that's how I found Choose Fi. And so I found the Choose Fi community. I found lots of people who were either in my situation, had been in my situation, people who I aspired to be in terms of where they were in life and.

7:02 What I started to realize was that financial independence, at the beginning, it's about the money, it's about the numbers. we're numbers geeks, a lot of us are really analytical and we're yeah, we can see how the math works. But what started to unlock for me was this sense of freedom and the curiosity of what could be, and I started going down this path of, redefining my life and understanding what I wanted my life to be versus the external signals that I was getting from others. Whether that be from people at work or the path that my parents had taken or my friends and family around me. I just started to say that's interesting. I'm gonna observe that and I'm gonna see how I feel about that.

7:44 And because I had removed this. Piece of money. And that piece of the puzzle had been solved. It gave me this opportunity to start looking around and being able to be curious and do it in a way that felt safe. I was allowed to dream, because I didn't have to worry about something else holding me back. So the fire path is really ongoing for me. While financial independence is a target and one can reach it, I really do see fire in general as a lifestyle and just this overall curiosity of what's possible around you. Interesting. So at what point did you feel I've got the money situation under control and where you were able to start dreaming a little bit more?

8:27 I would say there, were multiple iterations of it, so obviously the first one being getting out of debt. And so getting to zero and being okay, great, not gonna do that again. But then that unlocked the next thing, which was how do I get to this mythical PHI number? What does PHI mean to me? And then I landed on Cofi and Coast Fi is just having had enough money invested and saved so that you don't have to worry about the money that you'll need in the future once you're no longer generating income.

10:35 People in the Coast Fi space will often, take a lesser paying job. I think it's parallel to barista Fi, where maybe you're just working at a coffee shop or for me I'm oh, REI, I'm big into outdoors. I could work as an hourly employee at REI. Or you can take the leap to entrepreneurship. And it gives you that safety and that knowing that even if you don't have a biweekly or monthly paycheck, however you're paid, you have the ability knowing that the money is growing in the background you to support you to when you no longer generating that income. And I think that was that light bulb moment of being ah. I've reached coach, or I think I sent my sights on Coast five. And then when I finally reached it, it was whoa, this whole other level of, really essentially power of things back on your side of the ledger so that you can really be in charge of your own life and your own decisions, and you're not being told by any external source of what to do.

11:30 You get to be comfortable and feel secure in your own decisions. Yeah, I think there's so much. Power that you get just by getting on the path, right? From the moment you decided, hey, this debt life is not for me too many wine clubs. I love that example because I know a lot of people that join these wine clubs and I will always what are you doing Trader Joe's has wine for$10. I know, but it's nice. I get it. Whatever, but I do love the example. I think it's hilarious. But just starting on that path to you could have continued on that path, many do. And I think back to the moment, where Google laid off 12,000 people in the middle of the night in 2023.

12:14 And just all of these people that had built these lives that were reliant on the income from these W2 jobs. And all of a sudden, you're three months away from that disappearing completely. And. Being in a really tough position, and so you didn't choose that path. You chose to start paying that down and start building wealth once you got to zero. And that really does put the power back on your side of the ledger and gives you the ability to, and breathing room to think, huh, what do I want for the future and how can I start building towards that now? Yeah. And I think for me, when I was in the debt elimination phase, it really was a scarcity thing.

12:54 And it really was a lot more about what would happen if I didn't have the job tomorrow. What would happen if I don't know let's say there was a huge reduction in workforce and demotions and all that kind of stuff. all these scary things that I think people, don't wanna think about but do think about. And then, I used that as a catalyst to get me to the point of being zero. But then from there it was more about dreaming of what can I do? And having that abundance mindset to be quite frank, spending time dreaming about what I could do, I started to realize that there was a shelf life for my W2 career. And, there are people who definitely will work as a W2 employee or even as an entrepreneur.

13:41 whatever you're doing to generate, but there are people who are going to want to generate income into their seventies and eighties. I didn't mind being that person, but I didn't wanna have to generate income in my seventies and eighties because of a lack of what I hadn't done previously. And so when I started thinking about it in those terms of okay, I can create so much more space for myself as I grow older, and choose what I want to do and when I wanna work and when I don't wanna work and so forth, that's when became a lot more of that abundance mindset. Yeah, that's it. It's a choice, right? You're choosing to continue to work in your seventies and eighties because you're lit up by what you're doing. Yeah. many people are in that position. Some because they got themselves into a lot of debt and some because that's the circumstance they're in and they need to provide for their family Yeah.

14:27 themselves. And there's a whole gamut of those things. But if we can avoid it and we can use our careers and our, especially when we're in our high earning years to Build for that future, it gives us a lot of choice. yeah. And so one of the things that you had said is that it's really important for people to have financial independence as part of their plan for their W2 work. I know a lot of people, look down on W2 work and I gotta get out of there and I gotta do this, or I gotta do my own thing. I've been there many times myself. I thought, I gotta get outta here, I gotta be an entrepreneur. but ultimately the reason I am in this position I'm in financially is because I was in that environment and earning and saving and taking advantage of all of the things that they had, to support our financial life.

15:20 Why, walk me through why people need to be thinking about PHI when they're in their W2 and what aspects of it they should be thinking about. Yeah. I think that the why really comes down to the fact that you have the ability to have a consistent. Paycheck. No matter, unless you do something horrible, right? If you go against company policy or you leak a product or something for the most part, you are going to continue to get the paycheck while you're employed with that employer unless a layoff comes or unless you do something bad and you get fired. So why not utilize part of that to set yourself up for the future?

16:00 And the future is going to come a lot faster than you've realized. 18 years in my career, I'm like. who was that baby that graduated college and miraculously jumped into incredible company. And I think you also, when you think about phi, you have to think about, there's parts of your job that you're gonna do, for your W2 career that are going to set you up for things later on in life. So there's skill sets. There's, things you can learn right now with AI being a huge space, people can be learning about AI and how to set themselves up for what that's going to bring in the future. So there's just a lot of pieces of PHI that go into what you're doing now and looking down on having a W2 job or looking down on corporate or, whatever the meme of the moment is gonna be.

16:54 That's not helpful to where you're gonna go in the future. And the reality is that a lot of times, especially for people who are tech workers, W2 tech workers, they're really well compensated. And so why not take advantage of the time that you have now with the money you are making now, allowing it to grow exponentially for you to be able to utilize. In whatever way that needs to be in the future. Why not do that now? Because you're gonna get to a point where you're, I think it was every dollar you invest in your 20 turns into 80 when you're 60. I don't, somebody will go and find the exact ratio there, but the compound interest of that, why not set yourself up with less now that grows to more later rather than getting to the point of in your forties and fifties and being uhoh, now I have to put more in now to get it, to grow more for when I need it.

17:47 It's just a matter of mathematical sense. And once people start to wrap their brain around that, then they'll be oh, that makes a lot of sense. Okay, great. So maybe I came into my employer and I was automatically enrolled in my 401k at 3% with a whatever the match might be if you get a match from your employer. why not understand how to max out a 401k from the very beginning so that you can do a lot less work that, from a fiscal sense in the beginning to give you a lot more, power later. And so it just, I think. We as a society, spend a lot of time talking about the things that money gets us.

18:27 Like we have the new fancy thing, we have the flashy car, we have the big house that has a,$20,000 mortgage payment if you're in California. So it's like you have all these things, but then we don't talk about how to get them. I think we need to spend a lot more time talking about how to get them and how to set ourselves up for financial security so that we either can get them, or if we do get them, we get them in a responsible way so that if a job does fall out later on down the line, we have the ability to recover from that. And we don't end up in a oopsie, deep dooo sort of situation. Yeah. We certainly don't want that. Yeah. Yeah, I think that the, It's easy to get into, early in my career, I'll speak for myself.

19:10 Early in my career, I came into Google. I was making some money, I was a entry level employee, so I wasn't making that much money, but I was aware of the basics, saving in my 401k, maxing that out. But I wasn't aware of the full scope of things that were available to me, like the backdoor Roth, IRA, the mega backdoor. All of these things that allow you to really accelerate, how much you're saving in these tax advantage accounts that grow tax free over time. And luckily I wasn't spending all of my money. I was saving but I wasn't very intentional. And certainly any money outside of my 401k wasn't investing.

19:52 It wasn't until my friend David who I've mentioned on the podcast before, he and I started the same day at Google, He wanted to do a side hustle that had nothing to do with ads. So I said, why don't you go learn about investing? And then he did. And he came back and taught me. And that's where I was introduced to choose fi and the simple path to wealth and all these things. And just the math of the 4% rule 25 times your annual expenses. Once you have 25 times your annual expenses, your money will grow indefinitely. that felt very empowering to me and that really gave me the motivation to supercharge everything that I could to save as much as I could. I didn't go full rice and beans, but I was more frugal than I needed to be in a lot of ways.

20:33 'Cause I'm naturally, I say I'm a recovering. cheapskate. And that's okay because I used to have this mentality that$1 I save now is gonna be$10 in retirement. Again, I don't know the specific math, but that was very motivating for me. And it was like, okay, do I really need this other extra beer right now? That's,$8 or$9. No, that's$90 in retirement. And so I'm now coming the other way where I'm like, okay, I don't need to be so frugal anymore. But it really allowed me to start to build that wealth and to navigate the situations that came up right when layoffs happen, when, challenges within work came up, I was able to look at those clear-eyed without having to worry my family's gonna be on the street if I lose this job.

21:22 Yeah. And that is immense weight off my back. Yeah, absolutely. And there's the security piece that you're touching on there, but I also wanna go back to the frugality and just to set the stage for your audience in terms of Phi, I think PHI gets such a bad wrap from people who don't understand it in the sense that they're like, oh you guys are all. Worried about your lattes and like how you can't have your lattes. I just listened to the Author of the Latte Factor on a podcast yesterday and I was like, oh yeah, I remember I read that book and it did inspire me to not buy lattes. But that's because I was in a crisis state, right? So I couldn't. But I think going back to the concept of fi offering abundance, where I think folks in our community can get a little tripped up is we spend so much time aggressively focusing on reaching the fi or hitting the number or save or whatever it might be.

22:19 That we forget to come up for air and we forget to, say, Ooh, I have the money for that latte now and I want that latte because it's gonna make me feel better today. Or it's just part of my starting my day, or it's part of the, the social hour that I get to have with my work colleagues, whatever it might be. once you hit a certain point in buy, and again, I'm not advocating for folks who are in debt to go out and buy the$10 latte, but if you can afford it, then like, why not? As long as you are on a path to be able to continue to hit your goals, whatever those might be. I think that this is an individual thing and I wouldn't prescribe it to anybody because.

23:01 By itself 25 times your annual expenses. It sounds like a big number to a lot of people that are new to this live space and they go, whoa, I could never achieve that. So it's start with that small goal. So like getting outta debt, hitting your first maxing out your 401k, hitting your first 100 K in an after tax program, whatever the goal is, but enjoy the journey along the way. And I think that the fine movement in general is really headed towards an abundance mindset in the sense that I think a lot of folks that are now in this community are looking, to live their life to the fullest. And they're doing that because they have that financial backing to be able to support them.

23:42 So I just wanted to touch on that piece because I do think that's really important is that bi is not meant to be a deprivation at first. It might need to be, again, I'm a big advocate for making sure you don't have that, but once you are safe and secure, don't forget to live the life that's happening around you. Yeah. And that's really where I had to move a little bit more to the middle on. I was very frugal and it just, got to the point where it's what am I doing? I'm missing out on things for what, and I think there is a lot to be said for. Starting to live the life that you want right now. And that's really what this podcast is all about.

24:24 It's all about figuring out if you could do anything, what would you want to do? And how can you start bringing those things into your life now? And the path to PHI really enables you to do that. It gives you that flexibility, that good base and security. Knowing that, if things go wrong, which things tended to go wrong sometimes you'll be okay and you can continue on your path in building your path. One of the things you had mentioned also That PHI really helps you to cut through the noise of what's calling for your attention. So I know there are a lot of things always calling for attention. how does PHI and having your why for PHI allow you to stay focused and keep marching your own path?

25:07 Yeah. So I think this has to be a really intentional focus. And I say that in the sense that because so many things are calling for our attention, it's you scrolling social media and being like, literally this just happened. Yeah. Two days ago I was like, Ooh, like a little subscription box for my daughter. That would be like a really cool thing. And then I'm like, wait a second. First of all, does she need that? Probably not. Is there a way for me to get some of those materials less expensively? 'cause it was quite a pricey subscription. And then on top of that, do I want the stuff, like the stuff kills me. I have such an advocate for minimalism in the sense that it just there's just so much stuff in our lives and so it really helps me'cause I have these these principles and these foundations that are important to me as values.

25:57 The five piece of it's do I wanna spend the money on that? Okay. I don't know if I want to, here's some other ways where I could achieve the same goal without spending the money on that, but still give my child this experience and this education that is, important to me as a family value. And so it really helps center me and orient me in making decisions. The same could be. About choosing where to live. You might want to live like in the middle of a busy city, a bustling city, San Francisco, Palo Alto, Manhattan, name your place that's super expensive to live. And you could be in the center of it and you could be close to your job, but at what cost is that to you?

26:37 And what does that mean to their family? If you have children or you have a partner or spouse or whatever, like what does that mean to them and their career? And so it just helps anchor you to make the decisions that are gonna be best for you at the time with the information that you're given. And I think a huge part of that really is asking the why of spending the money and the really, the YFI helps you figure out the why of spending the money when that time comes. Yeah. So it sounds like having a clear picture of why you're building this. That is really my whole philosophy, right? think big about what you actually want and what would you be doing if you were already phi and how can you start to bring little pieces of that into your life now?

27:20 Because in a lot of cases you already have those things available to you, or you can very easily have those things. I think about, I used to, I was at Google, I had this, I call it the if only mindset. I was like, if only I could teach mindfulness and get paid for it. And then I realized if I just look a little bit differently, I'm already doing that. I was member of the gPause community. I taught Search Inside Yourself. All of these things are me teaching mindfulness and getting paid for it. And so how can you look at your life and think about what you really want, and then look at your current life and figure out well. I could make this tweak or I can make that tweak, or I could try this and then I can have that thing now and I don't need to wait until reaching financial independence to start living this.

28:08 Yeah, absolutely. I think that there are things around us that we can so easily overlook. And it may not even be related to your job. It could be something as simple as I love podcasts and I love to read. And so I learned through phi check the library before you buy the book. And if you read the book from the library and you love it, buy the book because then it supports the author. But if you're just picking up a, an easy to order online, we won't name, names, easy to order online book just because somebody recommended it that may not be the best decision for you at that time. And I think, there are a lot of people who, they spend a lot of time. Wishing for something different than what they have right now.

28:48 Primarily because they haven't taken stock of what they have right now. They're just running life. They're just doing the thing and they're they're going to the job and they're doing the commute and they're answering Slack messages on Saturdays at their kids' soccer game, and they're doing the life thing. And they haven't stopped to say What do I have that makes me happy? What do I want more of? What do I want to explore more of? what's something that I'm interested in doing, but I'm not quite sure if it's the right thing. And how do I engage in that experiment and looking around them for resources and inspiration? And it could be really easy to just get caught up in everything else and be like. Forget what I currently have, I'm gonna go chase that next thing.

29:31 And then home missing the whole point, which is like, life is so rich around us and it may not be exactly what you want right then and there. Teaching mindfulness for example it may not be exactly what you envisioned in terms of having, being an entrepreneur and having your own business and everything, but it does scratch the itch of, curiosity that you have around that space. And so why not really lean into that so that you can then be like, Ooh, I really do like this, or you know what, this is a fun thing for me to do, but I'm not a hundred percent in and maybe there's something else I wanna explore instead. And so it's really important to stop and take stock, so to speak. yeah, that makes sense because if we are so focused on what's next and waiting until we get to some mythical magical future we might get there and realize we don't even like that.

30:24 How can we start to try that life on now while we're still working? this is one of the core elements of my approach to financial independence, mindful fire, so to speak. And the concept of envisioning, give yourself permission to think big about what you want and then, look at your current life. Take stock of your current life as you were just saying, and figure out, okay, where are areas that I could try this right now, in a low risk way. I call it mini experiments, just a low risk, low cost. Way to try something out. And if you have a W2 job, is there a way that you could try doing this, in your W2 job to bring in a little bit more fulfillment, a little bit more purpose to your job, Some people have jobs that are incredibly purposeful.

31:15 Some people have jobs that you know they're doing for the money. I think a lot of people are doing the jobs for the money, and that's fine, but maybe there's an opportunity to bring a little bit more of what you envision and want the passions that you have into your life. I know, when I was at Google, the last 10 years were really all about developing my love for facilitation and mindfulness and holding space for people to think bigger about what they want and. Get to know who they are and what they care about more in these spaces, I was able to do within my corporate job, I still had to do my job, but I also was able to bring these things in and build community and relationships and all of those things.

31:59 And all the while I was able to learn more about myself, more about what I cared about. I thought I wanted to be a mindfulness teacher, and I loved doing that within Google, but I realized through doing this podcast that actually I don't think I want that to be my full, vocation. I want that to be an element of my life and an element of my teachings and how I contribute to the world, but that's not the whole thing. And I wouldn't have known that if I had waited until I reached financial independence to start trying that out. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that it's important to acknowledge that not everybody has the space and grace that both you and I were able to experience through our jobs having an outlet for our passions.

32:44 And I wanna be hyper aware and hypersensitive to the fact that some people do just have to sit down and do the spreadsheet or, do the thing and they don't get a break and they have a micromanaging, manager and all these things listening to us and saying oh, that must be nice. I wish I had the space to be able to do that thing that I want to do. Or maybe what they want to do. completely unaligned with the work that they do, and they won't have an opportunity to practice that skillset. But I think what we are talking about is the fact that we have as W2 employees, we have the ability to start to experiment within our own jobs.

33:24 And so finding the peace within your own job that you enjoy, sometimes these are a little nebulous and maybe even esoteric what does that mean to be a communicator? What does that mean to be a connector? But taking the time within your W2 job to figure that out, sort that out, understand what's a hobby, what you just need to do outside of work, whatever your work is. And then how can I utilize my current career and my current job, my current role, to lean into some of these other pieces that I'm super interested in. And then also knowing There's gotta be an end to it, right? Like you're not just sitting here trying to get all these skills for nothing.

34:06 You're probably trying to get them for some sort of reason, whether that be the next thing in your career, if you're, wanting to pursue leadership, if you're wanting to pursue entrepreneurship, whatever it is, understanding how to bring those ties back to what you're currently doing, I think is really important. But it's also, I'm very aware that there are people out there that are just like, I don't have time for any of that. I'm overloaded with 10 people's worth of work. But that should also be a signal too little challenge to folks out there that are feeling that, that should also be a signal of like something's not going right here. And I'm not being fulfilled in the way that I need to be fulfilled, or I'm being overworked and I need to advocate for myself.

34:48 And so utilizing those observations through mindfulness is also very important as well. Yeah. I do think that regardless of what situation you're in, whether you're working three jobs to pay the bills or you have a cushy tech job where you're just chilling, the whole gamut. I think it's still really important to do the work, to ask, yeah, what do I really want? If I could do anything, what would I do? Because without it, we're just hamsters on a wheel and we can keep doing that forever. And I did that for the first several years of my career, before I really came across mindfulness and started to get to know myself better and just, build self-awareness, build self-compassion.

35:35 I was just like, I'm just gonna keep running, I don't know why I'm doing this. Yes. To ask what do I want? And because the thing is like your brain, once you introduce that, your brain is gonna start looking for evidence of that. And you're going to start moving towards it little by little. And there are ways that you can accelerate it, but if you don't actually stop and ask, you're just gonna be on that hamster wheel forever. And whether you're making a million dollars a year or$40,000 a year, you can keep sprinting and filling your life up with wine club subscriptions to make you forget about it. But it's still gonna come back up at some point. Yeah. Absolutely. And what I think you're touching on here is that sense of unfulfillment.

36:18 Dr. G's big P and little p like big purpose and little purpose. We don't have to solve for big P, right? We don't have to solve for the grand thing that, someone's gonna say about us at our memorial or something like that. We don't have to solve for that right now. Let's focus on the little p the little purposes, whatever that might be to you. It could be being an amazing parent. It could be, being able to give back to your community, through volunteerism. It could be, reducing plastic waste in the world, or, making sure that you're helping with students who, need to become bilingual in the school. So whatever it might be, whatever your passion is, follow that curiosity because that will lead you the path.

37:01 And you're speaking to one of my absolute favorite topics, which is the, concept of mindfulness. And, I know you know a lot more of the neuroscience than I do, but the predictive, ability of your brain to find, the things that you're focusing on. I'm huge in this space, and people think that it's woo quote unquote, but there's a lot of science behind it. And the reality is like when you start envisioning yourself. In that little passion, right? So let's just, we'll pick out one of mine, which is sustainability. I envision a world where we are relatively plastic free, except for like medical facilities and stuff like that. I'm not gonna be the person who solves that entire problem, but I am going to be a small component of that, which is like.

37:47 Removing plastic from my household as much as possible. And that gives me a sense of purpose because I know that I'm doing it for the greater good of humanity. And so focusing on that, I see all these opportunities coming up where we can reduce our impact. And it might seem trivial. You're like, yeah, Courtney, whatever. I'm not choosing a plastic peanut butter tub anymore. I'm choosing a glass one. Great. Now what? But it gives you a sense of purpose and that you know that you're contributing to the world. And I think that's just so important. Focus on those things that are small enough for you to be able to achieve so that you can then take the next steps up into whatever the grander, larger vision might end up being for you and be okay.

38:28 The ebb and flow of it too. Like you may not care about plastic in five, six years, and that's okay. You don't have to have it all figured out. That's what I mean by don't focus so much on the big, like crazy. Oh my God, what's somebody gonna say about me and my funeral? Think about what would somebody say about me if they were talking about me to another person in the other room right now, next year, two years from now, what would I want them to say? And then live into that. Imagine yourself in that way. And then that will help you define what your purposes are going to be. 'cause you'll have multiple of them, in my opinion. You'll have multiple of them throughout your lifetime. Yeah. I love that. it doesn't need to be some huge grand vision.

39:09 And this idea of big p purpose versus little p purpose is really interesting. 'cause, a lot of people feel like they need to go in search of that big p purpose. What is my purpose here on Earth? It's no, what are the things that you just love to do, just for their own sake? And I go deep on this concept with, doc G, Jordan Grumet Who wrote a book called The Purpose Code. And he was on episode 60 of the podcast. So definitely give that one a listen. And his book, the purpose code is fantastic as well. Courtney, we've been talking about, life in corporate, but you are now out of corporate. Would love to have you share with the audience a little bit about how you put these things into practice. And I know you were doing things while you were still there, and now that you're on the other side of that, you've reconsidered the balance and priority of things.

39:55 So tell them a little bit about all the cool things you've been up to and where you're headed. Yeah, so while I was still working, I thought that I would follow a passion of mine that I had identified as a young child even. And I started a COVID project, as we call them, where I have a flower farm on my property. And we are urban. We live on a quarter acre, so we're able to do this farm within city limits. And I really thought that was gonna be the thing I was gonna go to after corporate. I had, hit Coast fi. I had, decided okay, like my corporate job is coming to an end. I'm no longer fulfilled by the work that I'm doing. I'm wanting to do something different, and I thought it was gonna be flowers.

40:39 I did make the leap. And I had previously buried myself in flowers, on every waking moment of every weekend and after work when I came home. And then I'm like, okay, great. Now I'm gonna have the time now that I don't have a W2 job anymore. And I started doing the flowers and I was like, oh yeah, that didn't exactly work out the way I thought it would in the sense that it physically, as I've grown older and I've had this farm for about five years now. So as my body's getting older, and not that five years is a huge amount of time, but I'm starting to realize that it's not sustainable for me to physically do this by myself anymore.

41:20 And so I had to spend the last few months really reflecting on. What I wanted to do and the sustainability that I use at this flower farm in terms of like just real brief overview is no-till, no chem, no chemical fertilizers or, pest treatments or anything like that. Like really allowing the natural ecosystem at the farm to take care of itself. Those principles that I learned in the farming practice, I was then able to take and think where else could I apply sustainability? where else in the world do I see there being potential issues? And one of the things that I had identified while I was in corporate that I wanted to do after corporate was traveling the world with my children.

42:04 We do practice alternative schooling. We have a child who's in an independent study. So she's responsible for her own educational path. And she's guided by a licensed, credentialed teacher. And then we have our twins, which are in a community-based program, which focuses a lot about community interaction and our place in the world and what we do. Like how one thing we do over here impacts something over there. And so we wanted to continue that educational journey with them, but on a more worldly scale. So I started looking at. Small stints of travel with our children. Small stints being between four and six weeks where we would go away. And the more I started to look at this, the more I realized, okay, this is really slow travel, is what I'm talking about here.

42:50 Really immersing ourselves into the culture. And we did it a couple of times and we had done this previously without me even realizing I mentioned a trip to New Zealand and that was like, that was six weeks in New Zealand. And so we've been living this lifestyle and I started to see what impact tourism had on the communities that we've visited. And it became alarming to me. I was thinking, here are all of these Americans or western country folks that come to these places because they're cheaper and they're staying at these American hotels or resorts. They're not leaving the resort walls.

43:32 They're inside these spaces that are completely curated for them in their own comfort. Are they really truly visiting the country? And so just the, again, after everything we've been talking about that's interesting. I'm curious about that. So I started down this path of sustainable and regenerative tourism. Once I got down that path, I actually realized that there was this thing. Called travel coaching, and who would've thought I made a joke once a few years ago. I was like, oh, there's a coach for everything and jokes on me. Now I'm in the middle of my certification for travel coaching. And really what I hope to do with this is I really hope to help the W2 worker, the midlife mid-career professional, who's looking at a transition and saying like maybe this job isn't for me.

44:20 Maybe this role isn't for me. Maybe this company's not for me. Maybe I'm actually ready to take a break, whether that's a mini retirement, a full retirement. A break to entrepreneurship, how do I do that? And so helping them through travel, mindful travel practices, being cognizant of the impact we have on the communities that we're traveling to, doing that with fiscal responsibility in the sense that setting them up for that, the fire path that they desire to be on, assuming that they're wanting to be that. And then helping the greater sense of the world in the sense that like we're aligning people, folks that are in the coaching industry are aligning people to their greater sense of purpose.

45:02 Small iterations of course, like I just spoke about, but it's it's so important for us to have a world of people who are critical problem solvers. People who are empathetic, people who are compassionate. These are all things that come through travel, like travel's, exciting. It's ah, woo, I'm going to Japan. That's exciting, but it's like, what can you learn about yourself on that trip? What can you learn about the community, the culture? What is it that you can bring back so that you can then have that frame of mind to be able to put that out in the world through your work, through your community, whatever it might be and utilize those experiences to help move you down the path to whatever the next thing might be for you.

45:50 And I will, speak briefly on the trip that really changed this for me as we went to Belize last January and I was very conscious'cause I was already in the space, but I was very conscious about the place that I chose to book my lodging. I did not choose an American hotel. I did not choose something that was, felt inclusive, but in the sense that all inclusive, like all within the resort walls. And I met people who lived in the local villages. I heard about their soccer tournaments, they call'em football, but their, football, soccer tournaments. they had a tournament while we were there and while we didn't go to the game, like they came back and they were working at the establishment that we were staying at and they were telling us all about it and they were telling us about their kids and they're sharing all these pieces.

46:36 And I looked at them and I looked at myself still W2 employed at the time, and I said, they. Live in what we would consider poverty, here in the United States, they live in an impoverished state. They are growing their own food in their backyard. They are so excited about this football game. They're so excited to share their culture with another, world traveler. They're curious about that. World travel. These are some of the happiest people I've ever seen. And then I look back at us here in the States and I'm There's people who are complaining about whatever it might be, the, their electric vehicle doesn't, charge properly anymore. I'm like, these people are like walking to work or taking public transit to work.

47:20 So it really opened my mind about what was possible and what we could learn from the world. And then. Of course we're doing that for ourselves, but the transformation that then has when you mindfully practice and mindfully digest what you just experienced, which you can bring back to your own community and then share with the world is incredible. And so that's where my focus has been right now is just making sure that we're helping people set up intentionality for their travel so that they can then take that back to their own lives and set even more intentionality or intentionality to be helping the world. Very cool. Yeah, travel is.

48:01 They bust you right outta your filter and your normal way of seeing the world and seeing yourself, right? You're gonna experience things that you don't expect and you're gonna see how you handle them, when you're there and you're gonna, that's gonna be with you forever. So it's very cool to see you going in that direction and good for you to realize the flower business. While it was great for a while, it, you took stock of, is this the direction I want to go going forward? Yeah. Or do I want to scale back and invest my time in something else? And it's it's sometimes tough to do that. I'm in the middle of that right now. I mentioned as we started, but the nice thing about financial independence is I can do that without having to, blow up my life.

48:47 I can. Pivot a little bit and try this. And, I think that's as I head into next year, there's gonna be a lot more experimentation, a lot more just trying things on and seeing how I feel about it, how it resonates with people. And one of the things that you mentioned earlier around, just how you want to empower people to have these realizations through travel and to live the life that they are meant to live. I relate a lot with that. And when I think about mindful fire and how I want to contribute to the larger world with it, I really think there's something to bringing these concepts to people who are early in their careers or even in high school or college or ideally before they take on hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt, where they can learn these concepts both to.

49:39 Build self-awareness, self-compassion, a vision for their future, and the financial skills to make that future possible. I think that will unlock aligned, passionate, purpose-filled people that will change the world. And so I'm still toying with this idea, but I think there is something percolating of contributing to a generation of people who can live their life on their own terms because they have the vision, the self-awareness, and the financial blueprint to make that a reality. Yeah. That's an exciting idea and I think it's very needed. But yeah, I think for sure we need to be spending time on our youth.

50:22 And I won't speak for you, but I will speak for myself in the sense that money was not a topic. It just, it wasn't talked about like you knew it was there and it was a tool and, you did the things that you did, but there was no talk about like how you could leverage it in a certain way. And I think by aligning the concept of, fiscal responsibility to, purpose in the world, to the constant dreaming that we can and should do as humans, I think that will absolutely create a generation, that will be amazing to see. I hope I'm around to see it, but I think it'll be incredible to see. Me too.

51:02 I agree. And I think that, it starts with a little bit more intentionality. Courtney, let's switch gears into the Mindful fire Final four. You ready? So you're in this. Travel coaching program, you're doing this stuff with your family, you wanna bring it to other people. I'm curious, when you think about your big vision for the next five years of your life what is that big vision? Five years is tough. I'll be honest. I've always been a little resistant to the five year question. it doesn't need to be five years. Whatever timeframe you wanna put on it? Yeah. No, and the only reason I say that is because I wanna stay curious and I wanna stay like. Like playful about everything. And I lived a life of structure.

51:44 In my W2 career. I was a engineering program manager and I lived a life of structure and pressure and everything for so long that, right now I'm just looking to decompress. I'm looking to rest. I've been doing a lot of resting. the big thing that I have coming up, which is actually terrifying and exciting all at the same time is, I will be hiking the Okta nego volcano at the end of next month in, January, 2026, depending on when this episode comes out or when you hear this, I might have done it. that is a 5,300 vertical foot climb over six miles. I always had this thing about me where I wanna have a really crazy challenge and I have a crazy challenge now, so I'll be doing that, but the reality is that's in preparation for my first solo through hike solo, through hiking.

52:33 Being an outdoorsy person, being someone who cares about natural spaces and everything, always appealed to me, and I never had the time to do it when I was a W2 worker. now I'll be living out that dream as well later this summer as I hike by myself on the Tahoe Rim trail. Beyond that, I visualize this coaching business being up and running. I visualize myself helping people find their way through transitions. I visualize empowering women specifically to do some solo travel, some soul searching type of travel, whether that's around a career transition or a life transition in general. And then I would definitely say if I had to talk about the five year mark, my twins will be in the same program that my oldest is at that point.

53:15 And I just see a. More worldly travel where we can be integrated into communities and understanding the issues that citizens around this world face so that I can really help shape empathy and compassion and understanding in my children so that they can then go and take their lives to do something about it. But while watching their mom try to do it try to take some attempts at it, but I wanna set them up for having that understanding and compassion. Very cool. I see all of that happening and I think that staying open to curiosity and possibility is. Great and necessary as we go through this. Because I said before, and I'll say again, I had a pretty clear vision of what I wanted and I'm still figuring it out as the rubber meets the road, it's important to stay curious and open to what's unfolding in our life as it happens.

54:08 The second question, Courtney, is what piece of advice would you give to someone early on their path to financial independence? I knew this question was coming and I have a sort of contradictory two part answer, which is, if you are pursuing financial independence, do what you need to do. So if you are that person who's in debt, go get rid of that debt, take off the, the second gig job, go do Instacart or whatever it might be. Put yourself in positions where you can get promotions, raises, whatever it might be. But then once you're at that safe space, enjoy the ride. Enjoy it because we don't know how long we have and we can set aside all this money for our fine number and we can live frugally.

54:52 And then we can end up at 62 with a severe form of dementia and needing to be in memory care. I speak from personal experience. I have a family member who's going through that right now, and they were young. And there's a lot of pieces of life that we can miss if we're not paying attention. And so just enjoying the ride and understanding where you're going and staying on that path, but not being afraid to look up and enjoy what's passing you by as you go through it. Well said. And the third question is, what piece of advice would you give to someone getting started with meditation and or mindfulness? Be open. Be open to the possibilities. Know that, meditation and mindfulness are just two different things, but know that it is more of a journey and a practice than a destination.

55:43 So don't. Start meditating and be like, oh my God. Like I can't stop thinking. That's very normal and very natural. And we as human beings, like turning off the brain is very difficult to do. And be curious about that. Be like, huh? Okay, I can't stop thinking when I sit down to meditate or I meditated and it didn't, I didn't feel anything they said. I would feel something be curious about that because that's part of being mindful is that you are experiencing it, I wonder what that is. Oh, that's interesting. Taking stock of that piece and using it as a data point. So just being open to all of it and not feeling like you have to reach a destination because that's not the point.

56:26 The point is to be on the journey. Said. It really is. I see it as a lifelong practice and there's not really a destination. Like I think it's fair to say I'm not gonna reach enlightenment in this lifetime. Yes. And I don't know how I feel about other lifetimes, so might as well just enjoy the ride, as you said. Yeah. Alright Courtney, and the last question is, how can people connect with you online? Learn more about all the cool things you have coming up with the travel coaching all the sustainability stuff that you're interested in. How can people find you online and learn more about you? Yes. Few different places. And so I am on LinkedIn so if you search me by my name there, you'll find me there.

57:06 You can look at what I've done in the past for W2 work, starting to build out some stuff there around the travel coaching. And really if you want to watch my journey as I progress on these physically challenging things over the next couple of years. I am on Instagram at They Adventure slowly. We'll put these links in the show notes, I'm sure you will, Adam. Yep. And also, you can get on my email list to be able to stay abreast of, some of the fun things that I'm doing. So I do host, monthly group hikes for folks in the fire community here in the Bay Area. So if you're local to the Bay Area, you can join those for free. I'll be starting to build out some, group trip programs, that really do start to weave in some of these concepts of mindful, travel and understanding our place in the world.

57:54 And so if you wanna be a part of that, you would wanna. Jump on my email list and hear little bits and pieces from me every, week or two. No real cadence there yet, but, a great way to stay connected with me, and hear the stories that I have to tell. And where can they do that? I will have a landing page. If you wanna join Courtney's, email list, we'll point you to that. You can just go to mindful fire.org/courtney and that will send you right over to her website and you can sign up for her email list there and, engage with her and all the cool things that she's doing. Those hikes sound incredible and scary and fun and all the things. And so I wish you luck on that. As well. And yeah, this will probably come out in January or February sometime we'll have to have you back on to hear how it went.

58:38 Yeah, I would love to tell the story of, bravery and courage when faced with something that you're not sure you can achieve. Amazing. Thank you Courtney, for being here and sharing your experience and wisdom with the audience. Thank you so much, Adam. 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 mindful fire.org/start and download my free envisioning guide in just 10 minutes. This guide will help you craft a clear and inspiring vision for your life.

59:20 Again, you can download it for free@mindfulfire.org slash start. Thanks again and I'll catch you next time on the Mindful Fire Podcast.