SPEAKER_02 1:16

You're at this funky place now where it's like I went into the new phase and did all the excitement of the transition from work to having m the ability to dictate my own direction. And you went through filling it with first travel and then setting up the new home, getting everything ready, buying a car, kind of, you know, you got a new dog, you guys have like established a whole new life. And now it's like, okay, what do I do every day for the next N years, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:50

Yeah. And it's not a bad feeling. It's a it's a curious feeling, but in the days, like I think it reminds me of parenthood where they say the um days are long, but the years go fast. So thankful to have it, but like you have days where you're like, huh, what did I do today? I watched World Cup consistently all day. So I watched three soccer matches, but yeah. And so for me, I've just been trying to be in that in it and letting it go. And if that's what I do all day, so be it. So but like it's a challenging thing when you're used to working type A and you need to know what's next. I don't have a roadmap as a product manager. I have no roadmap right now, and I'm trying to be okay with that.

SPEAKER_02 2:36

And it's kind of scary too, and uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_08 2:38

Mm-hmm. It's uncomfortable. It's not scary.

SPEAKER_02 2:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 2:42

It is not scary for me at all. It's uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_02 2:45

Yeah, I get it. I'm glad it's not scary because for some people it is. Um, but it's I get the uncomfortable part. Rich, how about you? Like, are you are you in the same? I know you're wired differently and come from a different work background than Lizzie, where we're kind of in this, you know, go, go, go product management world. Is this hard for you or anything surprised you about this?

SPEAKER_03 3:06

Some of the things are not surprised at all. Like being antsy. Like I knew I would be antsy. Um I knew I needed physical activity uh just to feel uh copacetic. Um I think the challenging part is what I found really surprised me is there's so many choices, and it's been hard to make the decision. Uh I was talking to Lizzie yesterday, she's watching soccer all day, and I think that's super wonderful that we can do our own things and enjoy ourselves in that way. And I'm like, oh, I can do all these things. I can go to the gym, I can do X, Y, Z all the way into like Z Z. Yeah. End up I end up staying at home and not doing anything. So um that's why I found it more challenging so far.

SPEAKER_02 3:59

In that that's also a a really important point, is like there is a a paradox of choice, right? It's like, oh, I would love to have more choices in my life. And the minute you actually get that option, choices become overwhelming and paralyzing sometimes.

SPEAKER_03 4:15

For sure. Then is it isn't that paralyzation of the fear of the unknown? Right. Or or or the fear of not finding acceptance, which is I think something that is uh a lifelong driven for most people. Yeah, I agree with you. Where do you spend it?

SPEAKER_02 4:33

Yeah. And and I'm sure I know I went through this process of my own narratives around free time, you know, my own narratives around productivity or what it what it means to spend time. Right. And so like I have lots of time, but this morning I took my son to school, I made I got up, I unloaded the dishwasher, I made breakfast for everyone, I packed his lunch, I took him to school, I painted a front door, I made lunch and got on this call, and I'm booked until five o'clock today. I don't have to do this. I don't have to do this, but I had to figure out, you know, why am I doing this? Like what's behind the need to be busy? And uh the good news is that none of this is forced on me. These are all choices I'm proactively making. These are priorities and things I actually enjoyed painting the door. It was it was great to use my hands to get something done, right? Um, and I enjoy the conversations I'm gonna have with people today, but it was a choice. But getting to that place where you're like, okay, here's how I'm gonna allocate my priority buckets with my time now in a world without someone else's priorities dictating it, that's the hard part.

SPEAKER_03 5:58

Yeah, well said. Yeah, like what's that look like?

SPEAKER_02 6:03

And so, like I'm curious if you guys have been, you know, sort of looking at those buckets and saying, uh, I've got a pie of time here, and I've got different accounts that I could spend time in. Um, and have you gotten to that place yet where you're ha negotiating that with yourself? And it's okay if you haven't, because you're new into this journey. But I ended up there where it was like, okay, here are all the possibilities to narrow the sense of overwhelm and optionality. Like, let me just give myself some buckets, friends, family, hobbies, health, make some money, uh, spend some money, do some fun things, do some hard things, right? And I I had to kind of give myself that pie chart and look back and say, okay, I'm gonna allocate these percentages of time so that I don't let time slip away from me.

SPEAKER_03 7:03

I don't think I have all the buckets yet.

SPEAKER_08 7:06

I've I think for me I have two things. Like, I know um community and friends are super important to see, like, you know, you and and kids, right? Um, my two sons, we typically go have lunch with Finn on the week, who lives close, and then we're gonna go see Ther and his friends. And so those things are important, right? Community is important. Yeah. Um, self-care health is important, um, but I haven't figured out the other buckets. And the other thing that's interesting is I'm so used to, and it could be because I even worked on a calendar product, I'm so used to thinking of it in a day. If that makes sense, and I didn't even think about this until you said it. I'm so used to putting those buckets in a day. You can't, because we don't have a normal routine, right? We're in Denver for two weeks, then we're going on the road for a road trip, you know, with the dog. We're gonna go see some things, we're gonna see the kids, we're gone for two weeks. So that idea of I have a structured day where I can go, like in our building here, we have a gym, I can go to the gym. Well, what happens in those two weeks? And what tends to happen for me is in my professional life, unless I had a daily schedule, it was hard for me to keep those buckets like I don't know how to do it in in the structure of a month, if that makes sense. I know how to do it in the structure of a day. Time is a little different. You're used to looking at like the bucket of work, dinner, health, and it's in 24 hours. Well, what if it's in 35 days?

SPEAKER_04 8:43

Yes.

SPEAKER_08 8:44

How does that look? And I haven't figured that out.

SPEAKER_02 8:49

I totally get it. And I think it's something you you you start to have to experiment with. Um, either in recognizing and accepting that you're gonna exist in different modes, there's gonna be sort of a certain allocation of time and effort within one environment and a different one in a different environment. Because it's hard to do the same things outside of one, you know, especially when you're traveling. Um but at the same time, you start paying attention to days and start paying attention to the longer horizon and going, okay, is am I moving directionally in the right direction? Right. Uh, instead of being so precise about progress measured in days. Because that's at work how we do it, right?

SPEAKER_08 9:38

And it's a it's an interesting transition, right? Like, yeah, and also to allow yourself, like if you like Monday I didn't feel so good, I had allergies, I had some things going on, and I allowed myself to just exist.

SPEAKER_04 9:52

Yeah, right?

SPEAKER_08 9:53

That's hard to do, isn't it? And I think I kept apologizing to Rich because I felt bad. I don't know why, right? But like it's a luxury to be able to do that, and I'm sure many people would be like, I'd love to do that. It's a weird thing when you can.

unknown 10:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 10:10

Right? Nobody nobody needed to talk to me, nobody needed anything from me.

SPEAKER_02 10:14

There was no deliverable in your head. I think the thing is sometimes lost is like, what do you do?

SPEAKER_03 10:22

Yeah. I think I think maybe that's the point. Like, I never really thought about until just now, until I just said it. Like, we have the dream, we achieved the goal of retirement early. Now that we have it, now what do we do? And that's probably the most eye-opening statement I've said so far.

SPEAKER_08 10:40

In fact, so I want to make sure it's not complaining. We're not complaining at all. But it is, it is like people have asked, like, how we feel our days, or like there's a curiosity on what you go through. Like I think you told me, Lynn, at the beginning, you get sick because your cortisol levels drop. Yeah, you get sick a lot, right? Like, and you people don't expect that. Like, there are things that happen that like I don't think people really understand as you shift into this different way of existing.

SPEAKER_04 11:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:17

Yeah, and and it's there's no book or course or roadmap for how to manage this um out there right now. Um and so I think a lot of us who've done it are just learning on the fly, you know, from this experience, and and I think that's why it's important to have these conversations publicly because uh we're all trying to figure this out together. Um one of the things that stood out to me in this situation is um this need that we have to make sure that the you know the day is productive somehow, or that there's some output from the day. And this idea of oh, I was sick, I never had the chance to just be sick and just not be productive.

SPEAKER_03 12:10

Um and it was uncomfortable. Right? It was uncomfortable just to be spend a day being and not doing. Do you think that's something that's a part of your personality, or do you think it was something you learned?

SPEAKER_08 12:30

Um yeah, probably right, probably that, probably a learned behavior too. Uh not a learn reinforced behavior.

SPEAKER_04 12:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 12:42

Right. I know that I have I have ADHD, right, a level of it. Um so of course, right? Like it has you know, just being in your mind and sitting is hard. Yeah. But I also don't have clarity on what I want to do next, and so I'm trying to just sit in it, as I said before. It's super uncomfortable because it goes against you know, 40 years of working.

SPEAKER_03 13:12

Yeah. That impulse is hard to fight. Richard, do you struggle the same way?

SPEAKER_07 13:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:23

I think uh I've always been a chat for the task. Um like Lizzie, you like the struggle, but just being in your own present space has been a struggle for me. Um not going on my phone and playing a stupid MyFun game. Right. I'm just doing something, I just want to be distracted. No other reason than that. Uh so um I think those things I'm looking forward to like delving into and finding the reason behind it. Um, not so much the mechanism. I know what the mechanism is. I'm fucking bored. Yeah, bored. Or radicalized from a task of a mindset to an open-ended kind of thing. Yeah. Um but yeah, those kind of channels I'm looking forward to. I'd like to put those in my bucket and see cool what comes from it.

SPEAKER_02 14:24

I like that. I mean, yeah, there is um it entire religions have been built around the idea of learning how to sit still. And it's not something that humans do well. Um or animals in general do well. They're we're not wired to sit still. And so, you know, when you look at Zen monks uh meditating for 20 hours a day, sitting on a cushion and and calming their mind and their body to be able to do that, that's in itself kind of a miracle that they're able to do that. And that's the art of what they do. And so part of it is we're all wired a different way. We all have different brains that work in different ways. Some people are really good at chilling. There are people I know who are really good at doing nothing and perfectly comfortable at it. They're not always the most financially successful, but that's okay. That's how they're wired. But they're fine with it. And then there's others, especially if you have some form of ADHD or another very active neurotransmitter challenge in your brain, that you know, you're fighting your own wiring, you're fighting impulses at the molecular level. And so it's it's I think don't think it's fair to characterize this as I need to learn how to do it. I think learning why is important and then recognizing who you are and what fits for you. But I think one of the distinctions I want to draw out here is that, you know, the two of you recently left your careers. Um, and you didn't leave at a quote unquote retirement age, you know, where the there was a prescribed date. You guys are still pretty young. And you have potentially many years of of productivity and work if you wanted to stay in your careers, but you got off of the treadmill. And so I I think the interesting thing here is what we're talking about today isn't about how do I how am I how how do I exist as a retired person or somebody who took early retirement. I mean, on paper, it looks that way. You're no longer employed. But the reality is that you did this so that you have choice over how you spend your time in your life, you have options, and you have something that means more to you to wake up for every day. Because when you work for others, you end up um having their priorities be your priorities, even if they're not. And and some days that works, and some days it's excruciating, uh, especially if you don't feel any gratitude or appreciation for your work. And so the interesting thing here is that we're talking about a journey of how do I m bring my life into alignment with who I am and what I would love to do. Uh because not everybody gets lucky enough to be able to do something like this, but those who do, I say have a responsibility to themselves, because so few people get this, to figure out what is uh what's better than work for me. It doesn't mean not working, by the way. I mean I work every day. And yet at the same time, nobody makes me do it. It's my priorities, it's my uh business, it's my passion for what I do that gets me up in the morning. And in fact, it's no longer work. It's just cool. What am I doing today? Oh wow, look at all these awesome people I'm gonna talk to. Great. Um, that's amazing. So coming back to this journey you guys are in, you're on the first steps, I would argue, not of retirement, but of realignment before you're too old to do it. Because most people don't get to, by the time they get to retirement, they're like, oh man, I don't have any energy left to go do something else. Does it make sense?

SPEAKER_08 18:26

Yeah. Yeah. And I think there's like the first phase where you're so busy with travel and all the things that you haven't been able to pack in, like an extended vacation. We traveled for three months. You don't get to do that when you're working, right? Like all of the all of those things. Um for me, I know I will do something. People have asked me. I just don't know what. I thought it was gonna be one thing. And I think you and I have talked about this, Lynn. I've tried things, nothing's quite fit yet for various reasons. Yeah. And it's not that that like, but it's different than I at work where I wasn't successful at this, so I'm gonna do something else. It's just reasons. Like I was working, I think I told you, I was working with an Italian knitter. I thought about going back into fashion. Yep. Just doesn't feel right because they don't respond in a timely manner. And it just doesn't feel right. I'm like, oh, this is gonna make me angry if I have to work with this person and not get emails. And I don't want to do that, right? So, okay, let's look at, and I've done some writing, and that's people have been reading it. I I don't know if I want to continue. People have said to me, like, so I look for these nuggets, like the places that I find on our trips, people find interesting. Well, I don't know what to do with that. If that's something I do, I I don't know, right? So I'm I so I feel like I'm getting clues, um, but it's not it's not as defined as it is when you're working for someone else. Because success in what you you have a six, you're told, here's your outcome for six months here. This is not it. It's really like what do I enjoy and what am I good at, and how do I want to spend my time? And so I don't know yet, and that's incredibly uncomfortable. Um, because normally you just kind of I just kind of charge into something and I'm like, okay, here's the thing, I'm gonna do this, that makes sense. I I have not found that yet. So I guess I'm just kind of not waiting for it to come to me, but sitting in it to see what sticks, for lack of a better word. And also knowing it's okay to stop something that's not working, yes, which is something that like in corporate world, you have a goal. You can't just say, uh, this isn't working. I don't think we want to do this anymore. When you do that in in my old line of work, it was a whole, you know, you know, deprecating something and all these approvals from all these VPs. Now I'm like, oh, this isn't working, they're just gonna stop.

SPEAKER_02 20:59

Yep. Exactly. And and that feels amazing, I bet though.

SPEAKER_08 21:04

Yeah. It's very freeing on one sense, but it's also like you have a you have a uh playbook in your head that means it didn't succeed. So you're constantly fighting. Right. Right? Like you like it's a it's a little bit of a like you have to break the cycle in your head. On one hand, I don't want to keep doing something that's not working. On the other hand, in my head for 50 years, that means you built something that people didn't like.

SPEAKER_06 21:34

Right.

SPEAKER_02 21:35

So you know, even the example you gave of the knitter in Italy, his work style. I'm not we don't know if he's a bad or a good person at what he does, but his work style is not working for you. No clearly. And in corporate world, it would have been like deal with it, right? You sorry. He's your support.

SPEAKER_08 22:01

Find a way to make it work. Make it work. And I would have sent emails and said I need a schedule and tried to manage this person. And then there would have been a bunch of and I'm like, I don't want that in my life. Like, I don't want to do that.

SPEAKER_02 22:14

Imagine the amount of overhead we spent in our lives trying to make things work that just didn't work. Right? With people who didn't work the way we work, right? Rich is nodding his head too. I mean, it's like you spend on people who are in it. Right.

unknown 22:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:33

It's pretty amazing. And so one of the coolest things about stepping aside and saying, I'm going to do it my way, is you actually get to recognize that and say, This cost me something. And I'm not willing to spend that energy or that time on this effort because it's low payoff for me.

SPEAKER_08 22:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 22:51

And the thing is, I know my idea is a good idea. I just know these aren't the right people. Right. And and I also know, because I worked in fashion before, and this is one of but my questions is all people in fashion are like this. So unless you can drive over there to the manufacturer and sit there, which I also have no interest in doing, I've done that before. Yeah. So now I'm like, hmm, maybe I just don't want to do this.

SPEAKER_02 23:17

Maybe this isn't the thing to do.

SPEAKER_08 23:18

Maybe this isn't the thing to do because it's not it doesn't enable us to be as mobile as we like and just take off for a couple weeks. Um it frustrates me because uh for whatever reason, maybe it's because I was brought up in the Midwest, not replying to someone and not like it just I find it so rude.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

Yeah, I get it.

SPEAKER_08 23:42

And so I feel myself starting to get frustrated, and I'm like, okay, then I'm just not going to.

SPEAKER_02 23:48

This is what you're talking about here, and and I think this is, you know, again, the the place where you are and are gonna be for a while, is the the the process of coming back to you, the coming back to yourself and to what I call self-knowledge. It's the process of getting to know who you are again, because we have bent and contorted and compromised ourselves in a pretzel for 30 years plus, and gotten to a place where it's like, is this me or is this how I was taught to think? Am I really interested in this, or is this what I thought I should be interested in? Is this really the way I operate, or is this the way I was conditioned to operate? And when you take all that scaffolding of expectations and goals and corporate cultures, and you know, we're paying you money, so therefore you need to give us what we want in return, you take that scaffolding away, what's left is you, but you don't know you anymore. And it takes a while, and I'm gonna say it's gonna take you years, you know, a year or more for both of you to return back to, oh, that's who I am again. And once you see yourself, you then have the next problem, which is accepting it. Because you may see yourself and go, Well, damn it. I wish that's not very compatible with what I'd like to be. Um, you know, gee, how how am I gonna rationalize this? How can I accept that? And that's the next process is like not only being knowledgeable of who you are and knowing yourself again. I don't say self-aware, because I think you guys are self-aware. I call it self-knowledge because you have to like, yep, this is how I'm made, this is how I take, right? Including how my brain works, how uh what I enjoy, what I don't enjoy, what I find attractive, what I find repulsive.

SPEAKER_03 25:49

Um for me that have been intertwined in that scaffolding for all those years. It's now gone. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 26:01

Well, and you mentioned something to other people. Other people also tend to have opinions about how you spend your time, and I'm like, why do you care? Right? Like um, so I think the other thing for both of us independently and as a couple was who we spend time with matters, if it's compatible or not. And then like the when people are judgmental, like I'm I I have no time for it. It's like, can you I'm working on my like I'm doing the I'm working on myself. I get that you don't get it, but like for you to say most people don't pick up and move to a new city right away, most people don't do this. I I get it. I've never done what most people do. Like, I don't know what else to tell you. But it is that's what got you here. Yeah, I've had more people with opinions on what we should do than I ever had at any point in my career. It's weird.

SPEAKER_02 26:59

Isn't that amazing? Yeah, it's really amazing because even though you are beholden to no one, people still want to push their vision of what you should be. Right.

SPEAKER_08 27:14

And I don't know why that is. I don't it's a weird thing.

SPEAKER_02 27:19

I think part of it is living vicariously through others. You know, people want to kind of m have a taste of this and have a say in it and how it should be done, because that's how they would do it. They're longing for it too. Some people are just fucking nosy.

SPEAKER_03 27:35

I think there's not a lot of people in peer group who are at the stage of life where we're at. Right. And that's challenging, to be honest, both ways for people we don't know who are our peers, and people who we do know who are peers. Um that's difficult.

SPEAKER_08 27:53

Wonderful kind of surprises of people who you didn't even know. You're like, wow, like there so tonight, like Wednesdays, we've always played trivia. We did it in the city, we do it in Denver. And I had um through um my last job, uh had a few meetings with this guy who lives in Denver, and he said, Oh, we should get together when we're there. Lovely surprise. Like, we're all super compatible. He's going through the same journey. Now we're playing trivia together. So also just those things you didn't see in your corporate life sometimes change. Right? Like you're like, oh, wait a minute. And then the people that you were close with when you were working were also on the same treadmill. Sometimes that doesn't tend to follow along. It doesn't fit anymore, you know?

SPEAKER_02 28:44

Yeah. Um, it's kind of like trauma bonding. I I think about it that way. You know, um, when you go through a really rough experience um and you meet others who have gone through that rough experience, that it doesn't matter what you have in common, that rough experience was enough uh to differentiate both of you from the rest of us, and you start to relate more to these people. And you can get into some really bad patterns and bad mindsets from trauma bonding. And I feel like corporate is kind of like that. You can you kind of you're all forced into this sardine can together, and you all have to go through this experience, and you think you have something in common, but it turns out you weren't being yourselves in the first place.

SPEAKER_03 29:29

But you're conforming.

SPEAKER_02 29:30

You're conforming, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 29:32

And the other thing is I have always mentored people. I don't I have no interest in being a coach. I don't want to be a coach, but I still mentor people and I am used as a sounding board, which I do like. What I don't like is when it it's funny, I've noticed this is when it turns into the trauma trying to trauma bond. I'm like, oh I don't want to hear about this, right? Right. I don't want to hear about the drama between this VP and that VP. And like I I don't want to hear about it. But like if you want to talk to me about you and how you're doing and what you want to do, I'm all in.

SPEAKER_02 30:08

Yeah. But I don't want to like I have- I want to go back and vent for a living, you know.

SPEAKER_08 30:15

I have found myself wanting to say, why would you expect any different? And I'm so sick of hearing about this. Can you just stop talking?

SPEAKER_02 30:24

Like either I shouldn't say this out loud, Lizzie, but this is the hardest part of my job as a coach, is having to talk to people every day about things that I walked away from a long time ago, and it's so tired. Those patterns, those situations, those personalities, it is really hard. And it's part of what I do, and I do show up for people that way because I need to. But one of the hardest things is hearing about the exact same thing. Like, what did you expect to happen? Right? Why are we rehashing this? You've seen this movie before, right? Yeah. I I hear you.

SPEAKER_08 30:59

It's and I don't have this is why I know I'm not meant to be a coach because I don't have the empathy or the interest in it to hear it. Yeah. And to help. Like that's when I can't help anymore for me. So I know that.

SPEAKER_02 31:13

Right? It's great to know yourself that way. Coaches, we have this with this principle called meeting people where they are. And I firmly believe in that in life in general. I didn't used to be this way, but I learned it through my coach training. And once that was given to me, I was like, wow, this is the most powerful gift I've ever had as a human being, is to meet people and see people where they are, and with empathy and with with compassion, and just be like, this is where you are. I'm not gonna make you feel judged or pushed away because of it. But that enables me to do my work. It's a hard thing to want to do and to learn to do. So I fully respect what you're saying. It's really hard for me to do.

SPEAKER_08 31:53

I can't like and maybe I could in two years, but I also just it just that path doesn't feel right for me. Mentoring people who I've known who genuinely want to talk to me and talking them through things love doing that. But it's informal and it's not for pay, it's just for people I care about.

SPEAKER_02 32:12

So this is really interesting because you learned something about yourself already in the past few months. What this being one example, what else have you learned about yourselves since you had the space to step away from the expectations, the identity, the community of work, from you know, like and it doesn't have to be profound. It could be really simple, like I like to sleep in my own bed. Um, you know, uh it could be anything. Um but I'm just curious because like this getting you just nailed very articulately something that is a non-negotiable for you. And this is often where that self-knowledge journey starts is figuring out what I don't want before you're able to say what I do want.

SPEAKER_08 33:00

I mean, I think we learned, so we spent three months traveling and we had a revert because we were in Tel Aviv during the bombing, and we were on the go. And we originally thought we wanted to travel all the time and live out of a suitcase. I think we learned that it's not what we want, like that was exhausting and fun. Don't get me wrong, it's awesome. It's all of these things, but I think we do want more roots. And and I learned the most important thing for me through that trip was community, not seeing I like, yes, I like to travel and see cool things, but like the community of people like we met on that trip. In some places we had community and in some places we didn't. And it turns out the most fulfilling places were where we had a community. And so that was something I think we both learned. I'm speaking for you, Rich. I don't know how you felt about that time.

SPEAKER_03 33:57

Oh, I definitely love the community aspect of where we found it and definitely felt more connected in those spaces. Sure. Um I think what uh I really thought about what this time means to me until you ask that question, to be honest. Uh just in that few short minutes, I think what has occurred to me is like I think for myself, I'm successful in a lot of areas. Um obviously got here because of it. Luck and hard work was involved. Um successful in my relationship, very happy, very much in love. But at times I find myself scared with what I'm gonna do next. I think that's probably the most honest thing to say about what art journey so far is that I am scared at times not of losing anything, just about what I might find out about myself. So um definitely want to do hard things. Um I did a drag show super hard. I that mindset of I want to do hard things and that has really propelled like that learning about myself, and I and I have shared with Lizzie about finding my place and what that might look like, and it's been a great journey so far.

SPEAKER_02 35:32

That's awesome, man. I I love that you use the word both uh the you brought the fear part forward because the fear part is real for all of us. Um is like what am I going to find in the quiet that is here? Because sometimes we keep ourselves busy so we don't have to hear things or see things or recognize things. And so the quiet is intimidating, the space is intimidating. It's both a gift and it's also terrifying because it's like, well, what do I what do I find out? And um I know I went through a period of trying to just quiet that fear and embrace it to be able to figure out what I am about. But it was it was both exciting and terrifying. Because you you just like, what if I find out something I'm not ready to find out? What if I or I'm not ready to accept right? And when you go through that process, um again, you have safety. You have your basic needs met and covered. So there's no downside to to having this exploration, but like it it there could be a bit of a personal reckoning with who you are, or and maybe even sadness. Like out out of mine came a period of and I still have a period of sadness because I realized that I took a fork in the road in my life early on in college that could have had a very different story, and maybe one that would have been better for me. Not financially, not in every way, shape, or form, but spiritually, it could have been a lot better for me. Um and I would have you know, I I could have had a very different outcome. I could have been a very different person, and that was scary for me to recognize and to have to accept. It's like, you know, and that's why I wrote the book that I wrote um is called Taking the Steeper Path to Greater Goals, because I found that the biggest thing that dictated the story of my life was taking the clearer path to lesser goals. So going into, and it sounds the world's smallest violin is going to play for all of us. When we talk about going into tech uh in the 90s and being a part of the boon that happened that brought us all a lot of gifts and blessings that many people would like to have, it also came at a cost, and there is a cost to anything we do. Um, and that to me was the clearer path. It was like, oh, do this and you'll be financially secure. Do this and you'll be uh, you know, involved in the hottest and greatest thing. You'll have social status, you'll have uh recognition, you'll have whatever from your peers. And supposed to do this.

SPEAKER_03 38:26

Yeah, this is what this is what a person looks like.

SPEAKER_02 38:29

Right. I mean, what parent would ever fault their kid for like you know being financially secure? And you know.

SPEAKER_08 38:37

It's funny. I like I hear you and Rich talk, like Rich and I have had these discussions of looking back. I'm like a goldfish. Like I don't like I don't ever rehash that part of my career. I took a path and I'm thankful for it, and that's it. I don't know why. Like I don't, but like looking forward without a roadmap makes me feel uncomfortable, right? And so it's funny, I don't I think of kids now with AI and tech, and that's gone away, right? Like this is it is not what we had, it's never going to be. Um, and you know, even you know, my kids didn't go to Harvard, didn't have the Stanford degree or whatever to go work at tech companies, which was what when you and I, where we lived, what they were encouraged to do. And now I'm glad they didn't. They're doing things they love. So I guess I see it more in reflected in I'm glad my kids made choices that made them happy. But I have no hindsight in this. I do have I do recognize patterns of like what we talked about with the knitter. Oh, this isn't gonna work for me because it came from that time. But to me, the cost of it outweighs the benefits now. I don't know what else it would have been, right? Like I had a I had a hell of a ride. It was super fun. And yeah, it was stressful and there were shitty things and all sorts of stuff and shitty people.

SPEAKER_02 40:05

But you also had fun.

SPEAKER_08 40:08

I had fun.

SPEAKER_02 40:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 40:09

So okay, but now, but then it'd be it when when the days were more unfun than fun, right? On a compound basis, that's when I was done.

SPEAKER_02 40:20

Yeah, totally get it. I would argue that you didn't choose the clearer path to lesser goals in that case. You chose the path that felt right to you at the time and you got on it.

SPEAKER_08 40:33

And which I have done before, because I left tech for 10 years before and did fashion and then came back. So maybe that's why I'm kind of like, oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 40:43

Yeah. You tried something else and you learned some lessons.

SPEAKER_08 40:47

And I remember someone said to me, I remember thinking, I don't know how I feel about that statement. They said, I am just so impressed that you got hired at Google when you were over 50. And I was like, wow. Okay. I don't know how I feel about that, but I never saw all right.

SPEAKER_02 41:09

Yeah. I think it plays into the narratives that are out there today that anyone over 40 and tech is like uh an athlete. You're useless. You know, nobody's gonna put you on the team if you're over 40.

SPEAKER_08 41:22

And so maybe for me, like I left and then I came back, and I came back for a reason, and it was I needed to support myself. Yeah. Right. Um, and so I guess I don't because I went through that once, I don't have the same once.

SPEAKER_02 41:37

I think that's a really important question and distinction for your journey, because most people listening to this don't know anything about you or what what you did, but you what you left tech and then you started your own clothing line. Mm-hmm. And then you ended up on a reality TV show.

SPEAKER_04 41:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:55

And that's a pretty non-traditional fact that if there isn't a steeper path, I don't know what is, because fashion is incredibly challenging and difficult at every level.

SPEAKER_08 42:05

Yeah. And then I was selling big orders to Nordstrom and QVC, and it was so stressful, and it was a small business at a point where I needed cash and I didn't want to risk cash because I had kids and didn't make sense. So I thought, oh, I'll just go back to tech. And I guess it never occurred to me that that would be hard.

SPEAKER_02 42:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 42:27

Never occurred to me that that would be hard. I went to a startup and then I went to Amazon, back to Microsoft and Google and Cisco.

SPEAKER_02 42:34

Right.

SPEAKER_08 42:35

And I guess it's not normal that you just walk in and do that.

SPEAKER_02 42:39

Not really. I mean, there are women who take a six-month maternity break who feel like they're unhirable again after leaving for six months. So it's it's you're right. It doesn't happen all the time. But you have a certain confidence and fearlessness that I don't know everybody has that enables you to just walk right in the room and say, hey, I'm back, hire me. That's you know, that's your personality, I think. And and you're also awesome at what you do. And and people are lucky to work with you. I think that's true. But I'm I'm curious about the itch that led you to do the fashion thing. Because I don't think I've ever talked to you about this. Like, when did you wake up and say uh I want to leave tech and make clothes?

SPEAKER_08 43:23

Um so I I grew up in Michigan where it's all about security and job security. That this is a part of who I I have been. And so I actually wanted to go into fashion in college. So I did take a couple fashion courses, but I didn't think I could make a living at it because that that part of me, you know, that sort of you know, very logical part of me thought, nah, this isn't gonna work. Right. And so then when um I left corporate life, originally it was in my head to stay home and take care of the kids. Two people working at Microsoft in the 90s was not a recipe for raising children, right? It was not. And so originally I thought, well, I'm going to stay home, but then it just started to come out. And I'm like, well, why not try this? And so I just kind of started trying things. And I had a friend who worked in fashion and taught me how to make patterns. And it just made sense to me. So I will say this that journey into fashion was one where I didn't look at any other paths and I just went and then it became all consuming again in a different way that was stressful that I didn't like. Glad I did it. Super fun. Crazy experiences, right? Crazy experiences really taught me a lot about how to make product, probably more than if I stayed in tech, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:49

What did you what did you learn about the fashion craziness versus the tech craziness that taught you like uh looked under the stone, saw some things that I didn't want to see, put the stone back down, walked away. Because I think this is really interesting because you basically chose to explore your own steeper path midway career, went back to your old career, and now are on your third act in many ways.

SPEAKER_08 45:17

Um, so the the process is the same as building any product, right? You do a prototype, you scale it, you mass produce it, or whatever you do. So that part, very, very similar. Yeah, the underbelly of fashion, and Rich can talk about this because we were in Italy, is so ugly, and they they there's a word called garmento. Like it is a shady, shady business unless you're a giant designer, right? Like I've walked LA factory floors where it's the it's not good. Everyone's like, oh, it's made in the US. Okay, have you been to the factory? Right.

SPEAKER_02 45:55

Sweatshops, you know, like unsafe conditions, illegal immigrants.

SPEAKER_08 46:00

I had someone who like mismanufactured things for QVC. They wanted to be paid up front. So contracts and just shady, shady stuff about what you're doing. Um fashion. Do you want me to be a good one?

SPEAKER_02 46:14

I'm going to have to pause because the gardener is just shooting up. Thanks, guys. Let me just remove my dog who's barking her head off. Um, can you grab Millie? She is ruining my podcast.

SPEAKER_08 46:29

I don't think she's ruining. I think she's additive. This is life now. I don't think you should take that out. I had to take Ace away, our little dog, because he was eating the string from Rich's shorts.

SPEAKER_02 46:42

Man, oh man. Sorry about that, guys. So the garmento world.

SPEAKER_08 46:48

So it was just so the thing that was refreshing about it is you either sell or you don't. There's one metric. There's no around, like it either sold or it didn't.

SPEAKER_02 46:58

Or it didn't.

SPEAKER_08 46:59

But when you're a small designer, like stores will take your product in. If it doesn't sell, you're the one that gets returned to. So it's very harsh. Number one. Um, it's very um a lot of schlepping. Everyone's like, oh, it's so glamorous, the fashion show. 10 minutes of glamour, hours, like I've been at trade shows steaming garments with no air conditioning. Like you're carrying shit everywhere. And it is, there's a click. It's very high school.

SPEAKER_07 47:27

Right.

SPEAKER_08 47:28

But I think the thing that was the most interesting is the metric of selling can be dependent on so many things, it's not super predictable. Yeah. Right? Like some celebrity could wear something and it blows up, and then you have another problem of not being able to meet demand. Right. You just don't know.

SPEAKER_02 47:47

It's capital intensive, and you have to be able to meet the demand or forecast correctly, or you end up with a ton of inventory and liquidation, or you can't sell enough because you can't make enough.

SPEAKER_08 48:01

And people and and people are mean and judgmental. Like, I can't tell you the amount of times you'd get the one. What do you mean you're from Seattle? Or like you don't know any, like just mean, especially mean. Mean. You know?

SPEAKER_04 48:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 48:16

And it would, and so in a weird way, Amazon felt far gentler and kinder than fashion. Wow. So I I would say it's cutthroat, is it's shark tank and it's cutthroat.

SPEAKER_04 48:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 48:33

And so at in tech, there are things with relationships that we came to like and dislike, right? Like that relationships mattered. They do not in fashion. Either sold or you didn't. It's uh like it's very cutthroat, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_02 48:47

Very transactional in your experience.

SPEAKER_08 48:48

Very transactional. Which in one way makes it super clear. In another way, it it can be soul sucking.

SPEAKER_02 48:57

Yeah. And the creative aspect of it that you thought might be there, or the ability to express yourself, was that fulfilling in any way?

SPEAKER_08 49:05

Or so it's interesting. What I found the more I went was um it is very hard to be creative on a deadline. And I don't like designers who are able to do it, more power to them. Like, um, and that's why they are where they are. That's why Tom Ford does what he does, right? Like he he has that ability. For me, what would happen was I'd have a very internal battle that became very unenjoyable, which is if I make it this way, I like how it looks and it's more creative, but I can't mass manufacture it because it'll be too expensive. So, like that process of being practical, right brain versus left brain, become became really hard for me. Um and and so as you grow a business in the beginning, it's all fun. But as you grow this, it becomes more like now. I have to monitor the sell through at Nordstrom, then did it sell? Like I remember going to Nordstrom Racks and I was getting complaints, my stuff wasn't selling, what wasn't even out on the floor. And so that kind of that became more of the the work, and that really stopped you from being creative.

SPEAKER_04 50:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 50:14

So I think that if I was a funded designer where I just had to go think, it might be a little easier. I was doing everything because I was a small business, so that made it hard.

SPEAKER_02 50:24

Yeah, makes sense.

SPEAKER_08 50:26

But I learned a lot, so I can't, you know, I went on QVC, it was terrifying, learned a lot.

SPEAKER_02 50:34

Yes. You went through a lot of, I mean, amazing uh set of experiences that you know you're my only friend that I know in the world who can say they've been on a reality TV show or on QVC. So hats off.

SPEAKER_08 50:49

I will say QVC is the scariest thing I've ever done.

SPEAKER_02 50:52

I can only imagine. Why was it so scary?

SPEAKER_08 50:56

Um you're live into a hundred million household households. Um you you practice, but like there's no people on the set. So the cameras all move, and there's so much going on. You have something in your ear. People have seen this in movies. There's something in your ear, you're talking with the host, there are numbers going on, and you it's just terrifying because you don't want to look stupid in front of all these people, right? Like, like you, and like this is not like a demo that crashes and you can like make a joke and walk off. Like the week before I went on, someone passed out on air. They were so nervous and it became a meme, right?

SPEAKER_02 51:36

Like dang. So yeah. I I get it now, I get it. I I mean it's a cool experience, and I'm sure. Oh, well, let me ask you this. Did you regret doing it? No. Yeah. I didn't think so. Yeah. No. So you learned a lot about yourself.

SPEAKER_08 51:55

Again, do I think I was made for it? No, there I did see people there who loved it and were made for it. I was not.

SPEAKER_02 52:03

So the cool thing about what you did was you stepped into another possibility for your life and what it could have looked like, and you tried it on for size, and most people don't get the opportunity or have the courage to do something like that. So I think that's really cool and quite an advantage for you and Rich in what you're trying to do today, because you've you you know a little bit about where the bodies are buried and what narratives can how narratives can lead you to do something that may not be the right thing for you. Um because yeah, uh this whole thing where I talk about the fork in the road for me, I never took the time to go down that fork far enough to find out whether it was actually just a narrative, whether it was just a story I told myself. And that actually it wouldn't have been for me if I had tried it on for size. Um and so I think this is really great that you had the chance to do that and got a almost a warm-up for the stage you guys are in now.

SPEAKER_08 52:59

Yeah. It's but it's funny though, it's funny that I chose when I think about this, what we were saying when I was like, oh, I think I'll do something, and I'll think it'll be fashion again. And I'm like, hmm, as I'm talking right now, uh Didn't I learn?

SPEAKER_04 53:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:19

I get it. I get it. Rich, did you have any experimentation or U-turns? I mean, I know you started out with a career in the military and then moved out of that.

SPEAKER_03 53:29

And there's conversations you can show people by having a non-standard career to get to where you want to be. Yeah. Beautiful thing to show people. Yeah. So beautiful. Um like Lizzie, like I had a career 20 plus years in the army. Yeah. So my structure was athletics in the military. Yeah, 20 years at all. I retired over ten years ago. And then went and did like what I call the halfway. I took a job working for DOD. I was doing four. Then that job left, and I got my undergrad my MBA, which I thought at the time as a kid, I would never be able to be that on undergraduate. Amazing, let alone with a grad degree. One of my proudest moments as an individual achievement to do that. And proved myself that I'm capable of doing it. Um that mindset of being capable of doing it is what I'm looking forward to embracing it again. And I think I've used that um over the five years embracing like what do I want to do. Um Dizzy has seen that come up more and more in our journey together. Um I think both of us are starting to see the fruit of our labor as like the season coming to the ground now about time to lose how I look at it. And it's uh such a wonderful thing to be able to do. But it does have some consequences. We mentioned before, like all three of us have very much going to the mindset of we know what success looks like. How do you find success when you don't? Yeah, so we're wrong. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:45

Is it um has your definition started to emerge or to shift in terms of what success might look like in this period of life?

SPEAKER_03 55:56

Yes. I think it has for sure. I I'll include myself in this sentence like we're all preconditioned. Success is dictated by other by other means. Um So recently I looked at a success and it's like I made it up today at six o'clock in the morning and didn't yell at a dog. For being a dog at six o'clock in the morning getting up. So to me, that is a success. So those things have been uh more eye-opening and more emotional as I talk about it experience.

SPEAKER_02 56:38

Yeah, man. I'm asking you this because this is what's gonna be the the signposts on the roadmap you guys are on now, or the milestones. It's like starting to notice what it looks like to find um or to redefine success for you. Because the the old metrics are we you you've chosen to walk away from it. Um and money is not the goal at this point in time. So if it's not the goal, then what is? And that's what you have to kind of create your own new currency around, and that's what this journey that you guys are now, you know, only about six months into um will will continue to be about um is is sort of like what is the what are those metrics? What does it look like in what there's this exercise that um I do with a lot of people that I uh did with myself a long time ago that is the hardest one of the hardest exercises I've done in coaching. It's called the perfect day. And the perfect day, Lizzie's smiling because she knows about the perfect day exercise, the perfect day is uh you write a story from uh the perspective of two things. In a world where you have no restrictions on resources, your time, health, or money, you had abundance, you didn't have to do anything. All your basic needs are met. And in fact, they're more than met. You could do things that most people couldn't. What would your perfect sustainable day that you could live over and over again for the rest of your life look like? And don't just say something at a high level, and don't just say something at a hedonistic tape, you know, like, oh man, I would go do this crazy thing, uh, you know, I would I would indulge all day in pleasures and excess. It's like, no, you'll die if you do that every day, you know. It gets boring. It's gotta be like what what would feel sustainable and fulfilling? Write that out hour by hour from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep and give me all the details about it. Where what would you see the moment you opened up your eyes? What would your bedroom be like? What would be out the window? Who would be next to you if anybody is next to you? What would you have for breakfast? What would you talk about at breakfast? And just go through every part of the day. And man, this is the hardest thing in the world to do. And the reason I'm curious Lizzie has been through this before. I'd love to hear her part, but I mean the hard reason I say it's the hardest thing to do is like you either do one of two things. You either have never ever indulged in thinking this way, and so it's like, God, I don't even know where to start. Or you swing too low. I have never had anybody bring me one of these things where they were like, Wow, dude, that's pretty over the top. I think you need to rein this thing in, you know. Most people who do it are like I'm like, really? That's it? Oh come on, you have more you you could do more than that. You know? And and they have to be given permission to even dream bigger. Right? And so I think this is um part of the process. Just like doing an exercise like this, you're doing it in real time. You're actually here right now in a situation where you don't have restrictions on your time. You have your basic needs met. You know, you you got you have some options to do things, to travel, to invest in a new business, to take courses, to go volunteer, to paint paintings, to write songs, to work at Walmart, whatever the hell you want to do, you know, like you could do whatever you wanted. Um, but that is overwhelming at the same time. So, like, I'm curious, Lizzie, when you thought about this and and how you think about it every day, what when what was hard for you to imagine a world where you had choices?

SPEAKER_08 1:00:52

So I did this exercise with you, and the day there are similarities with the day I put down and not similarities, because at the time I thought it was all about travel and things like that. And now to me, it's not, right? Like I like sleep, so sleep that part didn't change. I like good quality food, so that part didn't change. I think what's changed to me is it's not about a location or what I wake up and what I'm seeing. It's who I'm with. There are pods of people that I want to spend time with, and that to me is a perfect day. And those pods of people are all over the world. So in this world now, I have a jet, so I can fly with our bulldog. So that might be a little over the top, but that would be my perfect day, right? Because you can't drive to Tel Aviv to see your friends, so we do have to fly. And I don't want to leave Ace because he's part of our family. So in my perfect day, we have a jet. Okay and it has no turbulence ever because I don't want and I can sleep on it, right? We have Taylor Swift's jet, like she lends it to me, and maybe we're besties. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:59

That's cool. I like that.

SPEAKER_08 1:02:00

So um, to me, like, and it's I think the other thing is too, we talked about there are two things about this. We talked about the perfect day gets me back into that structure of 24 hours. And what I was thinking when you were saying this is it's not it's the perfect month or the perfect year because I can't possibly do ever see everyone I'd want to see in one day. It's not possible. And I can't, and that is a hard requirement, right? Like you can't change spend time. Like, okay, so then maybe my perfect day is I have star port or Star Trek transporter technology, right? But I don't, that's not realistic. So I like to have so to me, I think it's also reframing it into the perfect month, knowing I can't fit everything into a day.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:48

Yeah. I love that actually. That's a really cool addition or tweak to this. And I I didn't invent this exercise. I I learned it from another guy who spoke at a conference in like 1990 that I saw a YouTube video of. He's not even a coach, he works in marketing. And um I was just so like, wow, this is such a cool exercise to do, to put yourself through. But now that I think about it, the day framing is given from a perspective of that's what most of us can wrap our head around. And and now you don't have those boundary boxes, you can actually expand that out into something way bigger now. Because it's a day is you you don't have just a day, you have the rest of your life to think through.

unknown 1:03:38

Right?

SPEAKER_08 1:03:38

And so if you think of it in month chunks or year chunks, like I want to spend time with these people, I want to be in this place, I want to do the right, like that to me is a little more. And I don't think I could have made that jump when like I think you do it when you're working because that's how you frame your time. But then I think the exercise after you've decided to do something else is more that because to me, the other thing is I know there's a bucket of I want to make something, I don't know, but I don't know what I want to make. That's okay. I don't know either. To me, but the other thing that you brought up that is real that people are like, oh, this is all nice that people ask us who know me, ask me more, is oh my god, what about money? Like, how much money do I need? Like, what do I need? Like money, like, look, the deal is like you're used to accumulating more money and all of a sudden it stops. Right. And I we had dinner with friends' parents. Do you remember that, Rich, over Friendsgiving when we it was a bunch of retired couples, and it was friends' parents, and they were talking to us and giving us advice about this because they they all went through this whole the real the brass tacks of this is it takes resource and you have to plan. You do 100%. I don't think that there's any number that you can give someone to make them feel better. You have to go through and work what your budget is, what you need, how you want to live, and work with a professional. That's what I always tell people because you're too emotional. And so I don't know if it's a million dollars or ten million dollars or whatever it is you need. I I don't, I just know you can only pull 4%, and that's very simple math. But but you like are so used to your wealth growing and like buying the bigger house and the better car, and that that that stops, right? Like that all stops. And then like we had on our trip, the stock market crashed. So you have moments of like right, like you like our friends told us don't look at the account, don't look at the account daily, just make sure our job is to stay within our budget. And if we don't, so for example, I used to have a lot of get with this, like we had to leave. Israel, it caught it added substantial amount of expense for us. But what was my choice? Sitting with bombs over our head? Right. No, right? Like that's a very clear choice. But when you're looking at your budget, you're like, oh, I kind of fucked that up.

unknown 1:06:16

Right.

SPEAKER_08 1:06:16

The budget. But like you have to like plan for the unexpected and be okay with it. That's why you have savings, but you're so used to putting things in a pile that changes. And I don't that is the reality, and you have to get comfortable with that, or you can't do this part. Because it's a whole nother level of things you can be anxious or stressed about.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:41

100%. Yeah, the the journey you have been on was a very adult and very planful journey. I want to be very clear about this one because I never advocate for people to do things that are net harmful to themselves or to their families. You know, even if you're miserable in your job, uh unless it's causing you the amount of harm that's it's really really very, very toxic in that. You generally want to make sure you can have some sort of a reasonable transition plan. And and when you go off on a journey this big, in which you walk fully away from your career, you gotta do the work to get yourself in that position, to have a planner, to plan ahead, to know what your budget is, to know what lifestyle you're comfortable with.

SPEAKER_08 1:07:26

It took us about six months.

unknown 1:07:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:07:29

Right? Like we worked with a planner, and luckily we're, you know, Rich is in the army, so has a pension, which is guaranteed. My investments go like this. So, so like we but then we also had to downsize. That's the other thing. That's right. Like, like, what do you want? Right?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:44

Like you can't have it all.

SPEAKER_08 1:07:46

You cannot. And downsizing for us was freeing. You know, others are like, How do you live in a stud, like, how do you do this? It's a choice. So you have to make choices and be okay with them and really think through them. It's not something you just, I think I want to do this, right? Like, unl unless you're like Jeff Bezos or Bill Git. Like, you we're not those people, and it does take a plan.

unknown 1:08:15

It does take.

SPEAKER_08 1:08:15

And that plan could be 10 years long, but having a plan helps. That's the one thing I will say. Having a plan helps.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:24

And that plan buys you the space to be able to think about things like your perfect month or year. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:08:32

But that is reality, right? Like that is totally reality. Like it's otherwise you can't. And so this all like I think people think, oh, this all sounds so nice, but like that I think is the number one question I got. Like, how did you get there?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:46

Yep.

SPEAKER_08 1:08:47

How did you get there?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:49

And I was with you on this journey uh and saw the the deliberateness you put into this and the sacrifice you put into this, because you were not having a great time in your work for a long time. And you wanted nothing more than for the pain to stop. But you played a long game and you planned, and you were responsible and method and methodical about how you approached it. And oh I think the point you're making is really critical. Um this both the option to be able to live and take a more unconventional path, you either have to be born rich, which none of us were, uh, and have that kind of inherited generational wealth you can fall back on. Or if you're not that person, you've got to work and save and invest and be deliberate and make smart choices and be planful and put up with stuff you don't want to put up for with for a long time, potentially. And then you need to make sure you're responsible about what can I really afford with what I have and what's my number, right? Um people ask me all the time, like, well, how much money do I need to do this? And the answer I tell them is enough. They're like, Well, how much is enough? I'm like, that answer is specific to you. Because for me, enough might be a studio, but for you, it might be a four-bedroom because you have two kids who are adults still living with you. I mean, I can't tell you what that number is. Um, you know, and so for you, um, you know, having one car that the family shares might be fine. For another person, they may not have the ability to do that because they have too many people needing to drive a car. So you have to really be honest about it and ask yourself, what's enough for me? And both of us, you know, went from living in San Francisco in the city, um, with the city lifestyle and expenses that come with it, to now living in really different places and really different homes.

SPEAKER_08 1:10:45

Yep. Right. And I like it, but you also like Rich and I talked really openly about this. That's the other thing. Like, if you have a partner and you guys can't talk about this, like that's not gonna work that's not gonna work, right? Because like we talked super openly about how like we went through the budget, how we wanted to live, and certain priorities, right? Like there are certain things I'm not willing to do because I like I, you know, we were willing to give up living in San Francisco because if we wanted to retire and maintain the lifestyle we have, that's probably five more years, 10 more years of work. Yeah, we were willing to to change that. I'm not willing to change to fly in seat 52D for 12 hours to Europe. I'm not, I don't have to fly first class, but it's incredibly uncomfortable for me. So the you know, you make those trade-offs and making them in terms of priorities, not in terms of judgment. Yes. Right? Yes. I would rather have less but higher quality than more of everything in a giant house.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:53

I'm with you. I'm with you. Not everybody is with us, but yeah, I get it.

SPEAKER_08 1:11:59

And things that are functional for this for the place we're in. So that is probably, I would say, both of our number one priorities. Like things that are functional. We had this little fiat, which we loved, but not super functional in Denver, Colorado.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:15

Yep. Yep. It was a good San Francisco car, not necessarily a good mountain car.

SPEAKER_08 1:12:20

And we went back and forth of like we did a a camper van or a uh we did van life in Europe after Tel Aviv. Um, and we thought about doing it here, but then we actually did the research and realized we'd have to spend a lot of time fixing things, and we're not those people. That's not enjoyable to us.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:41

I mean, that's what we're talking about. Yeah, this conversation really led me to think how much of our resources we want to put into something or into someone.

SPEAKER_08 1:12:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:51

I get it.

SPEAKER_08 1:12:51

I get it. And so we, you know, we and we wanted a hybrid, and we want so we ended up, you know, getting a hybrid SUV, and it's been great. But the reason it's great is because it's functional for what we want to do. And so I think that is our our number one thing. Is it functional for what we want to do and are we gonna use it? Right. I love it. And those those are the things where I think you start finding yourself, right? And small things like you redid, like the physical things that were part of one life letting go, even things like wardrobe, right? I recently like my whole wardrobe was San Francisco black, right? Black V-neck, jacket, like it was all, and I'm like, I this is not is not functional for my life right now. Like I feel like I look like a caterer in Denver, right? Or speak easy without the facial hair, right? Like I so you know, things like that are interesting to kind of let go of.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:50

Yeah. That's really cool. Speaking of um the two of you going through this journey, uh, I could relate to that really important thing you said that if you have a partner, you need to be able to speak really openly about this stuff and get on the same page. Um you guys are not that long in your history together, and this was a huge step off into uh another chapter of your relationship and your work. So it's even it's like double important in many ways. What are the things that you guys talked about and and what did you struggle with, and what would you recommend other people with partners do to kind of get through this? Because this is a values alignment. This is about getting on the page, the same page about a lot of things. And hopefully, if you pick the right partner, it's not a hard conversation, and maybe it's difficult at times, but it's not like, oh my god, we didn't know who each other was. Um but like I we have little rules in my relationship, like, you know, buy nice or buy twice. We don't go, we don't buy the cheapest thing for the sake of the cost being low. We look at the big picture, right? So when we decide to move and we have to buy new things, we don't have to argue over should we buy this one or that one, because the rule is is this thing gonna need to be replaced in a year because we bought the cheap thing? Or should we have bought the one that was the mid-priced one and it would last for five? And so, like having a philosophy about something like that when you're making a move, you're gonna buy a lot of new things when you move to a new location. And so you gotta kind of go through all this process. What did you guys work through?

SPEAKER_08 1:15:28

I don't think that that we were pretty aligned on what we wanted to buy. I mean, I wouldn't you say Rich.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:34

Yeah, for sure. I think a lot of our values were aligned naturally, and she didn't even need to bring them up kind of thing. She was just fortunate enough to be that way.

SPEAKER_08 1:15:45

And I'm the planner and researcher, so I would bring options and I'm like, I think we should do this. Like I it was very I'd like there was nothing very smooth there.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:54

I think that I'd much rather be the labor or the driver or person to go get the things. And yeah, really, that's my strength. And I think finding a partner and playing to each other's strengths as individuals and as a couple. Like for me, planning something like a trip would drive me crazy and insane, and I'll be irritable, and that would affect my relationship with my spouse, right? So please take care of it.

SPEAKER_08 1:16:20

And then I'm like a crazy planner with like, I want I'm very particular where we stay.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:26

I know, and I'm not, so it works out great.

SPEAKER_08 1:16:29

So and then I also have like I'll say, like, we're going to San Diego, and so we're gonna stay at like this Americana hotel. And like for me, it's about the experience.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:40

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_08 1:16:41

But then I also have the bougie side of me where when we left Tel Aviv and went to Athens, I'm like, we're staying at the four seasons because I've stayed there and we're gonna spend some resources, and you are fine with it. And then I'm like, but I'm gonna tell you, it's gonna ruin you. And what happened?

SPEAKER_03 1:16:55

It ruined me. But uh but I think like what you said earlier, Lynn, about communication is really the key, whether you'll be with a partner or not, yeah. Um is really what was our strength with us. It has some ups and downs, but I think overall, like we're way, way stronger now than we've ever been. Um even with a life change of like moving to a new city, retirement, like leaving behind a lifestyle that we've both enjoyed. Um and the benefits of it are amazing. Um, just amazing.

SPEAKER_08 1:17:34

Yeah, and so the finance part wasn't, I think, the thing that we I don't want to say struggle because we do openly talk about things. We were living in a he rich would get up at five and wouldn't be back till eight at night. I'd be in the apartment all day alone, and now we're in like 650 square feet or a camper van and together all the time. And so working through that rhythm, I think I don't want to say that we argued about it, but it had that was our challenge, right? I am I am a morning person at all. I like to sleep in, and I don't like to be spoken to until at least 10 in in the morning. And so we'd have mornings where Rich would be like, Hi, how are you doing? Blah blah blah. And and and it's and I'm like, I I can't so like just like being honest about those things, and it's not personal to the other person, but figuring out how you exist in 24 hours together is I think the work that's the more I don't want to say difficult, but the more um the other stuff is resources. That's like, you know. So I don't know what would you say to that, Rich.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:47

I think you're spot on. I think the the aspect of retina no matter what age you are in your relationship is, what do you do with that time that is now available that you didn't have before? Um I know Lizzie is very much a person who enjoys her peace and quiet. Right? Above above anything else, because that's her safety is her peace and quiet. For me, I like a little more edge at times. I like the aspect of like a last minute go and see in a concert. That's an example. I've done in Denver without Lizzie. Um but we've had to have that conversation like how does one recharge their batteries? To be truthful for themselves and to be there for their partner, like we're in this together, not like we're doing a solo. So you have that that that kind of mindset to go into it.

SPEAKER_08 1:19:47

But then also say it's okay for you to go do this on your own, but you still want to maintain a connection and that it's healthy, right? And so for both of us, there was a fear in that, but like I think the physical need of like I go like after this weekend with uh we were with a bunch of people, like I needed to recharge, and recharging for me means not leaving the apartment, being in my sweats, cooking, like I don't want to see, and for Rich, it means, oh, there's an emo show. I think I want to go. And I think you have to be able to work through the fact that that's okay to do both, but like I don't want him to stay home and be antsy, and I don't want to go and be miserable. So being really honest about that, right? Yeah, is important. So coming together for the things you like to do. We love road trips, we let, you know, like, and even working through I have weird depth perception issues when we're driving on mountain roads that I have to tell him it's not your driving. I'm just feeling a little like being really open about just things that you see on TV that couples fight about, right? That's the like not the money part, because that you have to be aligned on. If you're gonna fight on that, you shouldn't even go here, in my opinion. Yeah, right. Like, but then it's like the the things of like you're driving too fast and I feel scared. It's not you, it's because I'm seeing things in a weird way and I feel uncomfortable, right? And so being able to say it like that versus like white knuckling, you we've all seen the husband and wife on vacation with the white you know, all the stereotypes. It's not that. It's I see things differently and I'm afraid, right? So those I think are the where I don't they're not being in a relationship where you can say that, which neither of us have been, the uncomfortableness is feeling okay to verbalize it. It's my own, it's not you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 1:21:51

I feel you.

SPEAKER_08 1:21:53

But those are things like if you're gonna be together 24 hours a day, like shit changes.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:58

It's gonna come up. It's gonna come up. It will. And also being with yourself 24 hours a day. Right? Not just together, but with yourself. Because like I said, when you're at work, you've got everybody else's priorities and noise in your hair. And now you're like, gosh, it's just me with my thoughts, and you know, my flaws and my impulses and my all the stuff I've gotta manage now. I've gotta now listen to myself more than I used to have to do. And now I gotta then translate that into a relationship. So space is good, it it surfaces a lot, but it also can be scary at times.

SPEAKER_08 1:22:35

Yeah. So those those are the and that's when you're really getting down to it, right? So my if I was going to give advice, I'd be like, work out the finances before you do anything and see if you can talk openly. But then this is what comes up, right? Yep.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:52

That was what I was gonna ask you next, is that if you met somebody like you in your position that you were a year ago, what advice would you give them? Or how would you what learnings would you pass on of of what you've taken from your journey of walking away from a perfectly good career, set of careers, and deciding to walk a different path, to go about it a different way, and to redefine what success looks like for you.

SPEAKER_08 1:23:23

It's funny because people have asked me this, and I go to one piece of advice that actually you gave me.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:32

I love it. Okay, well, give it again.

SPEAKER_08 1:23:34

What's a year your life worth? Right? Like if you're miserable in your job and you are having anxiety, like this is a lot of the conversations I've had because a lot of my friends work in tech and it's very stressful and it's very demanding right now, and it is what it is. And some people are doing really well, some people are not, and I'm like, what is the year of your life worth? And that to me, when you said that to me, I was like, it is not this, it is not worth this for me. And so that was probably the clarifying statement. And then all the advice about all the other stuff we gave, yeah, that's workable, but like that looking at that question honestly is I think the the starting point to being honest with yourself.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:22

You want to give some more context on what we mean by what is a year of your life worth financially?

SPEAKER_08 1:24:29

Is that financially, emotionally, health-wise, who you are as a person, right? Like if you're like not super enjoying your your life and going through the motions just to pay the rent, like is that worth it? Could you have a small thing?

SPEAKER_03 1:24:44

Not being used doing things that would be enjoyed. Yes, right? Which is where I've come from.

SPEAKER_08 1:24:50

Yeah. Because I I think I post I told you that when Rich when Len said that, and we had a long conversation about it. Yeah, yeah. So it's all of the things, right? Like, do I need to live in the city in an $8,000 a month apartment where I have to door dash everything because I can't even get up from my computer to go to the bathroom? What is that worth to me? Not a year of my life. Like, you know, time is the one. I think I've seen like Warren Buffett talk about this. It's the one resource you like you you don't know how much you have and you don't get any more.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:30

Yeah. It's it's the ultimate level playing field for all of us. Bill Gates has no more time than you do.

SPEAKER_08 1:25:39

Nope.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:40

Right.

SPEAKER_08 1:25:41

And so you don't know, and you know, I think Len, you and I have talked about this. One of the pivotal moments over the last probably 15 years for me was a good friend of ours passed away from a heart attack at 50. And it was like this. And we Rich and I are close with his spouse, and like to me, what's a year of your life worth, right? Like, I knew for me, working the way I was working was not healthy and could put me on that path. I knew it. Right? Like, for me. Doesn't mean for everyone, for me. And so you don't know. I and I think I've heard now, I've seen more things saying, no one's ever looked back and said, God, I didn't work enough.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:29

Absolutely true.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:30

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:32

Absolutely true. There's a a book that was written by a um hospice nurse a couple of years ago, in which she had conversations with people who were dying. And the spoiler alert from that entire book, which is pretty hard to read and also beautiful and profound, is not a single person regretted any of the things that they've spent their life trying to do, not doing them more. Uh working more, uh being away from home more, being away from their friends more. They regretted everything but work. Right. And so it it's just sort of like, why does it take why are we so stubborn? Why are we so thick as a species? I don't know some days that we can't get to that realization sooner. Why do we have to die to see things clearly?

SPEAKER_08 1:27:28

And so, like, I don't want to say that like some people really do enjoy their work and that's great. Right? Like, and if that's the thing that they love, cool. And also, I don't want to say that like you should quit today because you might regret it. I I think that's the person that's the pivot you have to figure. Is is the next year of my and maybe you look at it in your chunks, is the next year of my life am I gonna be happy I spent my time this way? Because you don't know, right? And for me, that answer became no. That's right. And so then I had to start looking at how I could pivot.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:06

I want to double-click on the thing you said, and then I want to talk to Rich about his response here. But you said some people enjoy their work. Work is not work for them. And that is exactly what this is all about is how do we create a life of alignment? How do we create a life in which who we are, the gifts, the talents, the abilities that we have, uh how we work, our bodies, our brains, who we were born as, our genetic material, and then you build on top of all that foundation, your values, your interests, your passions, the things you care about every day. If you could have a job, quote unquote, in which everything that you were was in alignment with what you did, then you're not working anymore. And so, you know, that's the goal of even stepping away from a career like this is one, to do less harm, but two, to have a shot to figure out what is not work, but yet is productive to me, enjoyable, and fulfilling, and yet maybe even generates money. Maybe they'll generate more money. Doesn't always end up that way. But, you know, I would argue every person I've ever met who was an amazing and brilliant person in their industry, and I've met quite a few, they were having that level of success because of who they were, not because they worked any harder than you and me.

SPEAKER_08 1:29:35

And I will also say now, it's an unbelievable time in tech where I've never seen anything like this, and I think you would agree. Oh, yeah. Where with AI coming in, with constant layoffs, with the culture changing so dramatically, I've I've never seen so many people looking for a different alignment because of how the industry is evolving. So, like, I think that's also an important fact. Like, if you if we were having this conversation in the 90s when we were at Microsoft, we would have been like, I'm the hat, this is great, right? Like it's it's not right now.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:11

Yeah, I agree. There's nothing um I feel like it's the emperor's new clothes. Like, you know, everybody's already known for decades that the emperor was naked, but now you're actually there's there's no cost to saying he is, you know, because it's becoming clear.

SPEAKER_08 1:30:27

Um I'm super thankful for my timing in the industry. Yeah, it helped me get where I was, it helped me stay where I it helped me get here, but it also helped me exit at a time where it was no longer in alignment with what I want to do and who I want to be.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:42

Yeah, I I feel that. That's why I'm doing this work because I feel like this message of alignment is is something we all need to wrap our heads around. Is uh, you know, uh work doesn't have to be work. Work can be anything we want it to be as long as it feels good to us and who we are and how we're made and what we care about. And oftentimes you can make a living doing that too. But we just aren't encouraged to explore that.

SPEAKER_08 1:31:07

And I will say I think we met many people on our van trip that did that, don't you think, Rich, when we drove, we drove from Italy to Brussels and like we met a Dutch couple who retired but were bored, so they bought a chateau and like do like camping in Airbnb. They have their two dogs. Um, we just met, you know, like there was this Tuscarm with a family that ran it. And I don't know if it's an American thing, but the people we met during our road trip seemed to be completely aligned in what they were doing and happy about it.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:42

It's a beautiful thing. So you see, it's possible.

SPEAKER_07 1:31:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:31:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:49

Rich, tell me about what you would share with others if you run into somebody who's kinda in the same place as you guys were.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:13

Nobody ever told me it's okay. That's what I would tell you.

SPEAKER_07 1:32:18

Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:19

But why not? That's why I joined the military. That's why I say it's possibility of doing it. Possibility became reality of the military. A line made that is my line using your terminology. Yeah. It's made this journey easy. I would say if you have somebody that enjoys journey this has a single guy as a gold, then you will never be amazing. It's worth it. Physically, I don't want to be that seven year old dude with a smoothie on the back of the hood and don't enjoy all the hardware. Amen. And that is the underlying foundation of why I would tell somebody. Otherwise, I would get them, you know. Um earlier, no thing is not guaranteed our health. So what I can do now at 54, I'm not being able to do it at 65. So let's let's enjoy those things. And the other thing I told Lizzie, I think I told you this before, like that's the only way I can think of honoring you what they did to get to do it.

SPEAKER_08 1:33:48

Rich and I have said this, and I think you've said it, it feels disrespectful not to. Yes. More than it it was it felt scarier to keep going the way we were than do this. And when you get know that, then you have to then you have to pull the ripcord. And we both knew it. And we both knew we were getting there from probably the time we met, because it was something we shared that we wanted to travel, we wanted to like downsize, we wanted to do things differently.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:21

I I fully get it, and it's amazing. I actually wrote a post on LinkedIn last week about a client of mine um with their permission who got diagn who had a health scare, uh a pretty scary health scare, and was psyched about it. And I was like, wait a second, why are we psyched about being sick? And the after we dug into it, the thing she was psyched about was that the health scare gave her permission to accept what she already knew, which is that she needed to quit her job. But it gave this justified, ex publicly accepted reason to do it. Right? And I I think when you talk about like you you you already know a truth inside of you, but you just are afraid to accept it. Again, let's go back to the same logic with dying and and saying, I wish I hadn't done this. We don't need to get sick to give ourselves permission to not suffer. Right? We don't need to do that. That's not that's not not good for us. That's not loving yourself, that's not loving others, it's not respecting the work you put in. Why do you need to get sick to give yourself permission to leave a bad situation? Right? It doesn't add up. So, you know, I'm really grateful that you guys got here on your own without a forcing function, as we like to say in tech. I'm really grateful that you were deliberate and thoughtful in how you went about this. I'm really grateful to have been a part of your journey up to this point and to get you to tell some of this story to the world. And I'd love to have this conversation again in another six months or a year, because I think, you know, just to see this laboratory is helpful to for others to see, hey, we had careers, it was perfectly good. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, but it didn't feel right, so we decided we'd listen to our bodies and fix it. And now we've made big changes and we're kind of in that messy, the messy middle.

SPEAKER_08 1:36:26

It was the messy middle. It's the messy middle. And the other thing is people ask so many questions, right? People actually want us to have that forcing function. What has been funny is people can't comprehend we just did it. Yes. Like everyone's like, I forgot who asked me this. I don't, I can't remember where we were, Rich, but remember someone said to me, Did you leave work on your own or were you laid off? Right. I'm like, I wish I was laid off because then I would have gotten a patent. No, I just decided to, and it was like mind-boggling to them that like I would have made this choice when so many people are getting laid off, which is very sad. I get it, but I would have viewed being laid off as a gift.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:11

You and so many other people I know. Uh the Meta just had a big round of layoffs, and I used to work there and I know a lot of people there, and I have some clients there, and I actually had a number of people. When I wrote to them the night before and said, Hey, I know the news is coming out tomorrow. If you need anything, give me a shout. They're like, What I need you to do is pray I get laid off. And I was like, but but don't you got kids in college? You know, they want permission. They want permission to let go of the misery.

SPEAKER_08 1:37:43

Yep. And so I, you know, and that the other thing too for me is both my kids finish college and are self-sufficient. And so that's another piece of resource that's important. That's reality. Yeah. But yeah, I had a friend of mine, um, one of my mentors, who did not get laid off, but his boss laid himself off, and now he has more responsibility, and he's like, I don't want it.

SPEAKER_07 1:38:08

I feel you, man.

SPEAKER_08 1:38:10

So I think it's if the forcing function happens, and that's what I would say that like I see a lot of posts on LinkedIn pontificating and laying off and how scary it is. And it is, it's all of those things, but it's also an opportunity, depending on where you are, to really examine things.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:30

I agree. It can be a um a kick in the ass from the universe that people need sometimes. And sometimes it's the worst thing possible to happen to them. So, but yeah, embracing it is is the key, no matter what it is at the moment. Well, thank you guys for taking the time to talk and to share all this. And I know we'll be doing this again soon.

SPEAKER_08 1:38:52

Thank you. You've been you have been so helpful in our journey as both a friend and a coach. Like, um, the one thing I will say to end with, like, the other thing I've told people when they said, How did you do this? And I said, You had you need a coach and a therapist. You need both. And they're two different things. And you helped us clarify things, which I think is really important. Um, and then we each had our own therapist to work through our own baggage with this. So that was that's the last piece of advice I have.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:24

I love that one. I love that one. Well, thank you for your kind words and for your trust and for your friendship over the years. Um, it's rare that I get to work with somebody in the capacity both as a co-worker and friend one in one decade and client in another and still friend. Um, and so it's cool to be a part of these journeys with people and to do my work because you guys are actually a part of me being able to live my alignment. Because without you, I wouldn't be able to do what I do either. So thank you um for those kind words. And I do 100% agree that it's everything you just talked about, all the scaries, all the complexity. This is uh it's a head game. And if you're gonna try to walk through one of the scariest head games of your life alone, I mean, even if you have a partner or good friends who are wise, or parents, or whoever who's willing to help you, this is a different type of decision. And so having somebody who has a way to help you manage emotions and the the saboteur behaviors that are going to get in our way from our past, the narratives and the feelings that are gonna come up, and somebody who knows how to walk the path objectively forward is is a super helpful combination. So I'm so glad you guys invested in yourselves that way.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:45

Because you're here today because you made the not only did the hard work, but you also invested in yourselves how much leaving comfort, nothing to lose, two shadow trails, a rocky crowd, my purpose, my meaning fine, each step brings to face, squeeze, let's go, and then we'll see.