Go Bucket Yourself
Go Bucket Yourself
Practical Steps to Regular Mini-Retirements: A Conversation with Jillian Johnsrud
What if retirement wasn't just a one-time, end-of-career event, but a lifestyle you could enjoy every seven years? Jillian John Shrewd, a renowned public speaker, progress coach, and podcaster, shares her unique perspective on retirement, advocating for a life that mirrors your values, passion, and purpose. After achieving financial independence at 32, she and her husband adopted a practice of "retiring often," taking regular breaks to pursue passion projects.
We don't just talk about the concept, but also get into the practicalities of making it happen. Jillian offers insights on negotiating time off in your current role and discusses the prospect of turning "retiring often" into a career itself. She shares how she handles objections and logistics, and we also hear from two individuals who've taken mini-retirements, adding a practical dimension to the conversation. If you're wondering how a career gap might impact your future job prospects, we also touch on the art of storytelling and how it can be a powerful tool to explain such periods.
While retirement often conjures up images of life slowing down, Jillian's approach is anything but that. This episode is teeming with motivation to seize fleeting moments in life and convert them into unforgettable experiences. We discuss the significance of planning for life milestones, mini retirements, and how to make the most of the time we have. From medical professionals to teachers, we examine various professions that have successfully taken mini-retirements and the challenges they've overcome. Jillian also shares her family's plans for their upcoming mini-retirement, providing a first-hand glimpse into a lifestyle that emphasizes living intentionally and retiring often.
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Hello and welcome to another episode of the Go Bucket Yourself podcast. Today we are super excited to be chatting with Jillian John Shrewd again. After becoming financially independent at 32 years old, jillian turned her personal and professional experience toward a creative life. She's been featured in Good Morning America, forbs, usa Today and MarketWatch. She is a popular public speaker, teaches online classes, is a progress coach, podcaster and writer. Her mission is to help people build a lifestyle that perfectly reflects their values, passion and purpose. She lives in Montana near Glacier National Park Wow, with her husband and their five kids. She's an avid traveler and something I can deeply relate to a drinker of hot tea. Jillian, thank you so much for being our guest today. We're really excited to chat with you.
Speaker 2:Thank you, guys. It's always fun to catch up with you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, welcome back to the show, excited to connect and get to hear more of what's going on in your world. And today's topic, as we are preparing for it, is like yes, yes, yes. I don't know how many times in this last year I've kind of been like man the retire early pieces a little too much. We need another voice or we need another idea out there that people can wrap their heads around, and I think you've got that idea and I'm excited to hear more from you about that idea.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So in line with that, luckily we've heard you talk quite a bit about many retirements, which is an exciting thought. It seems quite a bit more accessible than saying early retirement and maybe more practical and might have a bit more longevity as well. And recently I've been getting super engaged with what you've been doing because you've added a little bit of nuance to what you're saying and maybe changed your wording a little bit and saying retire often. So I really am excited to dig into that shift and see what the difference is, if there's a difference and if not. The last time we had you on we were kind of talking about living an aligned life like truly to the individual, and so this time it will be good to get some more background about many retirements and all of that. So maybe we can kick it off with that. What is the difference between many retirement and retiring often? Are they the same thing? Is there a little bit of difference and nuance in there?
Speaker 2:Well, I like the idea of retiring often. It is many retirements, or sabbaticals or gap years or whatever you want to know, whatever label or term seems to fit the best. And I define a mini retirement is with three, like three, qualifications Anytime you step away from your primary career for a month or longer to do something that really matters to you. And the concept behind retire often is that this isn't a one and done thing. It's not. I get one mini retirement and then one gigantic retirement.
Speaker 2:You know, when we when me and my husband kind of started down this path, the goal was always to retire often. We never, we never, imagined we would retire early. That didn't seem realistic or feasible. I don't think you could have 19 when I started this. I don't think someone could have convinced me that that was a path that was accessible for us. But I did think we can retire often. We could do mini retirements. Maybe we could do one every five years or every 10 years and spanning out over, you know, five decades of a career, like we don't have to miss out on the best of what life has to offer just because we're not going to be able to retire early.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think I think that's great because, for whatever reason, I think just the audacious goal or the holy crap I've never heard of this thing goal of retire early and being like, boom, I hit the finish line and done that, that sparks something in a guy like me and that that motivates me and gets me there.
Speaker 3:And then just the more I've realized as I'm sharing this story or as I've seen some people have down this path to the RE version of fire, yeah, it becomes daunting or it becomes overwhelming, like what the hell am I if I'm never going to work again?
Speaker 3:You know, there's a moment where that sounds amazing, and then there's a moment where it's like holy crap, that sounds exhausting, like what will I do with all of that time? Or do I have to have all these things lined up and everything like that, because I love the idea of retiring often because there are many people that just won't want to try to wrap their head around okay, now my career is done and I'm never working again, and they want to be able to have the freedoms and the luxuries that retirement brings or a sabbatical brings or a gap year brings, and so so I love that like is. So you're saying, jillian, if I'm hearing you right like you and Adam weren't really on the path of, like we're done. After we crossed the five, after we crossed the five number, we're done, we're never working again.
Speaker 3:You had passion projects or you had other things that you were like, yeah, this is going to look like work, or someone can call this work, or we're going to call this work. Did you make a pivot yourself, or are you saying that you just always were kind of like going down that path, of like let's take a break every once in a while from this thing we call work.
Speaker 2:You know, I just didn't think, I didn't even have it in my headspace, that we could retire early, like the fact that we were five at 32 was probably just as shocking to me as everyone else because if you look at the situation, we got married at 19,.
Speaker 2:we had $55,000 of debt between the two of us and we both went into low earning careers and then ended up in very high cost of living areas. This is not the recipe for like of course you're going to retire early, and then we had like a bazillion children like everything was stacked against us and so it just never.
Speaker 2:I remember the first time we thought about early retirement and it felt so ambitious and it felt so audacious. We I had set this hope, this intention of maybe we could get there at 60. Even my husband was like I don't think that's possible. But I was like, but maybe, like, maybe we could do it. You know his, his parents had had some health problems in their early 60s and were forced to retire because of that and weren't perhaps maybe the most financially ready. So that was my motivation for 60. But even that felt like I don't know, can this even possible? Like, look at our situation. So early retirement wasn't the goal and I didn't actually start thinking about it. We hit five at 32. I didn't really start thinking, hey, maybe we could do this until I was about 29.
Speaker 2:Like we were real far down the path before it even kind of came into my thought process. So the plan was always to retire, often because I thought that's what, that's what's accessible to us, and, and even when we did, we hit five at 32, we decided to take a year off and kind of see how it goes, you know, just test it out. And one year became two. But even when we both stepped away from our careers, the idea wasn't well, we hate work so much, we'll never go do anything that seems like work. Um, I always have.
Speaker 2:Like there were two people that were kind of my professional inspiration. One was Betty White. Um, the actress. Like I loved that throughout this 60 years, like she kept doing really interesting, fun, challenging parts, like she kept contributing in small ways. You know, it wasn't like she was working 60 hours a week or something, but she was part of this creative community. And the other one was a Christian author, eugene Peterson. He wrote the message Bible and like 30 other books. He wrote so much and I remember I got to meet him he was probably 83 or 84 at the time and I just thought like that just sounds amazing, like to still be engaged and connected creatively in this community. He also lives in. He lived in our area he's passed away now, but he lived on Flathead Lake, right by me and I just was like, yeah, that that's my dream, uh, to kind of move in and out of creative work. That I find exciting Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's so many places to go with this conversation with you, so, but for the sake of this one, I think I'd like to know how did you always think you would retire often or have many retirements? I honestly never really thought of it in those terms and quotes until I started reading your work, and it feels like a very Jillian concept. So how was it that you knew that that was kind of your path?
Speaker 2:Well, like I said, Adam and I got together at 19 and I was reading through the Old Testament like the young kids do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the old and reading the old OT, you know, I was in the part where they talked about a sabbatical year, like every seven years the Jews were supposed to take a year off. Then every you know 50 years was like the Jubilee year and I just thought, oh, year off. I love the sound of that. And I remember we were out of when I were driving in my little Geo Metro we lived in southern Idaho at the time like through all these vineyards and orchards who would take kind of the back way and I was telling her about this idea, like hey, so there's this concept where every seven years you take a year off and I think that sounds amazing, like we should, we should try to do that.
Speaker 2:He goes, oh, honey, um, I, I don't think people do that. Now, you think it's a thing. I actually I'm not sure if it ever, if they ever did it, like I don't know, I don't know if the idea caught on, but I don't know if it actually happened. And I was like, yeah, but maybe like what if we just like Saved an extra 10% every year or 15%? And then, and he had all these questions, very legitimate questions of like careers and you know the finances and healthcare and all of this, and I was like I don't know.
Speaker 3:But we can figure it out. Yeah, nice yeah.
Speaker 2:We've lost 21 years. We figured it out. You know we've done 12 of them now and I figured out the career thing and the finance thing and the healthcare thing and there are logistical challenges but they're not insurmountable, yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm glad you brought all those up because I my hunch is anyone listening is also asking those same questions like but what about? But what about?
Speaker 3:And I think, yeah, that's where I'd like to go next, because I probably one of the things that the version of Chris leading up to this RE piece would have had an objection to the retire often piece is like well, shit, then I like every seven years I have to Start over again at the bottom, wrong and work my way up right to start with new people, or my, my Company's not gonna support this, so I definitely am gonna have to go look another job. So that's probably. We don't even have to use that as an example, because I'm sure you have plenty of examples of people that have come to you and said like, well, it, that's great for you, but here's why it doesn't work for me. Can you maybe go through some of those top? Here's why it doesn't work for me.
Speaker 2:Situations I would love to. Because this is some. This is the area, I would say, where people have Patients and the most amount of potential. Like they see it as a negative and, honestly, on my side, I've seen so many good things happen professionally from Taking many retirements. So I want to start. I want to start with Requesting the time off from your job.
Speaker 2:Okay because so many people are like, yeah, absolutely could not happen for me, not in my industry, not my company. Like it's, it's dead in the water and and on the reality side, like people have a lot more Leverage and a lot more power than they know in their profession. So, for example, I had a I think it was a. Wasn't the CEO, it was the Hold on anything. What's the title? What's the chief executive of the finance part CFO okay.
Speaker 2:So I had one person who's a CFO and he was like, well, son, there's no way I'm getting a month off. Like my job is too important, no one knows who my job, no one can replace me, and I get that a lot. Like my job is too essential and no one else knows what I do. And I said, okay, well, if you, if you, were to quit, how long would it take for them to replace you? It was, oh, it's a long for this kind of position. It's a long job search. It's like six months. I was like, okay, cool, if they hire someone, how long does it take them to like get them up to speed To perform the way that you perform? He's like, oh, yeah, that takes like six, maybe 12 months. And I was like, okay, cool, so which is easier? Them taking a year of Either having a position empty or underperforming or giving you a month off?
Speaker 3:Yeah right.
Speaker 2:Like people will pick the path that is easier and cheaper. I did a lot of HR classes in college like easy and cheap Is the path that we opt for. And so it's really just up to the employee to Do the legwork, to do the emotional labor of what are the objections, what are the challenges. You know this isn't something to dump in your boss's lap and be like now you have a new problem to figure out. But doing that work, who is gonna fill in for me? Who is gonna take over? And some people will insist Absolutely no one, like there's no way, and I'm kind of like okay, well, so if you had a stroke tonight, they would have to do something. They would do like if you died.
Speaker 2:Yeah what would they do? Would they bring an attempt? Would they reassign your work? Would it sit empty? Like would they have to pull someone from another department? You know, are they gonna bring in a consultant? Like something will have to happen?
Speaker 2:And so thinking about how can I do some of that logistical work to facilitate that? And Honestly, it doesn't have to be a hundred percent. Like you know, there's always in every because I've coached a lot of people behind the scenes on this negotiation and In every role there's usually like one sticking point, like one logistical challenge that they can't figure out. So, for example, I worked with an accountant. An accountant and she said, okay, they could bring it a temp. You know there's people in my industry who temp for three month things for, like, to cover maternity leave and that sort of stuff, but they won't trust a temp to do the end of month books About six hours. I know they're not gonna trust anyone else to do that.
Speaker 2:And she was trying to get the summer off to like vacation and hang out with her kids. And I said, okay, could you go in one day for six hours at the end of the month and just take care of that, like will that ruin your summer off to go in for three days. And she was like no, actually, like yeah, we're not gonna be gone the whole time, like we're coming in and out, and so that was one small concession. Like maybe there's one client that you're the person they have to talk to. Can you respond to one person's emails, like you show for one kind of meeting a week and and make that small compromise in a way that doesn't derail your intention for for the mini retirement.
Speaker 2:But that leverage of being willing to leave is Is massive because it changes the equation. It goes from just being able to say nope and problem disappears To well, I'm gonna have a problem either way. Like, either way, there is work. So Then it's up to the employee to just figure out how you getting this month off or six months off or a year off is less work than you leaving.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that because it makes me think of how precious we are sometimes about ourselves and the work that we do right, and we think and in many ways it is true like we are individuals, we do valuable work, we are worth a lot of money at our jobs and and Ultimately, we are replaceable, and sometimes hopefully, you know, just for a month, because we get what we ask for, or three months, but in those opportunities of stepping away, we also Give other people the opportunity to step up and fill in for us. And so, yeah, there's a, there's a lot of ways of looking around it and I think stepping away and negotiating that kind of helps put it all into greater Perspective, maybe then when we're like caught up in the weeds of it. It also reminds me of our mutual friend, diana Miriam, who has talked to us on this podcast about Thinking she was going to have to leave her job Because she didn't think they were going to actually let her leave for a month or more to go walk the Camino in Europe. And they they actually allowed her to do that and after that it gave her the courage to negotiate being able to work remotely versus live in a high cost of living area like New York City. So yeah, until you ask for what you really want, you really never know what the possibilities truly are right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had one, one client. It was actually her sister. Sometimes, when you make good changes in your life, it encourages people around you very positive changes.
Speaker 2:And her sister also was a medical professional and medical professionals. This is like one profession that baffles me in that they, they have so much power and the medical industry has convinced them that they have none, but they have no options, they have no agency, like they should be, just like grateful that they even have a job, and I'm like there was not an overabundance medical professionals in this country, like they're lucky to have you. It is not the other way around, right? Her sister was so burned out that she just went into her boss and she was like yeah, I'm quitting, I need a year off. I I just I can't do this and had had nothing prepared, had no Negotiations strategy, and her boss was like no, no, no, no, okay, hold on, hold on, hold on, let's think about this, let's talk about this. Okay, how about? You can take a year off, but please come back. Just, please come. If just we will give you a year off.
Speaker 2:Just please agree to come back at the end of the year and she was like, oh I, I didn't even, I didn't even consider that that's what the possibility and so that's on the negotiation side. On the having to switch jobs, the reality is there's a couple things at play, but for most people, switching if you do this in between careers a Very viable option Switching jobs is one of the best ways to get a significant pay bump, hmm, and that if you can get 10 or 20 percent, it very quickly will pay for whatever the cost of this sabbatical was and it sets you on a whole different lifetime earning trajectory. Um, so for a lot of people we're tiring often, if you can, if you can take a month, six months off every five years, you might end up earning an extra million dollars over your career from stepping away. And there's this other weird phenomenon that happens when you step away from your career with no job lined up. It is a very curious thing for everyone around you.
Speaker 2:Everyone's confused, everyone's a little concerned, but primarily it makes people uncomfortable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, especially in work culture societies, someone not working creates like this Disregulation. And if you just take I coach people and just like taking a couple little steps of like a goodbye email or I've loved this industry, I need this break, I'm gonna go do this cool thing, but hey, if you hear of anything while I'm gone, you know I am excited to come back to this profession. All of a sudden you're on people's radar in a whole way and so many people get so many more job offers Interesting job offers, better job offers than they ever would have received, because now you're kind of top of mind and and your friends and your professional colleagues kind of want to close that loop. They would all feel much more comfortable if you were just working again. And and I find this especially, you know, in the retire early community too, people step away and then like their whole network just tries to drag them back in. Yes, but you can use this to your advantage to get a better job on the other side.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree, I do have personal experience with that, because when I left my job I never said I was retiring or anything, but I was taking a break for my health and to raise my daughters. And People wanted me to be working right, and I didn't fully understand why that was at the time and I can kind of see it now. It's like their own comfort zone and their own comfort level and they think they have Other people's best interests in mind, right, but they don't really know. And so, yeah, I got. It was like I could have designed my own job, told my superintendent what I wanted to do and gone back and it would have Worked out fine, you know. So I I do have personal experience experience with that. I can say that it's true. I think that happened to you a little bit after you left maybe a lot of Encouragement to consult or or just work like part-time consulting instead.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because my number you know my phone number didn't change, so I still get those contacts like hey, what are we thinking about this?
Speaker 3:I'm like technically I don't know, oh, really so what are you up to now? Oh, I'm kind of not working. This thing for you, you know, it's like you know. So, and I think a part of that too is, at least in my experience of having having a, a pretty big gap of not working is you meet people? That then and maybe you were saying this already you meet people Doing interesting things in this chapter of life, that then, if you're like, oh, I would go back to a job, this sounds a hell of a lot more interesting than what I just left or Some version of that. And so, yeah, don't dismiss that, that power of.
Speaker 3:Not only will the people you already know In your everyday life perhaps want to say, like, wait, wait, wait, you got out the golden handcuffs, but here they are. You remember how shiny they are, you know, and they're doing it out of you know, out of love. They want you to, they don't want you to fail, and they don't. They've never seen this before. So obviously it's scary to that. But also, yeah, just that the new interesting people you'll meet and in the times that you're able to create, pursuing you to these hobbies of these passions, or or just resting and then having a, a Tuesday off, and all of a sudden you meet someone else with a Tuesday off. You're like wait, what do you do? Are you young then you find out some more about that kind of thing.
Speaker 3:It's like oh wow, you know, the brain just starts going, you know, excited or at least mine does like just like man, if I do work again, I'm definitely probably do something like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it does still bring up the question, though, right, you coach people through this process often. You've seen many, many examples play out, and I Imagine there is someone who shows up, truly wants to negotiate a mini retirement and has to put their money where their mouth is and maybe ends up leaving their job rather than getting a retirement. In that case, what happens? What are the next steps? What about health care? What about you know what's next, what to do in that situation?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you have to. Well, there's two ways I can go like you can bluff and then be like I changed my mind, but it is better. You know, when people want to take these mini retirements, whatever that motivation is like is probably a true need, and so a couple things can happen. Oftentimes I see people Do an exit negotiation which, there again, sometimes we don't realize In you leaving there's a whole bunch of things that you could offer the company that would make it easier and better for them. And if you're willing to do these six or seven or eight things in exchange, it would be nice if, in exchange, I would appreciate and there's a number of things they can do in return, and I've seen people negotiate Significant raises upon their leaving. There again, it helps Create a different lifetime earning trajectory.
Speaker 2:When you say this is my last, last salary, I've seen people get their bonuses paid out early or Become fully vested. Because you say I know leaving is going to be a challenge. What if I did 20 hours a week? I'm gonna do it remote, but I'll stay on for four months, I'll stay on for six months or I'll still come in every Friday to make sure this new person is trained and To make this transition as smooth as possible and, honestly, that exit negotiation does give people more kind of mental and emotional space To plan and prepare for this mini retirement, to start scaling up Some of the things they want to do during this mini retirement, versus like a hard stop and then you're kind of starting from scratch.
Speaker 2:But you know, if you're planning a hard, a hard stop and finding a new job, um it's it's usually not as as scary as people think. I Increase people. You know you need to have a financial runway of how much time is comfortable and Then start like, if you have a year financial runway, start looking about halfway through. You know, if you have four months, start looking at about month two and putting out those feelers and more actively engaging in that job hunting process. But this is one area where it it's usually a lot easier than people imagine and even in those interviews sometimes people are nervous of how do I explain this career gap, how do I explain the fact that I've been unemployed for six months and in reality it's. It's a lot about how you tell that story. Um, it's kind of like the rules of memoir memoir has to be 100% the truth and it cannot be the entire truth.
Speaker 3:The entire truth is too big like you can't.
Speaker 2:It doesn't matter how many pages you write, it's not going to be the entire truth, but everything has to be true. And I apply those same rules for explaining this career gap it has to be 100 true, but it's not going to be the whole truth. So, pick something that's compelling, pick something that's interesting. Highlight the thing that was hopefully a one-time thing. You know, if you said, hey, my, my parents, when they retired, they always dreamed of biking through Croatia. My dad passed away, my mom's retiring this year. I really wanted to be able to go and do that with her so she could have this experience. So we took two months and we biked through europe and it was amazing.
Speaker 2:You know, I had a chance to kind of rest and refresh. I'm super excited to jump back into my career. Like it, doesn't it? You sound like an interesting, fun person. Like you don't sound like a lazy, boring Uh, you know an interesting person, and so most people find it's almost an asset, because You're talking to another person that also has interests and hobbies and dreams and goals and things that they would love to do, and so you can resonate with with that, with the person that you know you will eventually be working with.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think too, like I've been in a position of hiring and yeah, I'm not cut from the same cloth as maybe some big corporations that have xyz protocol and they always look for these colleges and this career, you know trajectory and all that kind of stuff. So sure, this doesn't like to say this is get a shit Well, for everyone else. But interesting people love stories of interesting people. So if you want to work for an interesting place, interesting person, interesting company that uh likes interesting things, um, then yeah, you have a good shot where that is actually going to stand out as as a potential, like Beneficial thing, because, like, if I'm looking at this from the employer's lens, I'm seeing this is like this is someone that has a pretty decent sense of awareness.
Speaker 3:They're going to say when they want the thing, and those two things are great, and you don't, you know, not every employer wants a yes man that just is like now do everything I say and don't ever question it, and all that kind of stuff. Um, and it tells me they know how to think and plan and prioritize and and all of that, and so to me those things Are, are a potential resume boost. But I know that's not everyone. You know, not every employer is going to look for that, um, but yeah, I think, uh, yeah, don't sell it short, as, like, every person that you potentially want to work for is going to look at this as a negative. There's a decent chance it's going to be a positive.
Speaker 2:I also, if you value your personal life, if you value you as a whole human being. I think it's also helpful because people who are very black, companies that are very black and white and that, like they will show their red flag Right and they're like, oh wait, you have thoughts and feelings and emotions and family and values.
Speaker 2:Like we were actually hoping for a robot who could work like 70 hours a week and never get sick and never have any desires outside of this little cubicle, um. And so it kind of lets you know like this might not be the best fit for you and you might not be the best fit for them, and so it might save you from like the worst job, um, because if they really don't get it and don't like it like now, you know. Yeah that might not be a place you want to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a really good point and goes further into Knowing your value and living that out when you are job hunting or seeking a new job, if you want to go back to work for sure. So what are some other examples like biking? Croatia is really cool. What are some other reasons you've seen people use mini retirements other than maybe just I'm sober now. I need to sleep for a week or something Very good, yeah, very valid reason for one. What are some other examples that you've seen people use a mini retirement for?
Speaker 2:All sorts of things, and that's one of the reasons that I really love mini retirements is because it's a tool with many functions. I think a big one for a lot of people is is extended travel, because there are types of travel that you can't fit into a four-day weekend and and even if you can get seven or ten days, it's not the same experience, and and so because it's just there are things that are so hard to fit into your nights and weekends and you're very limited time off that those things usually are a bigger problem or bigger motivations. So I'd say extended travel a really popular one too is like physical activities that take a long time, like through hikes, because it's hard to hike the Appalachian Trail on the weekend and so you need chunks of time off for that. Sometimes it's educational things or a career pivot, or you know, I have this side hustle, I have this hobby. I want to build some runway and just see what happens with it. You know I don't want to regret not doing it. Or things like writing a, writing a book. It's gonna take some mental and emotional bandwidth, like I want to give myself a month or two months and and not let this pass me by kids are a huge motivation because you know, I hear so many people talk about like these once in a lifetime opportunities in their profession, like this job, this career, this move, but the reality is, like your kids being eight, that is literally once will happen in your lifetime, yeah, and if you miss it, you there's no do-overs, you can't go back, it will never come around again. And so there's a lot of things that you know if you don't do it in this season, it'll pass you by.
Speaker 2:Experiences with your parents. You know there's especially something physical, like hiking or biking, that you want to do with them. That's not gonna wait forever. We did when my kids were younger I guess this maybe five years ago. We did a 10 week road trip in a pop-up camper to 10 national parks and I remember waking up one morning in a national park and walking to the bathroom, so we didn't have a toilet in our top-up, which was like the worst part of being in a pop-up. It's really beautiful, like morning commute and thinking I'm not gonna be able to do this in 10 years, like there's. My kids were maybe three to 11 in 1015 years.
Speaker 2:When they're in their 20s, there is no possibility of convincing a bunch of 20 year olds to take 10 weeks off to live in a pop-up camper with me in a national park. And even my 11 year old I felt I felt the season starting to shift because we would pull into a national park and he would be like mom, is there? Is there gonna be Wi-Fi here? I really want to talk to my friends and I was like, oh sorry, buddy, there's not Wi-Fi, is it's not gonna happen for the next four days.
Speaker 2:So really, leaning into those seasons of life and I don't think we change, you know, our preferences, our desires what's interesting to us isn't, isn't linear throughout our entire life. I did an amazing road trip during one of my many retirements, coast to coast, with my best friend and we camped and like we slept on people's couches and I remember waking up in Yellowstone National Park and it had snowed a ton in the freezing cold and zipped the the tent. I was like I'm gonna go to the bathroom and then I zipped it back up and she was like I thought.
Speaker 2:I thought we were going to the bathroom and I unzipped it and I was like take a look, and there was about a thousand bison knees moving because we were the only 10 to the campground. I was like I'm not, I'm not getting out, I'm just gonna stay in here, nice and quiet it was so fun and at 40 I don't sleep on the frozen ground anymore. I'm done. It's over that season, it's gone. So glad I did it, never doing it again yeah, don't get any ideas.
Speaker 3:You've still got some frozen ground nights in you, don't you?
Speaker 1:another time, I'm sure. Yeah, really good point. And some, if you don't do those, thought exercises in your mind like five years down the road, ten years down the road, you may not realize until it's gone. You know what you had and what you wish you had done with that time, and so I think it is a really good, just thought experiment. Like Chris likes to use the stoic advice of you know, like no day, he'll always momentum, or he right. So like this could be your last day, you never know what tomorrow holds. And the same is true if you have a young family. Once they hit a certain age, there's just so much less time that you're going to spend with them out of practicality, and it's good for them to, you know, leave the nest and all of that.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, all very good points yeah, I want to just like, I guess, tip the hat to from me. At least unlocking some of this was very helpful in the book die was zero that I read a few months ago or so, and yet he really hits the point, which is great for a person like me who who could you know? See the future of retirement and never working again after retirement and all that stuff. But he's like, you know, it's it's more helpful to break down parts of my life, or parts of our lives, and just to know that, like at every milestone or chapter, that will never happen again, just like Jillian will not sleep on frozen ground again. So if that's something that is important to you to not delay till 60 or not even delay till retire early, maybe at 55, if that's something that needs to happen in a mini retirement, because that's that's closer, you know your kids are still in school or your parents are still, you know, ambulatory or whatever that happens to be then yeah, use that as inspiration.
Speaker 3:To me it's not at all morbid to just see like as our daughter just moved out of the house, you know, a few months ago. It's not at all morbid to say like that version of our little girl living at home is gone. It's, it's dead, as icky as that word is. I will never have that again. So I could, I could dwell on the things that I did not do, but I can also look forward to those other things. And if there are other things that a mini retirement or a sabbatical or something like that can offer to you, then yeah, use that as an inspiration. It works well for me. I know it's probably not coming to you, but yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:So let's do before we wrap, because our time is going quickly, as always, but let's do dig into some nuts and bolts here. So like, how much are we talking about? What is a good runway? How do I figure out the money part of this? I'm gonna bring up the health care thing again, just like nod to it because, as you know, in the Phi community it is a valid concern and it is one of the most common concerns. So how do I make this even happen? What do I need to know? And, and yeah, what's some good advice in that respect?
Speaker 2:so I always encourage people to start small, like sometimes a lot of people come to me like yeah, I've always wanted to do a mini retirement. You know, we want to do around the world trip and they haven't taken like a month off.
Speaker 2:They haven't taken three months off, they haven't been overseas and I'm like, okay, this is, let's start small, and a lot of it, you know, in our financial lives is sequence of events has a massive impact. So think about where you are in your financial journey and start with the things that are cheap. Start with the things that are affordable and frugal and fit this season of life. You don't have to start with like and around the world cruise that has a shelf life to like 80. You can be 75 and really enjoy that and do the things that maybe you might only enjoy now, that are also more affordable. And so, look, we'll start with health care in this like, think small.
Speaker 2:There's a number of different ways you can go about it. I would definitely try to negotiate just a month off from your employer. Keep your health care. That's the easiest if you're married and have a spouse. You guys don't have to do this at the same time. You can take terms. For me and Adam there are first seven or eight many retirements, like we just swapped. We went back and forth. There were times I was working, times he was working, so that's a really easy way to start if you're leaving a job and you know you'll be getting a different job. Cobra can be super. It's like so convenient. It's not like the cheapest option, but it's a really convenient option if you know you'll be going back to work in six months just to maintain all your same doctors, your same health care, all of that stuff to be clear.
Speaker 3:You said Cobra, okay, yeah, I'm. Can you elaborate on that real quick? I probably most of us are familiar with it, but yeah.
Speaker 2:So that's just the ability to stay on your company health care plan. But instead of just paying your portion, you pay your portion and the employer's portion, so you pay the full cost of it and it used to be. You could only have it for like nine or twelve months. During COVID they extended it, so it's pretty long now, but it's a great fill gap just because there's no change in your coverage.
Speaker 2:And if you're doing a longer mini retirement, you know it's tough, I think, especially as Americans, to pay for health care like it's just annoying and frustrating and we have like this. Is it a big emotional purchase because it is expensive? But if you're doing a year-long mini retirement, you're gonna have a lot of big costs. The biggest is you're gonna lose your income for the year and health care is just another cost. So you're gonna be like you know what, yes, can be a thousand bucks a month on the exchange and that stinks, but it's 12 grand and 12 grand is 12 grand and this experience and this opportunity is worth that amount of money for me. But start, start small rotate. Or you know, if you and your spouse want to both kind of have some flexibility and take time off, maybe you guys rotate doing a part-time job, you know especially get something that is a good counterbalance to your career. If you were an executive, if you worked in a stressful, demanding kind of role as a nurse or a teacher or whatever.
Speaker 2:I love gardening so much For me, if I could go work at a nursery and like water plans and talk to people about plants and take care of plants, like just be outside and walk around, like that would be a dream and that would be a great break from my profession. So in kind of my qualification of what a mini retirement is. It's stepping away from your main profession but it doesn't mean you don't do anything else. If you want to go from being an executive to making coffee 20 hours a week so you can keep health care Cool, you can do that and that might help you fulfill whatever that intention is. You could recover from burnout, you could have more time with your kids, you could do a cool trip in there. So it doesn't. For the health care, there are a lot of options. I think we just get stuck in it, feeling overwhelming. But there's like nine different options for what that could look like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely. I have so many questions, but one of your other requirements of a mini retirement was one month minimum, so I'm just curious where that came from, why that's a requirement of a mini retirement.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I love a week long vacation, a 10 day vacation, a two week vacation. When you have a vacation of that length, sometimes it feels like a job, it's like it's a lot of work and when people have a time scarcity there's a huge temptation to try to pack in all of the things that they feel like they've missed out on in the last five years into these 10 days. And I noticed somewhere after two or three weeks is when people's kind of hormone stress levels start to shift and start to drop that cortisol, that adrenaline. They start sleeping better, they start feeling relaxed in a different way and I find people can unplug from work in a different way at a month than they can at 10 days. 10 days you're still kind of mentally living there, you're still thinking about your projects, you're still wanting to check your emails, but I find there's something kind of magical in that month that you can get a lot of benefits from while it's still being accessible.
Speaker 2:One of my favorite stories from a random person I met years ago I was in a doctor's office and it was the receptionist and she said that she'd just come back from a month-long trip and I was like, wow, that's amazing what inspired this. And she said she had never left the state of Montana, she had never been on an airplane, and she took a month off as a receptionist and flew to Peru for a month. And I was like, oh my gosh, okay, so many questions. And I was like, okay, what did you do? Where did you go? And she was like I didn't stay in the city side there, I went into the jungle.
Speaker 3:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:Hold on.
Speaker 2:So this is like a Paddington Bear trip. You went to the deepest, darkest jungles of Peru for a month and it was life-changing for her. I mean, it was just incredible and I thought here's someone probably making $12, $15 an hour and it probably wasn't that expensive of a trip. You've got an $800 plane ticket and however much the deepest, darkest jungles of Peru cost, but it's not impossible. I don't know how she saved up for it. Maybe she just babysat on the weekends for six months, but it can be magical, it can be so transformative, and so I think it is something that's accessible and significant.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it kind of reminds me like in going out into nature, there's kind of this unwritten or even a written rule, well, like the 72-hour rule, where after 72 hours of not being on your computer or plugged into your phone or getting an email or worrying about did you leave this thing on when you left the house or whatnot, your brain and your body just start to meld into the world around you. And so to me, I kind of like connect those dots of like it takes a while for your body to de-stress, to be able to accept the benefits that nature has to teach you. And so, yeah, like, if the number is a month, I mean you got me convinced that that's a good number to shoot for to allow your body to kind of come out of that overly in the parasympathetic mode of just like, ah, fight or flight.
Speaker 3:Because yeah it's not as quick as we would like sometimes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and yeah, a good way to start small right versus going for a full year or three months or something. Give it a try, just try it out. Take a few naps while you do it. If that's all you do, and, yeah, calm yourself and then see what you feel like doing. But it also brings up a couple good points.
Speaker 1:This is, you know, I'm not like advising anyone on insurance here, but if I'm traveling to Peru extendedly, I can get travel insurance fairly cheap, and I can, in this geo-arbitrage way of using the fact that Peru's cost of living is a lot less than the United States cost of living, I can use their health care over there, and health care becomes a lot less of an issue if we're talking about traveling being a part of our mini-retirement. And you also mentioned a receptionist that was able to do a mini-retirement. You've mentioned a CFO, which we can imagine was a highly paid individual. I wonder if you could give some other examples, just so anyone listening can say like, oh, yeah, that's like me. Well, I could probably do that too, this thing that I'm thinking of. What other types of professions have you seen people take these mini-retirements from?
Speaker 2:Oh, my gosh. Every kind, like every kind. I mean a lot of medical professionals. I think coming out of the pandemic it was a little stressful for the medical professionals and there's a lot of burnout and so, from nurses to anesthesiologists, to doctors, administrators, everything in between, yeah, accountants, all teachers, all sorts of professions. And it's interesting because I had someone comment on an Instagram post because I just have a podcast, retire often, where I just tell people's mini-retirement stories and one of them was a CEO and the guy was like, well, I don't think that was courageous. I mean, he probably made a lot of money. It shouldn't be hard to step away from your career, like if you're close to five. And I was like buddy, you got no idea.
Speaker 2:Like if you're the CEO of a company, if you've done that much professionally by 40, it is no small task to step away, and so it's a different challenge. If you're a receptionist making 12 bucks an hour, you have some challenges. If you're a CEO who's worked 15 to 18 hours their entire career, yeah, you have different challenges, but you have challenges לא every single person. I talked to so many people who have demeanor retirements. They've all been scared. Everyone has experienced challenges. Everyone had a lot of concerns, all sorts of different concerns but they all had concerns. But it was so, I hate to say, life-changing, because it feels overused. But their life changed not just during that time, but it put them on a whole different trajectory, to where life never could be the same. They were different, how they saw the world was different, what they knew was different and they reimagined how life could look. It's not just what happens during that many retirement.
Speaker 2:I interviewed someone that did a one-month backpacking trip in Thailand a really busy entrepreneur. Then at the end it seemed impossible For a lot of people if I leave for a month, my business will blow up. Everything I've done and work so hard will dissolve while I'm gone. But by the end he was like I'm booking another, I'm not going back, I'm not. Now it's been 15 years since that trip. Now him and his family are nomadic. They're world nomads. They just live in Arabian bees. They travel all year long. It's like you never end up there without that first scary hard one month off. Now, of course, he looks back and is like, oh my gosh, that's the easiest thing.
Speaker 2:Look, I wouldn't even think a minute about it, but at the time it's scary.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3:Well, jillian, I think, as we try to land this plane, I'd love to hear are you guys in the middle of a mini retirement at the moment? Are you in the middle of mini work at the moment? What does your life look like and what's next on the horizon for the mini retirement version?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we move in and out of different seasons. This eight 10 weeks is an intense work season for me. I wrote a book proposal. I started a podcast, I launched a new site. We're moving courses over. I'm trying to record all of these podcasts because October through April we're going to be traveling for six months.
Speaker 2:And that we're going to be homeschooling the kids and going to Universal and Disney and DC and all the things, and so I really enjoy. I enjoy the rhythm of moving in and out of things. Yeah, early early this summer I was a landscaper. I mean I was in the yard and working hard lots of hours every day, and so I like the variation. And now that we're financially independent and I have built my business in a way that I can move in and out and a lot of people on the outside, it's easy to say, oh, if you're an entrepreneur, then this is totally simple, unless you know a lot of entrepreneurs and they're like how in the world do you?
Speaker 2:pull this off, like I can't imagine stepping back so much in my business for six months. But you know it's the 12th, it's the 13th, like it's not my first rodeo. And part of the benefit of retiring often is you get better at it, you figure some stuff out, you get more confident, you get more clear, you see the benefit and not just the downside, right, and it gives you that ability to scale it up as you go. You know, if I think about, like the five community, if someone said, hey, I'm going to do this every five years, maybe it'll be a month, maybe it'll be six months, maybe it'll be a year I'm going to either negotiate, I'm going to change jobs, I'm going to find more interesting jobs, I'm going to find better paying jobs and I'm going to grow my personal life to win to the point where I, when I do hit financial independence and I decide I want to retire forever, not much is changing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm easily walking into this new season of life. I'm not trying to recreate the 15 areas of my life. I have neglected on the path to five. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, such a good point because I am sure with each one, you learn more about yourself, your ego, what you truly want, what's meant for you, and how to live and design that life now, and not keep putting it off for when you reach five or when you retire, whether you want five or not, Right? So thank you so much for sharing that. I'm sure, like me, people are left with lots of questions and wanting to learn more. So where can people do that? Congratulations on all these new things, by the way, your garden not being the least of which which I've seen. It's beautiful. How can people see your garden and all of these amazing projects and get in touch with you, yeah, on social media I'm at Gillian John's Rood everywhere or retire often, a website.
Speaker 2:I've got some intentional living courses, some free resources that might be helpful and the podcast is retire often. So if you can't spell John's Rood, start with retire often and you'll find me.
Speaker 1:Well, luckily we'll link to all of that and your book Fire the Haters, and then we'll be looking for your new book coming out and all of the good stuff. The previous episode you were on with us, all of that. So thank you again, Gillian, for being here. It's always our pleasure, for sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. Thanks so much.