What Is The Financial Freedom Actually For? (ep 241)

Adam Coelho 0:00

You spent years building financial freedom. You saved, you invested, you made thousands of decisions that other people probably didn't understand. But when was the last time you stopped and asked a different question? What am I building this freedom for? How do I want to actually use this freedom? Because financial independence can give you options without giving you direction. It can tell you that work is optional. It cannot tell you how you want to spend a random Tuesday morning. It cannot tell you who you want around, how you want to contribute, or what you want your life to look and feel like. That is the work we're going to explore today. Welcome to the Mindful Fire Podcast. I'm Adam Coelho. This is a show about crafting a life you love and making work optional using the tools of mindfulness, financial independence, resilience, and envisioning. Today, I wanna talk about what happens after you do the hard work of building financial freedom, or rather, when you're close enough that the freedom is starting to become real. I don't wanna focus on whether you should leave your job or not. That may or may not be the right decision for you, and who am I to tell you? I wanna focus on something deeper. How do you start living the life you actually want now that you have the financial freedom? And how do you get clear about that life before another year disappears into the default? A lot of FIRE content is understandably focused on the numbers.. What's your savings rate? What's your withdrawal rate? What's your asset allocation? How much is enough? Those questions matter. I spent years thinking about them, talking about them, and making decisions based on them. But the number is not life. The number creates possibility. You still have to decide what you want to create with that possibility. I've spoken to many people who have done everything right financially. They've built real options. Some have already even reached financial independence, and yet many of them still feel uncertain, not because they've failed, but because they spent years answering the financial question without making equal time for the life question. the financial question is: how much do I need? The life question is: what do I want this freedom to make possible? I know this because I lived it. For years, financial independence represented escape and security for me. It meant that I wouldn't have to tolerate a situation that was no longer working for me. It meant that I could make decisions from a position of strength. It meant that I could eventually leave Google and do something different. That was powerful. F-you money mattered. But eventually, I realized that F-you money was only one level of freedom. It could give me the permission to walk away. It could not tell me what I wanted to walk toward. The second level I needed to unlock was a clear, energizing vision. Over time, that vision began to include mindfulness, the podcast, facilitating meaningful conversations, helping people think bigger about their lives, and spending more time with my family, and included building a business in my own time, in my own way One of the feelings at the center of that vision was unrushed. Not impressive, not maximally productive, unrushed. That feeling became a filter. It helped me notice when I was recreating the same pressure I claimed I wanted freedom from, and the vision didn't arrive fully formed. I discovered it through conversations, experiments, teaching, podcast interviews, coaching, workshops, and plenty of other things that didn't work. The vision became clearer and clearer because I gave myself permission to imagine it, and then I started living it before everything was resolved. I wanna share three anonymized stories from conversations that I've had. I've changed the identifying details, but the underlying tensions are real. I recently spoke with someone who had accumulated the money and could name several things that felt meaningful: serving in the community, supporting nonprofits, bringing professional skills to causes that matter, producing creative events that brought people together. This person was not empty of ideas, but they described feeling like a sitting duck waiting for retirement to begin before giving meaningful parts real attention, not to mention potentially being laid off at any time. What struck me was that the vision did not have to wait. Could they volunteer once this month? Could they have one conversation with a nonprofit leader? Could they help produce one small event? Could they use some of the flexibility they had already created to begin living as the person they imagined becoming later after financial independence? the question was no longer when should I retire? It became, what part of that life can I begin living now? Another person I spoke with had reached financial independence and had two teenage children. The money was largely in place. The job wasn't terrible, but there was a window of time that would not remain open forever. The vision wasn't flashy. It included slow mornings, time in nature, cooking together, music in the house, playing games, learning, traveling slowly. It included enough flexibility to go to the pool in the middle of the day. It was a vision of presence, And the tension was not simply whether to keep working. The tension was whether this person would give themselves permission to create more of that life while everyone was still living under the same roof. Financial independence had created options, but the real value of those options was measured in time and attention. That conversation reminded me that a big vision does not have to look big to anyone else. It might be a global mission, it might be a company, it might be speaking on an enormous stage, or it might be being fully present for an ordinary summer with your family Big means true and energizing, not externally impressive. A third person that I talked to could picture the environment of their future life, a walkable place, a relaxed rhythm, time in Europe, a small home base, more space for cycling, writing, and being with their spouse. The feeling tone was becoming clear, but the ordinary activities were still fuzzy. What happens after breakfast? What creates meaning on a random Wednesday afternoon? Which interests are enjoyable for two weeks but not for three months? The answer wasn't to sit in a room and think harder until a perfect plan appeared. The answer was to test the vision, to do what I call a mini experiment, a small, low-risk, minimal investment way to test an aspect of the life that you say you wanna live. It doesn't have to be huge, but you do need to get started. Spend a week in one of those places, then two weeks. Try living a normal rhythm instead of a vacation rhythm. Notice what gives energy and what becomes boring. Gather real information. A vision doesn't need to be certain before it becomes useful. It needs to be clear enough to guide your next experiment. That's what I mean by envisioning. Envisioning is choosing and practicing a new story about what is possible so your attention, decisions, and actions begin moving toward the life you want. It's not predicting the future. It's not pretending that challenges don't exist. It's not manifestation in the sense that you think about something and the universe is required to deliver it. It is giving your mind a direction. Our minds are prediction machines. A researcher named Regina Pally published an article called "The Predicting Brain," In which she described the predictive nature of our brain. She said that Even before events happen, our brain makes a prediction of what's most likely to happen and sets in motion the thoughts, perceptions, emotions, and even physiological responses for what's expected." She goes on to say, "In a sense, we learn from the past what to predict for the future, and then live the future we expect." The way I think about this is our mind makes up a story, and then we act out those stories. Your story creates your reality Envisioning is all about choosing a new story to create a new reality, And we do that by thinking big about what we actually want Those predictions influence what we notice, how we feel, and what actions we take. If the only story you practice is, 'I have to keep doing exactly what I'm doing,' your mind gets very good at finding evidence for that story. If you begin practicing, I've created options. There may be ways to live more of what matters now,' your mind has a new possibility to explore. You may notice a conversation, an experiment, an opportunity, or a choice that has always been there but wasn't relevant to the old story. think of it this way. Have you ever noticed when you get a new car, say a Subaru Forester, suddenly you see that car everywhere? When I got my Subaru Forester, it wasn't that there were suddenly more Subaru Foresters all over the place. I was just ready to see it because it was top of mind for me. And so that's how this all comes together. A metaphor that I find really useful to understand the concept of envisioning is that of planting and watering seeds. The thoughts and stories we tell ourselves are like seeds that we're planting and watering. The ones we tell ourselves most often and pay attention to most often are the ones that we're planting and watering, and those are the ones that grow and ultimately become our reality. Every story is a seed. The stories you repeat and act on are the seeds that you water. Most of us are very good at being practical. the moment a desire appears, we edit it. That would cost too much. My partner might not want that. I can't do that with my job. I only have two weeks' vacation. The kids' schedules won't allow it That doesn't sound responsible. Some of those constraints might be real, but it doesn't mean they're set in stone, and it doesn't mean we can't work with them. But if you apply every constraint during the first 30 seconds o-of imagining, you'll never learn what you truly want. And I've found so often in working with people in workshops and one-on-one, people find it really difficult to think big. First off, most people don't ever even create the time and space to ask themselves what they want, let alone think big. And when they do, and even if they think they're thinking big, most often they're limiting themselves within the context of their current reality So they end up creating a vision that is simply a rearranged version of their current life. And if that's what they want, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. As I said, thinking big is up to you. But what I encourage people to do in my workshops, in my coaching, is to take all of the constraints, all of the ideas of what's reasonable, rational, responsible, take them and put them in a little box, and just set that box over to the side. It'll be there when you are done. And give yourself permission to think really big, to reconnect with the dreams that you'd long forgotten, and to imagine that anything is possible. I invite you to approach this exercise with an attitude of openness, curiosity, and unlimited possibility thinking big is a temporary suspension of the editing function. You take everything that seems reasonable, rational, responsible, or possible, put it in a box, and set that box to the side. Then you ask, "If everything went better than expected, what would I actually want?" If you wanna do this for yourself, I want you to download my FiLife Jumpstart at mindfullfire.org/start. This is a journaling exercise that goes through the core of all that I teach to help you connect with yourself and your biggest vision for life. this is the exercise that I've used to create unbelievable opportunities in my life, like retiring at 36, getting an opportunity to do my workshop and speak at Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google's leadership conference, getting to do international rotations around the world, buying my dream house, you name it. It all starts with asking yourself, what do you actually want? And tapping into a sense of unlimited possibility. if this question's alive for you, if you've done the hard work to create the financial freedom and wanna get clearer about the life you actually want to use that freedom for, I'm hosting live workshop Friday, August 14th, and I'd love for you to be there. This is not a webinar of whether you should quit your job. It's not a retirement planning presentation. We're not gonna look at your numbers at all. It's a dedicated space to pause, to think much bigger than you've ever done before, than you've ever allowed yourself to think, and to get clearer about what you genuinely want. You'll connect with yourself, have a meaningful conversation with a couple of other people on the path, and you'll leave with a clearer vision. And you'll also identify one small mini experiment so you can start living that vision right now. You don't need to have all the answers before you arrive. You only need to be willing to ask what's possible. You can learn more and reserve your place at mindfulfire.org/workshop. Again, that's You didn't build financial freedom just to have a bigger number. You built it to create a bigger life. And you don't have to wait until everything is figured out before you start creating that life. Thank you for joining me. I'll see you next time on the Mindful Fire Podcast, And I hope you'll join us for the Ask What's Possible Envisioning Workshop On Friday, August 14th. You can see all the details and sign up at mindfulfire.org/workshop.