So Glad You Asked
Conversations on career, leadership and living an intentional life with CliftonStrengths® Certified Life & Career Coach and Founder of Whole Human Co. Jean Madison
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So Glad You Asked
Money Mindset March - Financial Freedom
Most of us have a skewed vision of what "financial freedom" actually means. We picture wealthy individuals lounging on private islands, completely disconnected from responsibility. But what if true financial freedom looks completely different for you?
Financial freedom, at its core, means having your money work for you rather than exclusively exchanging your time for money. It's about having sufficient assets to cover your expenses without depending on traditional employment. The problem? Many of us are killing ourselves to reach someone else's version of financial freedom.
I've watched too many clients sacrifice their present well-being—their health, relationships, and joy—for a future state that may not even align with their authentic desires. They reach "financial freedom" only to discover they actually enjoy working, creating, and contributing. They didn't need to make themselves miserable for years to reach a point where they wouldn't need to work because they never actually wanted to stop working!
This is why I always ask: "If money were no object, how would you spend your time?" When people truly reflect on this question, most discover they would still engage in productive activities—just different ones than their current job. They would volunteer, create, teach, or pursue passion projects that bring genuine fulfillment.
The crucial first step is getting crystal clear on what YOUR ideal life looks like—not someone else's Instagram version. Map out your vision and put actual numbers to it. You might be surprised that your dream life costs less than you thought. Financial freedom doesn't necessarily require millions; it requires knowing your real number and creating aligned plans to reach it.
Don't sacrifice everything in your present for some elusive future state. Start experimenting with aspects of your ideal life now, even in small ways. Your definition of financial freedom can and should evolve as you grow. Write it in pencil, not stone, and consider bringing in support to help clarify your goals and create a path that honors both your present needs and future dreams.
What would your life look like if money were no longer a concern? How could you start building aspects of that life into your reality today? The journey to financial freedom begins with these questions, not with sacrifice.
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Welcome back to so Glad. You Asked a podcast where we have conversations on career leadership and living an intentional life and conversations with me, jean Madison, certified Gallup Global Strengths Coach and founder of Whole Human Co, where I'm focused on intentional career life and relationship coaching, as well as organizational and team development and well-being. Join me as I answer questions I'm asked by my clients and audience, as well as personal experiences and growth opportunities that I feel we could all learn from. If you have a question or topic suggestion you'd love to hear discussed here on the podcast, visit my Instagram at JeanMadison underscore, comment your questions here on the podcast or tap the link in the show notes that says send questions here to email me directly. Now let's dive into today's episode. All right, everyone.
Speaker 1:This week we are diving into the topic of financial freedom, another buzzword. It seems that all of the episodes this month are really about these very common buzzwords in the financial world and my spin on them. You know, in my discovery calls for coaching, my one-on-one coaching work in workshops that I do and most of my one-on-one coaching sessions, one topic often comes up again and again and again and again, and that is ideal life. I've talked about this so many times on the podcast. So if this is your first time hearing it, go back and listen to a couple episodes. But to me, the reason I talk about this so much, especially on the topic of money mindset and in our money mindset March you know extravaganza we're having here is because I really believe that knowing what you want your life to look like is so crucial to how you make decisions and how you live your life now. So today for our Money Mindset March episode, I want to talk about the phrase financial freedom and the things that I normally see come up for clients when we are working with this idea of building a life towards financial freedom. So today we're going to talk a little bit about what is financial freedom really? We're going to talk about kind of this surprise Humans are drawn to being productive members of society and the goal is actually not laying by a pool all day, every day and you might disagree with me in this exact moment on that comment, but just hear me out. We're also going to talk about how to get clear on your definition of financial freedom, building off of the definitions that are out there in the world. And then I want to talk about some resources to use if you want to work on money, mindset and or financial education. So I'll talk about that at the end and leave those resources in the show notes as well.
Speaker 1:But with that, let's go ahead and get started with today's episode. First things first. What is financial freedom? I'm sure that you've heard this term from the wooest of wellness folks and from the bro-iest of financial bros and everyone in between, because everyone wants this idea of financial freedom in their lives. If you have spent any time in the world of money and finance, but raise your hand, metaphorically or literally, if, when you hear financial freedom, you picture the super wealthy, the people who have all the things, millions, billions, laying on their private island, like, I really want you to think about what the image is that you have in your head when that idea of financial freedom, when that word, comes up for you and don't get me wrong, that can be a version of either their financial freedom or your ideal life and therefore financial freedom. But financial freedom is only a small part of that idea. It's like one technical piece of the bigger picture that I want you to be looking at.
Speaker 1:So the definition of financial freedom and I went to the internet for this, but it's having your money work for you rather than you exclusively exchanging your time for money. That's like one version of the definition of financial freedom. What it generally entails, according to the internet, is one sufficient income or assets, enough savings, investments or passive income streams to cover your expenses. Two reduced reliance on employment or traditional employment. Decreased dependence on traditional employment, giving you the option to work less, pursue passions, retire early, et cetera. Three to really control have control over your time, use your time as you want to, as you choose to, without being constrained by financial needs. And then four peace of mind constrained by financial needs. And then four peace of mind Great, now that we have those definitions laid out, really understand kind of the core of what financial freedom is.
Speaker 1:My question for you is is that what you were thinking when you heard the term financial freedom? When I read this definition, it makes sense and it feels like what I had in my head. But if I'm really honest, the idea of financial freedom has always felt so far away and out of reach, and I think that that's partially because I've been looking at financial freedom through the lens of other people's dreams, other people's ideal life. You know what quote unquote wealthy people are doing, and you know, just to be clear, a lot of really wealthy people don't necessarily have financial freedom. They probably do, but that doesn't mean that they're not working, that doesn't mean that they're not exchanging time for money, and so that's why I really wanted to write out the definition, because it's important to recognize what financial freedom is if that's something that you are pursuing right now in your life.
Speaker 1:And so for me and I've done money mindset work, I've done financial education, I've worked with a lot of clients who have done both of those things, and this comes up frequently of the idea that we have in our head of what financial freedom is is millions of dollars, and that's just not necessarily the case. It might be, depending on what you want your life to look like, but it doesn't have to be that. So that's when I really like to go back to what I talked about in my last episode, which is what's the real number? Like what is the real number? What are you? What are your actual expenses? How much money do you really need to make in order to cover your expenses? Maybe you don't actually need to be a millionaire, maybe you just need to know what you actually need. And so there's this.
Speaker 1:There's a difference also between financial freedom being able to cover your expenses and having extra, being wealthy, spending lots of money. Those are not the same thing, and that's why I really wanted to talk about this in this episode today, because you can pursue both. You can pursue both wealth and financial freedom. They probably will go hand in hand. But you can also pursue financial freedom without sacrificing your entire life, and that's really what I want to talk about here today is how do we get a really positive, productive view on financial freedom so that we are pursuing it for our future and so that we are not sacrificing our present for some elusive thing that may or may not come to be that is not necessarily in our control.
Speaker 1:So, now that we know the definition, I want you to sort of forget about the definition. We're going to go back to this conversation we have often about ideal life. So, yes, I want you to get really clear about what does financial freedom look like for you in your future ideal life with your family, with your interests and passions and the way that you like to spend your time, not the way you see other people spend their time or money. So this is something I ask in my ideal life visualization is like or in my sorry discovery calls is like if money were no object. If money didn't exist or you had enough of it whichever feels best for you how would you spend your time? And that is a hard question to answer. That's a hard question for most people to answer on the spot. So lucky you you're getting it here and you can really think about it.
Speaker 1:If you didn't have to worry about money, how would you spend your time? A lot of people still say that they would work in some way, shape or form. It might be volunteer, it might be not in the line of work that they're currently in, but it is very rare that I have someone say oh well, I would just sit around and do nothing and read books for the rest of my life, and if that's you, that's great. There's no judgment on that. I just want to say that because I think that we all think that our goal should be doing nothing, that our goal should be relaxing and being pampered and all these things all the time, but when we really think about it, that's not actually what most of us have in mind for our ideal lives, and so I want you to be really clear about how would you spend your time if you didn't have to worry about money. And then I want you to put a number on that, like what is the cost? And obviously you're not going to know a hundred percent, but you could figure it out.
Speaker 1:Right, I've sat down and mapped out, like if I didn't have to worry about money, what are all the things I would do, what is all the ways I would spend my time? I would get a massage every week. I would do blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, and get really like extravagant with it. And it's so funny to me because even when I did that, the amount of money that I would need to do those things is really not that crazy. It's definitely more than I have right now, of course, but it's not that crazy.
Speaker 1:So sit down and write out all of the most extravagant things. You can think of all the things that you would want to do every week, every month, every year the vacations, the travel, the food you'd want to eat, the people you would want to support. You know the causes, whatever it is. Write it all out, get some guesstimate numbers on it and then there you have it. That's the goal to work toward. That's the financial freedom right. Being able to cover those things without trading time for money is financial freedom for you. Now you could also look at that list and be like, well, I could eliminate half of this and still and if my assets and savings and whatever covered my cost of living at half, I'd still be extremely happy with the way that I spent my time Great, awesome, really. Financial freedom is like covering the expenses that you absolutely have to have covered without having to trade time for money, and then you can work for additional.
Speaker 1:And to be clear, I'm not a financial advisor. I'm not so like. This is from my own learning and my own experience and the way that I'm looking at this. This is not advice. This is not like you should do this and this is how everything will work out. It's just an invitation to look at things. Differently is how everything will work out. It's just an invitation to look at things differently.
Speaker 1:If you have a focus on financial freedom and it's currently negatively affecting your everyday life in the present, okay, I just want to be very clear about that. So what are your you know actual expenses when you think about like how you, what, what you would want your life to look like if money were not a thing, and you know what is that number that you can then aim for. What is that number? You can then figure out how much do I need to have saved, how much do I need to have invested, what kinds of accounts do I need to put money in? And this is where the like actual financial education comes in, because once you have that goal, then you can actually set up systems that can get you there, rather than just continuing to show up and work and work, and work, and work and work and hope that somehow, eventually, your money is going to work for you.
Speaker 1:Now I want to bring you back to the present and I want to know what would financial freedom look like for you right now? So your current expenses right now, not necessarily ideal life situation, but like what does your life cost right now? And therefore, how much money would you need your assets or whatever to be making in order to cover that without having to work, without having to exchange your time for money? That's also a good thing to know, right, because maybe it's not that far away for you, maybe it's a lot closer for you to get there than you actually thought that it was, and that's great. So just to think through some examples like maybe you're someone who really enjoys work but you really have no desire to quote climb the ladder. You want to make some upgrades in your life Maybe you want a new house, or you have a family to support or something like that and you want to do that without having to move arbitrarily up the ladder and take on more work and more stress when that's not really what you want for yourself and your career. So my question for you would just be like what is that number? Again, let's get clear on what the number actually is and how could you creatively cover that?
Speaker 1:And this is really where I come in with my clients. I have ideation very high in my strengths. I love to think about, like, what about this? What about this, what about this? So if, when I say that, like how could you creatively cover the extra cost without having to get some arbitrary promotion at work? And you're like I don't know, I can't think of anything, that's totally fine. You're not alone. Most people are in your situation. Reach out, let me know. I would love to brainstorm with you. I would love to help get creative with you on how you could make more money to cover the things that you want to cover in your life without having to follow a career path that is not aligned for you.
Speaker 1:Another example would be maybe you're someone who's kind of in the raising babies phase of life I personally am there right now and you. It's really more important to you to have more time and energy to spend with your kids than you know the money itself, but you also don't want to commit all your time and energy to your kids and risk leaving your career behind. This is actually something I've talked through with several clients. Um, we've really worked on this. So this is this is this is a real one. This is a real one that I have worked through with people and the question is the same, like what's the number that you need and how could you creatively cover that, and how can you set yourself up for success in your current role if that's somewhere that you want to stay right, if you want to continue working, if that's what you want to do, but you want to have more time and energy? There are a couple of different ways that we could go about doing this?
Speaker 1:One of my favorite questions is particularly for my very high-performing women women is what would it look like to give like just 95 to 100% at work instead of 150? You're still doing your job, you're still meeting expectations, but like maybe you're not getting what my husband's company calls top box. Maybe you're just doing your job and that is giving you enough time and energy to spend with your kids because you're not taking on extra and you to spend with your kids because you're not taking on extra and you're not overachieving and you're not, you know, always the person that raises your hand. That's a free option, right? That's not like you taking on a side hustle. That's literally just like stop taking on so much so that you have time, space and energy to spend with your family.
Speaker 1:Again, we could go into lots of examples there. I will just leave that one. If that sounds like you reach out, I would love to help you problem solve what that can look like for you if you are in that raising kids phase of life. Another example would be like maybe you are at a phase where you've had this goal of I'm going to quit my job and travel around the world. My parents actually did this in the 80s the world. My parents actually did this in the 80s. But maybe you're at that phase and you can actually afford it. You've saved the money, you've done all the things like you could afford that around the world trip, but you're feeling really fearful of leaving your nine to five and having to start from scratch when you come back.
Speaker 1:A question I would ask you here is what is the best possible outcome that you can imagine and how can you start to set yourself up for that? How can you set goals around that? So the best possible outcome might be you ask for a six month leave of absence and they say yes, maybe that's it. Maybe it's that you never have to return to a nine to five that you're in right now, and so how could you set yourself up for success with that? Potentially, you know, maybe it's that you want to leave this job anyway and so it's an opportunity to leave, and your fear is around finding something when you come back. We can talk about that too. There's a lot of different. You know ways to think through that, but I would really encourage you to think like what's the best possible outcome and then try to set yourself up for that, knowing what you have control over and what you don't.
Speaker 1:This is obviously not like a full-on financial freedom for the rest of your life situation, but it can be a financial freedom for right now. Like what does financial freedom look like? That allows me to take this trip and not be concerned about what happens on the back end. So those are just a couple of examples that I thought through, things that I've talked about with clients and we've come up with some plans and solutions for, and so I know that financial freedom means having assets that cover your expenses, like we've mentioned this several times already in this episode, but part of the reason I wanted to talk about this today is because I have seen too many people clients in particular completely sacrifice themselves, their health, their wellbeing, everything in this present moment in an effort to create that financial future for some time in the future or that financial freedom for some time in the future.
Speaker 1:And again, anything that we're trying to do in the future is going to require planning, effort, maybe a little bit of sacrifice. I am not delusional in that way, but I have seen people sacrifice everything right now to be able to quote not work in the future, and then they realize that they like working, they like being productive, they like being part of a team, they like doing things didn't need to kill themselves for the last 10 years to get to this place where they didn't have to work, because they never actually planned on not working in the first place. It's just that maybe they didn't have enough of a creative process or creative thinking experience to be able to say what are all the different ways that this could happen. What are you know, if I do want to continue working, but I don't want to be beholden to it, you know, I don't want to be paycheck to paycheck or whatever that like, whatever it is that you don't want, how do you set goals according to that, rather than just I just want to be able to not work, because once you get to that point, then you don't have anything to do. Right? You're like well, I guess I'm just going to keep working, because what else am I going to do with my life? I haven't lived life enough to know what I actually want to do, because I've been too busy working and making money so that I can eventually live life, and this is something I I kind of struggled to like verbalize, but I'm going to try. Today I really have this very strong belief and it's from a lot of my money, mindset work and maybe some of the financial work as well, that we have these ideas about the life that we want to live. But we don't live any aspects of that ideal life now and we just say in our heads like well, when I make this money or when this thing happens, then I will be that person, then I will do that thing.
Speaker 1:And I always use the example of gardening because it's just like the easiest, like less controversial, least controversial one to use. But I use this example of gardening and maybe we talked about this in one of the other podcast episodes. Honestly, I can't remember at this point. But, like you say you want to own land and you want a homestead and you want to be, you want to have a huge garden, right, like this is very Instagram right now. Like this is very Instagram right now. But like what if you hate dirt and bugs? What if you, like don't want to sow seeds and like watch half of them die? I'm speaking from experience. What if you don't actually want to do the amount of work that goes into like homesteading and gardening. You're not actually going to know that unless you do some of those things now. So I love this example of like.
Speaker 1:Let's say you say you want land and you say you want a garden, but right now you're living in a high rise apartment in the middle of the city. You're like okay, well, how am I going to practice being a gardener, jean? I can't, I live in an apartment. Oh, but you can Do. I can't, I live in an apartment, oh, but you can do. You have plants. If you don't have plants, I would recommend getting some plants, and that gives you an idea of how much work it takes to keep plants. Let's say that goes well. Great, let's get some herbs that you put in one of your windows and then you can use those herbs right. Let's, maybe there's like a community garden, you can get a plot in and then you can use that to practice your gardening skills Right and like all of these different steps are opportunities for you to be like wow, I really love this, I can't wait until I have a home with a garden.
Speaker 1:Or it's an opportunity to be like I really do not enjoy being hands deep in dirt and bugs and compost and it's really not that satisfying to me to get, like, three tomatoes, great. So then you get to ask yourself a different question, right? Do I want to garden or do I want to have a garden? Do I want to grow my own food or do I just want to be able to afford fresh farm to table food? Right, those are different things. They're also different numbers. It might mean that you need to hire a gardener and in your elusive, like home, one day, it might mean that you just need to live somewhere where you have access to fresh food. Like. There's a lot of different ways that it can go, and so that's why I feel so strongly about not only being clear on your ideal life, but then working with someone and talking through these things and experimenting in small ways on how you can make that ideal life part of your life now, because you might just realize that there's a piece of that that you really want, but you don't actually want the whole thing.
Speaker 1:I also love the example a lot of my clients in like 2020, 2021, because we were, all you know, pandemic lockdown. We're like I want a cabin in the woods, and that was a really great opportunity to be like do you want to own a cabin in the woods that you live in full time, or do you just want to have enough money that you can rent a nice cabin in the woods once a year, twice a year, three times a year, four times a year, whatever it is? Again, those are. Those are different things and they're different numbers. And you could rent a cabin in the woods now and maybe own a cabin in the woods in 10 years. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:If that still is your goal, how are you going to make sure that's what you actually want and then be open to the fact that it might not be what you want? And so the same thing goes for this idea of financial freedom is yeah, you can tell yourself over and over again like I just want to be financially free, I don't want to rely on a paycheck, I want to have my money, make money for me, so that I don't have to work. And my question for you is going to be OK, and let's say we snapped our fingers and that happened right now, what are you going to do with your time? And if your answer is well, I'm probably going to keep working. Well then, let's not kill yourself right now. Let's not make your life miserable, to save and invest and do whatever to make your money work for you. If you're not going to dramatically change your life when that thing happens Now, it's still a good goal to work towards.
Speaker 1:I just want to make sure you're living right now. That's really it. I just want to make sure you live your life now, and I know that it's super cliche and maybe a little bit morbid, but like we don't know what's going to happen, we don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. We don't know what's going to happen next year. We don't know what's going to happen 10 years from now. Goals are great and amazing and wonderful, and do not put your life on hold for a goal. Do not put your life on hold for this elusive financial freedom, ideal life. That's all I'm going to say about that. No, it's not.
Speaker 1:I'm probably going to say a lot more about that, but I've seen people sacrifice everything to be able to not work and realize they like to work. Like I said, I've seen people turn to entrepreneurship in order to have time, freedom and, quote, work less and have more flexibility, who end up working way more and making less money and it not being what they want it to be less money and it not being what they want it to be. I've seen people live in the apartment above their garage and rent out their homes to cover their mortgage and then never get to enjoy their home, or any alone time for that matter, and that is important to me. I am I'm a big person who likes to be alone, and I'll even use that as an example. You know, a few years ago, before we had a baby, like my husband said a lot like what if we, our house, used to be a two duplex and then the previous owners turned it into just a single family home? And my husband kept saying, like well, what if we just like kind of turned it back into a duplex and like rented out the basement? And I was, like that's not the life I want to live. I don't care how much money that saves us, I don't care how much money like we make on that, I don't want to live with people in my basement. I don't want to do it.
Speaker 1:And so I give this example because, like, financial freedom is not more important to me than like my space and my tranquility and my alone time. It's important, but it's not more important than that I'm not willing to sacrifice that right now in my life, maybe in my early 20s, sure, but like not in my 30s. So no, we're not going to do that Because I'm not willing to do that. I'm not willing. That sounds horrible to me and if that sounds great to you, that's not a judgment statement. It's just like for me. I know myself, and that does not align with the life that I want to be living.
Speaker 1:And, like I said, to be clear, like none of these things that I, none of these examples that I gave, are bad, they just tend to. They're just decisions that tend to be made without really getting a clear idea of what the end goal is or what the now goal is. If you love humans and you rent out your house because you want to have, like, people from other countries staying there so you can make friends, great, do that. I love that for you. If you love working really hard and you have a really strong idea and like entrepreneurship and that kind of grind and hustle sounds really fun to you, great, do that. But I just want to make sure you're not doing things or making decisions just because someone on the internet told you that that's the way to do it. That's the way to make a million bucks. That that's the easy, you know shortcut, I guess that that's the easy you know shortcut, I guess, to getting to this idea of financial freedom. I want to make sure that you're doing things that at least mostly align with how you want to be living now and how you want to live in the future. There can be that shared space, there can be that middle ground.
Speaker 1:So, what do you want? That's always the thing that this comes back to. Every conversation we have on this podcast comes back to what do you want? And I know that for a lot of us, that is a hard question. And even when I think about that right now or I've done like my ideal life visualization at the beginning of 2025 again, I've done like my ideal life visualization at the beginning of 2025, again, like I'm not a hundred percent clear on where I want to go, and part of the reason for that is because I am in a moment in my life that is rapidly changing. You do not raise a toddler without being like, oh my God, I have no control over anything and everything is just always changing. And how could I possibly think about a 10 year goal. I'm sure I will get back to that in my life. And how could I possibly think about a 10-year goal? I'm sure I will get back to that in my life and I'm sure I will be able to think further into the future again.
Speaker 1:I do have futuristic in my top strengths but, like for the moment, that's tough, and so I feel you, if you're like, I don't know what I want, but I really want to push you to try and figure it out, try to get some idea of what you want your life to look like, and it does not have to be chiseled in stone, it can be written in pencil, you can go back and erase it, you can go back and edit it, you can change it as much as you want. But without that guidepost, I don't know what financial freedom looks like. Without knowing how I want my life to look realistically, without knowing how I want my life to look realistically, I don't know what I'm working toward. And I feel that the same is probably true for you. You might think that you want, like, a house on the West Coast and a house on the East Coast and a house on the mountains, but like do you really? And if so, great. Or do you just want to, like, go to those places? What's the feeling you're trying to get by being there, right? So I want you to get really clear on the why, the what and the why. What do you want and why do you want it? Those are the two questions that we're always going to come back to.
Speaker 1:You know, in this journey of building financial freedom for yourself. I just ask that you actually put yourself and your needs at the top of that list, not necessarily just the money. So, with whatever power I have, I give you permission. I give you permission to have an evolving idea of what financial freedom means to you in this moment, rather than only thinking about the financially free version of you in the future, or the financially free version of you that someone on the internet told you you should be, or that the finance bro next door said is the only way to get there. And you can think about both of those versions of you the right now, financially free version of you now, and the financially free version of you in the future. Together. You can think about those things, versions of you together, the future together. You can think about those things, versions of you together and make decisions accordingly.
Speaker 1:But this is a place where bringing in some outside support could be really helpful. This is a hard thing to do by yourself and maybe you have a really solid like partnership or a really good friends group where you can talk about these things and make these plans and all of that. But this is an area of life where I just have to plug bringing in external support and the right kind of external support. Not the external support that's going to tell you this is what you should want and this is exactly how you get it, but the kind of external support who questions you and helps you figure out what you actually want and then how to get there. So I want you to come back to this idea of how you define financial freedom for you Again, as always, starting with the ideal life visualization.
Speaker 1:I would say bonus do my ideal job description activity to better understand what you like about work and like what you want to do and how you want to spend your time. Those two things together could be very powerful for this. And then, what's the number? Look at what the number is now. Estimate it for your future. What are your expenses? What do you need to cover All that kind of stuff. That's what financial freedom is going to be for you and that's what I want you to be focused on. And again, you can write this in pencil, you can edit it, you can change it as you evolve. It can evolve, that's totally fine. But I want you to have something that you're moving toward. Once you've defined both of those, it's just so much easier to take appropriate and aligned actions toward that goal. So with that definition, now you can get creative.
Speaker 1:And going back to those examples that I did earlier, like for the parent example, could you ask to go part-time at your company to spend more time with your kids? I actually have three clients and one very good friend who've done that, who've temporarily gone part-time at their company so that they can spend more time with their kids and still be able to afford their life. So that is an option Like you can ask, right People can say no, but like you can still ask, maybe for you right now, it's less about being financially free and more about being financially flexible. I don't know if that's a real term out there, so if it is, I'm not trying to steal that, but that's the way I'm trying to think about it. Financially flexible. My goal in the future is to be financially flexible. I can work or I don't have to work, but the word free, it's too like black and white for me in this moment in time, especially when I'm not exactly sure what I want that to look like.
Speaker 1:And I'm by no means trying to tell you not to pursue financial freedom in the defined way that we talked about in the beginning. I just want to encourage you to not sacrifice your time, your energy, your happiness now for some elusive future. I want you to make plans, make decisions that are in line with that plan, but also remember that you know, life is also about living now and being able to take care of your needs now and your physical and mental health now and your wellbeing now. All of those things are also important if you want to enjoy more freedom in the future. So you'll never know how to live the life you want in the future if you don't start practicing it now, as we've talked about. So that's what I have for you today when it comes to my personal thoughts.
Speaker 1:I do want to share some resources with you, because they are things that have been very helpful to me, you know, first and foremost, I have to plug my own work, because what kind of entrepreneur would I be if I did not? You know when I talk about strengths all the time, understanding yourself is the foundation to building the life that you want to live. Understanding your strengths helps you see where you might run into blind spots, where you might run into challenges on this journey toward financial freedom, on this journey towards determining your ideal life. Working with me in one-on-one coaching containers, which is the main way that you can work with me, this is really committing, like six to 12 months, to understanding who you are, what you want, the work that you want to do, where you are and are not willing to sacrifice, how burnout shows up for you, your sabotages, your successes, all of that. And I just want you to think, like with six to 12 months, you pick which number feels best for you, and I want you to imagine the difference that you would see in your life, your work, your goals, your ability to execute, etc. If you had consistent support and accountability for six months, for a year, from someone who is trying to provide that support, that accountability, and to ask you those powerful questions to help you figure out the truth of who you are and what you want. What difference would that make for you in your life? And if there is a difference that you just pictured, I would highly encourage you to schedule a discovery call with me. I only take on about four clients a quarter, so if you are interested, the discovery calls are free. They are a mini coaching session. They're a great way to get a feel for who I am, how I operate If you don't have a feel for that already from listening to these podcasts and just get all of your questions answered, and so I would just really encourage you to do that. If you really think, like six months, 12 months of consistent support, consistent questions, consistent cheering you on could be really helpful in getting you towards your goals. Reach out and let's talk Now for some other resources that are not me and that I have no affiliation with and that I do not get anything from. The first one is specifically for the women listening.
Speaker 1:I participated in the Women's Wealth Circle from Factora Wealth back in 2021. 2020?, 2021?, can't remember. This is essentially a financial education program. Their goal is 1 million women to 1 million in net worth, and I loved this education Coming from more of the woo side, the money mindset side, of things. I'd already done a lot of work with that. This is like how you invest, how you invest in the stock market and properties in other people's businesses, effective savings, how to make your money work for you. Like this is the nuts and bolts of financial freedom. Like how do you actually make that work, and so I highly recommend their course.
Speaker 1:The Factora team is not active right now, meaning the course is not live. It used to be like live for 12 weeks, but you can still purchase the course online and join the community and, to be honest, as much as I loved the education and I did I love the community more. It's the one place that I can go and know that when I put an audacious goal out there, the women are going to be like yep, you can do that, let's do it. How can we help? It's just a community of people who like money and want to spend money in responsible ways, and I think that everybody needs that in their life when they're trying to improve their money mindset and their financial education. So if you're a woman and you're interested, I will put the link to their website in the show notes, but highly, highly recommend the community alone is worth it in my mind, and so the one like asterisk I will put on Factora and this is like not a negative at them, it's just an observation I've made is that I would highly recommend the combo of Factora with like one-on-one coaching with me or working with a money mindset person or just like one-on-one coaching in general, because I have found that a lot of my really incredible Factora clients have come to me at a point where they've gotten so wrapped up in the future wealth that they want to build that they forget about who they are right now and some of them have even really found themselves in like significant burnout and struggle with their money mindset because of the pursuit of wealth and forgetting, like who they actually are and what they actually want. So I think it's a really great combo if you want to both learn how to make money and find support and not losing yourself in that pursuit. So that's Factora.
Speaker 1:And then my last one and I've talked about her many times on the podcast Denise Duffield Thomas. I specifically recommend this to anyone listening who's an entrepreneur. She does a money bootcamp. There's one actually starting like next week this is March 30th, I'm pretty sure it starts on Tuesday, april 1st, um, but that's like a live version. You do not. You absolutely do not have to attend a live version for this to be a totally worthwhile course, um. But again, this is much more in the money mindset space and, um, it's a bootcamp, essentially a six week bootcamp, and I did the bootcamp when I was in a nine to five, so you absolutely don't have to be an entrepreneur in order to join If you want to work on your money mindset. It's just definitely recommended for the people in my life who are in charge of their own income, because some of the things that we talk about are a little bit more reliant on you being semi in charge of your own income, um, so I will put the link to that in the show notes as well.
Speaker 1:Those are just kind of two of my favorites, two of the things that have really moved me forward. Um, community wise, that's another great. Like that Facebook group, holy cow, I love that Facebook group. I go there, I go to Factora for my like nuts and bolts, motivated, you know, highly like powerful, powerful women, and not that the money boot camp is not that also. But I go to the money boot camp, because people are like I made this much money this month, this is my goal. I didn't reach my goal. This is how I'm feeling. This is where I'm struggling. Can someone help? You know, like it's just a, it's a really. Both of them are extremely supportive communities and I highly recommend them for the communities alone. But, yeah, two different things Wealth, wealth, education, money mindset.
Speaker 1:I obviously am going to plug myself in the one-on-one coaching because I can help support with both of those things, just not in a super formal, certified manner for the financial education and money mindset. All right, those are my resource recommendations. I have a lot more resources that I would love to share, but we do not have time for that. This has already been a long episode. So reach out, schedule a discovery call if you want to talk more about what coaching could look like for you, about other resources that I might recommend, depending on your specific situation and scenario. But hopefully my hope for you is that you're walking away from today's episode with a more concrete idea of who you are and what you want out of life and what financial freedom means in relation to that desire.
Speaker 1:If you enjoyed the episode, I always, always, always, appreciate comments, rating and reviewing the podcast, sharing it on your social media or with your friends. I really appreciate that. That's the biggest way that people are going to find out about it. If you have questions that you want me to answer on the podcast, please put those in the comments. Send me an email, jeanmadison at thewholehumancocom, and if nothing else, I will see you back here for our next episode of so Glad you Asked.
