The Benefit of Taking Mini-Retirements Often with Jillian Johnsrud - 188

Welcome Money Buddies to this week's episode of Money Talk. This week we're talking about mini retirements, retiring often, and how to figure out what you want. I'm your host, Skylar Fleming, and let's get talking. I am so excited for today's topic. Today's Money Buddy is Jillian Johns rude, and it's someone who I've wanted to talk to for a while, and I've heard her talk about this idea for a long time over the past few years, so getting to interview her on the show is gonna be fantastic. Her whole idea is that we should be taking mini retirements and we should be taking them often. It's so much more than just a seven to 10 day vacation in my mind, and I'm excited for today's interview to be able to bring to all of you a guest who's gonna help you figure out how to live life. Now, often we feel like we're just rushing towards early retirement or some form of quitting our job. But one of the main questions I'm gonna ask today is, these mini retirements, do they actually help us love work more? And are they gonna help us enjoy going back to work? Which is gonna be a fun conversation to have, and I'm excited to get into it. Let's jump right into today's introduction with today's money buddy, Jillian John's route. Jillian never expected to be able to retire early, so she hatched a plan to retire, often inspired by the idea of sabbatical years she set out to sprinkle retirements throughout her life. At 40, she has taken over a dozen mini retirements. These have allowed her to pursue her dreams like living abroad, traveling to 27 countries, adopting four kids, plus two biological kids, investing in real estate and touring the United States in a camper. Jillian has taught, coached, and written about many retirements for almost a decade. She hosts The Retire Often Podcast and is a popular speaker and consultant for mini retirements, and I'm super excited for this interview. The money talking points for this week are, how can you take a mini retirement to, what do you love to do? And three, what would it look like for you to take a mini retirement? With those many talking points in mind, let's get talking and welcome Jillian to the show.

Thanks so much for having me.

Yeah, this is gonna be a super fun conversation. This is finally gonna be one that I think I can get my wife to listen to because she is all about this sort of idea. She loves taking vacations and things like that, so this will be a fun one. We're talking about retiring often and mini retirements. I've heard you on a variety of other shows, so it's always kind of exciting when I hear someone else's ideas. Out there and then gonna bring'em to my show and my audience. So this will be a super fun one. I'm excited for this. Let's go ahead and just kick it off a simple definition of what is a mini retirement.

Yeah, my definition of mini retirements is there's three elements that really create a mini retirement. The first one is that it's a month or longer. I think a month is kind of the minimum effective dose. Some people take six months or a year, two years, but at least a month. second one, you're stepping away from your nine to five from your primary career. So. Uh, I distinguish that.'cause sometimes people real estate, do other, pursue a different, maybe volunteer or an out a different, career field. So there's lots of cool things you can do professional sense, but you're stepping away from your primary career. And the third one is to focus on something that's meaningful.

Hmm.

you know, you're not just like chilling and watching Netflix. you're you're pursuing something that will make your life better.

Which is one of my upcoming questions is, is this just your idea of retirement that maybe we see our grandparents just sitting around on the couch watching TV all day.

Not? No, not necessarily. Now I will, I will say sometimes, frequently people burnout.

Hmm.

not that you can't have rest, but having that as your having that as your goal, and for burnout, I encourage people to have kind of a plan and a little bit of structure. Like picking, I call active rest, uh, picking active rest, like activities, whether that's going for a walk or lunch with your mom or, um, you know, taking a bath or reading a book, about doing those things because it can be so easy to just kind of fall to the lowest common denominator,

Mm-hmm.

Scrolling Facebook or watching Netflix and, and you don't feel rested, you're not getting, it's not meaningful and it's

Yeah.

actually to any of these goals.

And we're throughout this interview, outline some of those ways you can identify some of those things that are truly meaningful to you. But I. I like the idea that, sure, maybe it can be a day of watching and catching up on your shows that you want to, but you're intentional about saying, Hey, I wanna spend a day doing this, but

Yeah.

just going to be, well, I'm gonna do whatever is in front of me, because that's gonna be, uh, binging shows on all the various streaming platforms. It's gonna be, social media and I don't know, my idea of a mini retirement, I don't wanna spend a month scrolling Facebook. That just, that sounds kind of miserable. I think you would then need a mini retirement from that one, be its own form of burnout. Why do we need to take these often? Why is this something we should do more than just at the end of our career?

Yeah, there's a reason. So my book's called Retire Often Instead of Have one Epic Massive Mini

Mm-hmm.

Uh, because there's so many benefits of doing this frequently, of really building this into our careers, building this into our lifestyle, that every every other year, every three years, every five years, we're gonna take a Maybe it's for a month, maybe it's for a year. But building this in as a way, honestly, to be strategic about our careers and elevate that career trajectory and to elevate our path to financial freedom, to financial independence. can use these really strategically for that. But the other thing is, is on the personal side. Not everything will wait till you're 65. There are things in life that have an expiration date you know, even if you think about like when your kids are little. That's a short window

Hmm.

the difference between a 4-year-old and a 14-year-old. You can do adventures with either of them, but they're very different adventures. They're very different experiences. So if you postpone these things for a decade or four decades, you're just gonna miss out and there's no way to go back and replicate that.

Yeah, it, wow. That's a, that's a key point that I'm sure is gonna hit home for a lot of people is there, if you wait, even honestly like a couple of years, like that's completely different too. So scheduling these out and kind of using'em strategically, like you said, can one make you not regret your year to year living and say, oh, I missed my kids. Five to 10 year window when they were five years old, that we could have really enjoyed Disney. Now I'm taking'em at 17 and they're just grumpy about it the whole time. So there's a lot of different windows in there that you need to take advantage of.

That's one of the things I love about kids is it, it makes you be really present of what's happening right now, because three years later is gonna be very different. You know, I have a 9-year-old and I have, uh, a 12 13-year-old. Two girls in junior high a boy in grade school. Those are not the same kids, like those are not the same season in life. Like two very hormonal, grumpy girls coming home from junior high every day versus like a 9-year-old coming home from third grade. You know, Life changes

Mm-hmm.

Um, and sometimes in ways that we expect, but it also can change really quickly in ways we don't expect. Maybe our parents' health takes a shift and you think, gosh, I've

Hmm.

20 years that I could hike in Ireland with them. And then a year later they have cancer, or a year later they have heart disease or you

Mm-hmm. to have their knee replaced. And you, and you're like, I didn't, realize that that window was actually so short. Um, or you might have a health issue come up and you're like, gosh, I had all these things that I planned to do and I thought I had a really long and then you realize, no, I, that was, that was the one chance I had. Yeah, and looking back on that, it just like, even thinking about that fills me with regret of like, I don't wanna miss those sort of things. So the idea of. Like for my, in my mind, my wife works a job where she has a contract. It's two years long, so maybe at the end of that contract it's, Hey, I'll sign another one with a month and a half gap in between them and can we just block out that schedule. But you sign it ahead of time so they know you're committed, but they're not having to worry about recruiting somebody during that timeframe. Those sort of things. I think if you think about'em in advance, I think people are more willing to work with you on that instead of just coming into your boss's office and saying, I need a month off right now. Like, I don't think that's gonna fly super well. But one of the thoughts I was having in my mind is, as you're talking, there may be people listening who don't have kids, and kids, can be a perfect example of needing to take a step away from work. If somebody isn't in a situation where they have kids, can they still find value in taking these longer periods of time off?

Oh my gosh, absolutely. I mean, many retirements are kind of like a Swiss Army knife. they're one little thing that does a hundred jobs. Like it's a very multifaceted tool. And know, I think kids are great in like tracking the passage of time. You feel that a

Yeah.

intensely. But there's so many useful reasons to take mini retirements. One, you know, like we talked about for burnout, for careers, or investing in your career. I've had people

Mm-hmm.

to get extra certifications or extra training that they just couldn't do alongside their nine to five. And then adventures or, you know, I, I had a friend who took a mini retirement and he really, really wanted to get married and like, had extra time to invest in dating and to

Hmm. Yeah.

a partner, um, who is actually moving in with like in a couple days. And I'm so excited for him. Um. But you know, you have these goals And these dreams and their priorities and these hobbies and mini retirements can be almost a capital investment

Mm-hmm.

in yourself, in your life. I took, uh, a month long mini retirement in my twenties and I did outpatient like six hours of therapy a day for a month. And it was like, it was like a full house renovation

Yeah, like a rebuild.

and honestly, my personal growth trajectory. It massively

Mm-hmm.

that. I, I measure my twenties as before the month of therapy and after the month of therapy because it was so radically different. Um, I took a month off, uh, last year to learn tango. I

Hmm.

I met, I met this dancer and he would be so embarrassed if, if he knew this, but he doesn't listen to podcasts. I'm gonna say it anyways. he is in his seventies and like, so good at all of the dances and he has all of these

Hmm.

and he's so physically active and he's so mentally active and he's such a cool human being that I thought, oh my gosh. I wanna be like that when I'm 80. I kind of wanna be like that now, like he's so awesome. I thought if I took a month off, what a great investment of, I only spent a thousand dollars a

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

but now I have this hobby, I have this skillset that will improve almost every area of my life for the next four decades.

Yeah. And yeah, it keeps you more physically active, which is an area that you need to make sure you're like keeping up on so your body doesn't fall apart as you get older, so you can actually enjoy retirement. Like there's so many different little facets that that starts to play into. And in way, like as you're talking about this, I'm realizing a mini retirement that I'm doing right now. Where I quit my job two weeks ago to, I'm taking the CFP exam in the middle of July, so I have about six weeks off to just study and like, sure, I could have done that while I'm working and I'm still doing something while I'm not working. But now I'm able to dedicate even a little bit more time about it. I'm able to take a nap in the middle of the day to rest my brain instead of just being from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM crammed with work and studying. So as I'm hearing this, it's not necessarily that I'm completely stepping away from everything and just doing. A pure vacation for six weeks. Like there's still some intention and focus that I'm working on, but also some of those little benefits, like you were mentioning, my wife and I now, I don't have to worry about trying to get PTO from my job because I can just move my studies around to a day she's off and we're able to go, like, tomorrow we're going up to a, a National reserve.'cause it's free for Juneteenth. like, if I was working, we may not have been able to do something like that. So there's always these little benefits that have come up and they just kind of just show up when you're doing this sort of thing that. I think is is super valuable, so I'm glad I was able to realize that as we were talking about it.

I love that I think there can be so much guilt and so much shame that

Mm-hmm.

we should be able to do a hundred different things add something else major to our plate. Like why can't we do that? Because we saw one human. That we heard on one podcast that was able to do this incredible thing while doing their nine to

Or say they were able to. Yeah.

And so, so we're like, well, should be able to, and if we can't, then I guess we just won't, instead of saying what would work for me? Like, what do I actually need? What's gonna be most useful? Like, a mini retirement, uh, right about the time I turned 40, I realized, oh my, my 40-year-old body, actually I need to take care of it different than my 20-year-old body. Like

Hmm.

eat breakfast candy anymore. My body records vegetables apparently, like I have to do strength training. And I took a mini retirement'cause I was like, I need to figure this out.

Hmm.

to figure out what kinds of food I need to eat, how much like how to prepare these, how to. Work out like how many steps I need, what my strength training is, I need, to lose 40 pounds. Like, and it's easy to say, well, I should, you know, I'm a mom of five, I run a business. Like I should be able to do all of those things and tackle this huge, um, personal growth thing because, you know, one person on the internet was a CEO and

Mm-hmm.

all of this. And it's kinda like, Yeah. cool. I could say that I should be able to, but what if. if I actually took

Mm-hmm.

to give myself what I needed and

Mm-hmm.

And

everything. yeah.

yeah. And invest in like the personal growth that matters to me. Like knowing how to take care of myself. It really matters to me.

Yeah. That's fantastic. And then the other thought that came to my mind too, just about my situation and for everyone listening, like if you do some intentional planning about this ahead of time. There was a period in my current job where my wife was in PA school, so I wasn't taking a whole lot of time off, so I saved up a lot of PTO, and now that I quit, that PTO pays out, and now this month and a half where I'm not working really isn't a financial hit to us. So with some planning, you're able to see these opportunities come up and I'm saying, yeah, I'll quit, and then the PTO pays out another additional month's worth of salary. So now I'm essentially being paid for this time that I'm off, and then I can start finding a job towards the end of it as I begin to move back into changing careers. Um, so there's, there's always gonna be these opportunities that people don't realize that come up as they're trying to do these sort of things.

I think this is the future I.

Mm-hmm.

planning, being strategic that, you know what? I am gonna take a mini retirement every couple years, every five years, and just, it doesn't, they're simple. they're not easy, but the

Mm-hmm.

is actually fairly simple. And there is this misconception that this would be enormously expensive. I need to save up$50,000. I need$80,000 to do this. And the reality is, when you retire often. with the small, simple, affordable things. You don't have to start with a hundred day around the world cruise like you can. You can start with a road trip. You can start with learning tango. You know, I had a guy on my email list just emailed me like, he's like, I didn't do tango. but like I started taking guitar lessons like.

Yeah. And

those things, and there's so many ways you can make it more affordable. a lot of different levels. Like PTO is a great one. I have people who, you know, before when we would travel for three months or whatever, we would rent out our house while we traveled. And just that$2,500 a month, like it covered the whole cost of our trip. And

And it's like, why wouldn't you do it? Like if it's free? Essentially

Yeah. And I know people who. that on, on both sides. They rent out their house And then they do like trusted house sitters. So They they're getting

they're making money.

and they're staying for free.

Yeah. That's, that's a, that's an interesting way. Then you then you're like, why am I even working? Like, I'll just do this forever. But the another thing that could be cheap is you could be a tourist in your own town. That's a thought that came to my mind is like, you already live there so you don't have to pay for a hotel, but maybe you never actually see the sites in your own area.

We did a summer that we took off and, um, it was a few years ago and We did a we called it Daily Adventure. So with all, all of our five kids, every day we left the house and did some sort of little adventure. Sometimes it was just like a park or a playground or a local hike or, yeah, local tourist attraction. We live in this amazing tourist area, but. We were so busy with just like life and work. We didn't do that stuff very often and it was so cool. So over the summer We did 90 different little adventures with our kids and it was amazing.

Yeah. And that's, that's more memories than any sort of job and trying to fit stuff in right after work could fit in. So like there's, there's, so much extra benefit to that. And one question that I keep having coming to my mind is, do you like never want to go back to work? Or does this make you maybe enjoy work even more when you take these breaks and then you're able to go back to something that you want to contribute to?

You know, I was actually, I was talking to a really good friend yesterday on the phone. She called me because she was like, oh my gosh, you. You, I, I've heard you. say this so many times, and I thought this would never be true for me, but it was a hundred percent true for me. She took two years off, left her profession and thought that she was like, I thought I had like the dream job. I thought like, I would never be able to replace something like, this. And she's like, and I just took another job offer And it's so much better. like, it's more money. I negotiated a full month off every year, like, like better work life balance, more meaningful projects. I was telling you, there's something about. I live in Montana, so we have a lot of forests. There's something about when a forest fire comes through and you remove all of those established trees and those established plants that in a year or two the new growth that starts to come out

Mm-hmm.

insane. It is so aggressive and vibrant and healthy and like that. If you were to plant that little tree in an established forest. Yeah, there's just not enough resources. There's not enough

Hmm. Mm-hmm.

There's so much competition that it can be really tough. When we're in our jobs and we're in our routines, like it's kind of like that established forest, like it's using up all of the light and resources that are there. It's hard to create something new and exciting. Sometimes you just need to like, create the space

Mm-hmm.

open, it up. Do you have all the light and all the water and all the nutrients and Yeah. People come back excited and like, I, I remember when I was younger, remember thinking that people in their forties were boring. Like, like they just, like, they were I don't know, they seemed kind of lame, like, uninspired and uninteresting and like, they didn't have any dreams or any excitement about

You just go to work and come home. Yeah.

And then it got to my forties and I was like, oh, it, it's not that we're boring, we're tired, we're tired, we're overwhelmed, we're busy. if you take that away, you start to roll back the clock. And

Hmm.

and that excitement and that energy and that vision, that creativity, it starts to regrow because now like you've got enough sunlight and

Mm-hmm.

to, to have that like come out in a big way.

Yeah, that's, that's a really interesting take because I, I thought about like my wife's plants where it'll start growing and growing and then she suddenly needs to cut off a big chunk, put it in a different pot, and let it restart, and then suddenly that is growing like crazy. Um, so that's, that's a really interesting idea because even sometimes in your job you might be stuck salary wise. You might be stuck progression wise, and you're like, why won't they gimme a raise? Why there's no next step for me. And then you just move over to a different company in the same position. You're like, how am I being paid 15,$20,000 more a year when my company couldn't seem to figure it out? So those sort of things where you just clear the path, you'll find opportunities again.

It's such an important part of, of why many retirements improve your financial trajectory. I.

Mm-hmm.

they give you the best chance of being fairly compensated and

Yeah.

that lifetime earning potential, which is enormous. You know, one example I had a friend, uh, who took a year off, came back to a new job with a 50% raise, which sounds crazy, but the reason it was crazy is that he had been at the previous company for 15 years.

Wow. So you'd think you'd have a very high salary? Yeah.

a long

Mm-hmm.

So,'cause I'm kind of a numbers geek. Um, if you think about, let's say he was making a hundred and he came back at he was being underpaid by 50,000 a

Mm-hmm. For a long time. Yeah.

maybe that was eight years. So he was underpaid, 400,000 even if you took out a hundred thousand for his mini retirement, which it did not cost that much. But even if you took that out, that's 300,000. Invested when you're like 37, 40, we're talking a million extra

Mm-hmm.

in retirement. He would be a million dollars richer if he would've taken many retirements,

Yeah. Wow. That's, that's the math,

on the

that's, that should be eye-opening for everybody. that and that's kinda why I'm like, it's time for me to leave my last job because I was, I was hitting that ceiling and I was like, now's a great time for me to make the to a career that I'm maybe a little more interested in. So using this timing, I'm, I'm, I'm sure I heard you on some other podcast years ago, and maybe that's what planted the seed, so thank you. For my previous self for having these ideas. So, but I kinda wanna talk to people about how they can craft these retirements. For me right now, it's that transition period, but for other people it might be that more relaxation period or being a tourist in their town. And this comes from chapter two of your book,

Mm-hmm.

there's some specific tools that you give people in there. How can someone begin to craft their ideal day?

Yeah, this is one. You know, there's a lot it, it's funny, people kind of fall on two end ends of the spectrum when it, comes to mini retirements. They either have a thousand ideas and they want to do all of

Mm-hmm.

first mini retirement, which is a disaster. Or they're so burned out that they can't even imagine. How they would spend this time. They can't even imagine like what this would look like. So I encourage people to start with, what's your ideal day? What's your ideal week? If you could craft your schedule where it's exactly what you need. what you want right now, like what feels

Hmm. Mm-hmm.

feels important? like you're like, I'm super burned out. It's very urgent that I, you know, I take care of this. Or my kids are young and you know, they're be going to junior high soon. Like it's really urgent that we do a cool road trip now

Mm-hmm.

hoping in four or five years they're still

Yeah.

about it.

Mm-hmm.

Um. And so thinking through what would that look like? And it can, it can kind of help inspire what maybe this mini retirement could look like. And for a lot of people, like a, a, fun bonus of this is practice that ideal day or week or year during their mini retirement. And they develop this new perspective and this new confidence

Hmm.

when they go back into their next job, they know what they're looking for. They know what they want, they know what actually matters to them, and they have the confidence to ask for it.

Yeah, because they've built up that routine and that consistency of saying, no, this, this one part of my mini retirement where I had every Thursday, I always did this thing I want every Thursday off. Like, and that's, that's something they ask for. And the employer's like, sure, it doesn't really matter. You don't, Like, you can get the work done in four days. Like it's, that's okay. And they just wouldn't even have thought to ask it before. That's a That's a perfect example. And for me it's, it's working remote. And I know that's maybe the cliche right now, but when my wife and I moved my job, I told'em like, Hey, I have to go remote or I'm gonna find a new job. There was just wasn't an option otherwise, but that's allowed me to realize, hey, I, I like working remote again. We got a puppy, so now I have that to take care of and keep me company, but going forward, I'm like, I don't really, it, it works really well for me and it can work really well for the employer as well. So those sort of things, just as you do'em, if you didn't take the mini retirement, you would never realize. That there's any sort of alternative. Um, one idea That I also, I, I really clinging to this one as well. My wife and I will have maybe every three to six months just declutter days where we'll put one room on the calendar and we'll just go through that room and say, what can we get rid of? And it's always kinda weird because you're like, how did this thing survive the last declutter day? And now it's here getting thrown away. it's like just the passage of time. You're like, yep, that's gone now

Yep.

have to worry about it. Even though three to six months ago we were like oh, that's still so valuable, but. Without doing that regularly, there's no, there's no getting rid of stuff. It just keeps piling up. How can decluttering help? And I know it's maybe off the band of taking time off work, but it's something that can still be very impactful for this. How can that help in our lives?

No, I mean I, when I was 32, me and my spouse at the time took a full year off, and one of the projects during that was decluttering our house. We had gone from one kiddo to five two years, and our house looked like a

Uh, yeah, we, we got a puppy and our, our stuff accumulated. I can't imagine that many.

was, we were drowning. We

Mm-hmm.

against stuff Um, and it took us, honestly, it probably took us three months and we got rid of 50% of our possessions. this can be amazing for a mini retirement.'cause talking about the guilt of like not being able to do something alongside your nine to five if you wanna go through your entire house. Item by item and get rid of half of it. That is so difficult to do after

Mm-hmm.

Like, I'm not saying it's impossible, but if you have any other commitments, if you have kids or family, you help or volunteer stuff or friends, like if you got,

It's never gonna get done. Mm-hmm.

else going on.'cause it's not just a time commitment, It's emotional energy.

Mm-hmm.

energy. like it's very taxing, but talking about many retirements being a capital investment, if you take that month or three months and you get this massive project done, then you can schedule one day every six months

Mm-hmm.

one rube and keep caught up on things like you can maintain that, and that's one of the great things about many retirements. You can build habits or you can do this investment that then you can just maintain

Mm-hmm.

to work.

Yeah, which is those things that you begin to realize are valuable and then you just, you, you schedule in, you program it in your, your work life balance is a whole lot easier because you took that break to, to reset because yes, I'm sure everybody listening, like, if you live in America, you probably have more stuff than you need. I think that's just an unfortunate side effect of consumerism, but taking that break to get rid of things will be one, you'll, you'll realize how much space you actually have. And I'm, I'm feeling that right now. We just cleaned out this office. I'm standing in. And I'm like, oh, that corner's now empty. Like I can, I can put a fan there or something instead of just boxes. So you don't realize those sort of things. You get space back, you get time back. Whereas like we, we could not go through everything, like you said, if we were working and just after work, because that's the easiest thing for us to kick down the road. And it may not be cleaning out your garage or cleaning out your house, it may be some sort of other thing. It may be finally making just a trip to the mountains nearby that you always seem to push back that um, you could. Finally fix in and put into your schedule. And I did have this idea come to my mind of getting clarity around what we really want to do and kind of identifying our ideal day and preparing for a mini retirement. And I kind of thought of it as a mini mini retirement. where we take maybe a week off or four days to just to just sit and think about it instead of trying to do everything. Because even just thinking about it could be something that we tend to kick down the road. Would it be useful for somebody to just, it's kind of like a retreat almost.

I highly recommend this because, for singles, but, for married couples, you know, whenever I work with clients one-on-one, we do, you know, I send them with this, like a lot of this life planning homework and I'm like, try to get outta your house. Like

Yeah.

out for four hours, for eight hours, go away to a hotel for a couple nights, because these are conversations that are really hard to have while you are

Mm-hmm.

While you're trying to get

Mm-hmm.

like it's so tough when you're all of your bedding like you need. you need. time and clarity to really think deeply about this and think deeply in a way that will motivate action. Not just like, oh yeah, that's a cool idea, and then move on to like a hundred, the hundred

Yeah. All the rest of the stuff. Mm-hmm.

And so it's, it's so important, you know, for, to do it every six months, every 12 months recalibrate

Mm-hmm.

and to spend, invest that time. You know, I think it's worth the time. It's worth the money that it costs to, to reimagine what you want the next year or five years to look like.

Yeah. And even like you might say, oh, we'll do it this weekend, but weekends have plans, like weekends have volunteer opportunities. Maybe they have church and things like that. But if you commit to even just taking maybe two days off work and then committing your weekend to it, those four days could be like cheap, easy, and like you said, go somewhere else outside of your home because there's gonna be distractions. You're gonna be sitting there and be like, oh, I can tidy this up real quick when maybe you, that is what you need to do, but it's not what you need to do right now

Yep.

and build your plan. but I kind of wanna, let's, let's maybe celebrate many retirements here for a minute. You're kind of the champion behind them. So I want to hear a little bit about some of what you've done when I was. Uh, scanning the book and reading through it.. I also saw that you did 10 weeks in 10 national parks. My wife and I we love national parks. That's why we're going to a national Reserve tomorrow. So I'm excited to hear this story a little bit. What is it like to take that much time off just to explore national parks?

I mean, it's amazing like national

rub it in, just brag about it.

it is like those kinds of road trips are, aren't something that. You want to rush because that's the

Mm-hmm.

of it. They're slow and relaxed and you're present and you're just appreciating the small, beautiful things. Um, if you go to like a super relaxed place and you're like, we're gonna see the all of Glacier National Park in four hours and then we're gonna catch a flight outta

Mm-hmm.

you're, missing like 80% of the magic and having that time with our kiddos like. Um, like I mentioned, my youngest is nine right now. My oldest is about to turn 18. So we're in a season of life with like a lot of junior high and high schoolers. But when we did that trip, I think my youngest was two or three, and then my oldest was maybe 10. And so like all of my kiddos were little and

Mm-hmm.

was magical and everything was fun. And they wanted to be with us 24 hours a day, like right

Yeah.

we did it in a popup camper. Um, and just getting to explore. we did it out west and the parks are so different

Mm-hmm.

Like you get the

Oh, yes. Yeah. It's crazy. Mm-hmm.

you know, Yellowstone to Zion, the Grand Canyon, Jo Joshua Tree, Sequoia, like, Yosemite,

Mm-hmm.

they're just all so massively different and epic and incredible.

Yeah.

I remember being on that trip and saying, If If we had footage from Mars and it looked like these 10 national parks, everyone would want to go.

Mm-hmm.

that's the most incredible thing I've ever seen. I absolutely have to go there. Like we have to, we have to make it there. Like,

Mm-hmm.

so mind blowing'cause it's so incredible and I'm like, can just drive there like

Yeah.

our country.

Mm-hmm.

in America, you can just drive and be there in a day and experience this thing. So. Yeah, and it's a whole different vibe. Like you're disconnected, you don't have

Mm-hmm.

you don't have cell phone service. Like just have to be really present and it's, it's such a gift, I think, to our kids to be able to interact with them in that

Mm-hmm.

We're not rushing, We're not getting ready for school. I'm not a whole bunch of There's not all this work demand, like to

Mm-hmm.

and have fun, and to be engaged and have those, let your kids experience that best version of you.

Yeah, that's, that's fantastic. And, and my wife and I, we moved from Utah and before we moved we wanted to make sure we got all five of the national parks in Utah. And there was so many times I, we've told this probably more than you can count on two hands that we've said. How are there people that have lived in Utah that have never been to one of these national parks because. They're, like you said, they're all so different. Capital Reef is just crazy different. You have that fruit, uh, city right in the middle that's just super green. Uh, arches is some of the craziest landscape you've ever seen. And then you drive, what, like 30 minutes to Canyon Lands And it's entirely different. Like it's, it's all so crazy. And then you go to it Zion, and you're Like there's there's all these cliffs that you just can't even fathom how tall they are. and yeah, it's uh, insane. So I don't know how people don't see the national park, so I was really excited that you did that trip.

a pitch for Canyon Lands. Honestly, I like Canyon Lands more than the Grand Canyon,

Hmm. That's, I, yeah. My wife and I, we just got back from, I don't know if you know where White Rim Road is in Canyon but we did, it's a hundred mile road and we biked it over three days.

my gosh.

Um, so we were just down there, back country camping for three days. Like no service, no nothing, just the stars and wind and, and random thunderstorms. and it's just, it's crazy to take it all in because. You have those sort of things happen in your day-to-day life, and you're like, why is it raining so hard? You just get kind of frustrated at it when there's all these different curve balls, but when you're just out there enjoying nature and you're disconnected, it's, it's a different feeling,

And, and those are the things. it's, so, one of the reasons I love travel, slow travel, especially on many retirements, is it's so different

mm-hmm.

so memorable.

Yeah.

asked me, okay, a year ago today, what did you do on that day? And I'm like, I've, I have no idea what I did 365 days ago, like it was just a normal day and I was here

Mm-hmm.

did normal things, like thinking about, I remember specific days in Canyon Lands. I

Mm-hmm.

things in arches. And the thing that I love about many retirements is when you're 80, these are gonna be the highlights of your life. These

Mm-hmm.

you're gonna look back. And just the of those memories is going, like, it has compound growth.

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

interest in, in the value of these memories. Um, and yeah, they just become the highlights.

Yeah, and this wasn't necessarily like a full mini retirement, but even like a, a case to taking longer periods of time off. My wife and I and everyone on the podcast has heard this several times, but we spent 11 days in Hawaii and it was slow travel. It was. Hey, what do we want to, what do we wanna do today? We weren't quite sure. We found some things online and, and went and did it. We had maybe one thing booked and just to be able to sit there and We were able to take in the culture and the locals a whole lot more than rushing to and from a, a big chain hotel or something like that. We were able to like, we stayed on the, uh, east side of Maui, which is this tiny little town called Ha. Where everything closes at like 5:30 PM We didn't realize that when we got in, we were like, where are we gonna go eat? But

Yeah.

everything is like, just real secluded and quiet and those sort of things. like you said, that memory compounds, we remember it all the time. We think about it all the time. And when we're 10, 20 years from now, we're still gonna remember it. I'm thinking now about people who are just beginning their careers. Maybe they're not in a position where they have the. The power or the knowledge to be able to move careers. or move jobs or to be able to ask for something like this off, how can they get started? Maybe preparing themselves for, after working maybe for a few years to to take the leap and do one of these? I.

Yeah, I think just having. The intention and the plan, know it. Like I said, it doesn't have to be super expensive. If you're at the beginning of your career, 200 bucks a month, save 300 bucks a month, start setting it aside.'cause there's

Hmm.

different ways that we can get a mini retirement. You could do it in between jobs, you can negotiate it off. And I wouldn't discount that if you've been at your job for even 18 months, two years, you might be able to negotiate a month

Hmm

Um, you know. Or, and I'll finish this thought loop or like, something random happens, usually something bad and you're like, surprise, I'm not going to work today. Um, and so

Yeah. You get laid off. Yeah.

people to like take, to plan like a mini retirement, go bag for that. But in negotiating this time off, you know, you can negotiate a month off and let's say you have some PTO, you know, I, I encourage people, create a story, create this narrative that's positive,

Mm-hmm.

that's interesting, that's specific, and ideally a one-time event. that could sound like go to your boss and you're like, Hey, so I've got two weeks of PTO. But my mom, when she retired her, my dad always planned to like bike through Croatia for a month. Uh, my dad's passed away, now she's retiring this year for her 60th birthday. So very

Mm-hmm.

time. I would love to be able

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

it. Here's how we're gonna cover things. But it's not like if you create that compelling narrative,

Mm-hmm.

people get yeses a lot more, a lot more than they expect.

Well, yeah, and if you come with saying, here's my problem and here's the solution for you, like, you don't make them. Like, you don't just come in saying, Hey, I got two weeks of PTO, but I need an extra two weeks to go to Croatia. And that's all you say. Like it's an easy No, but like I love your, create a positive narrative around it. Create this kind of compelling story that your boss is gonna be like, yeah, I wanna be a person that helps enable that.'cause that's awesome. So I, I love that kinda gets more people smiling and thinking and enjoying this potential memory versus just thinking about the doom and gloom of you missing four weeks straight at work, which your work will be fine. So I think that's an awesome. Like kind of way to push for these sort of things. Even I, like, even if you're early in your career, if you've only worked a little bit, maybe that's that's your chance to take a break and they see the value in you continuing in the company and they don't wanna lose you and so they they let you. take this break. But that's fantastic. This has been a great conversation. I'm looking through my questions and we really talked about a lot here today. I. This has been a fantastic interview. Um, thank you for coming on. I got two final questions for you as we wrap up here. The first one is, how can people find you online and connect with you? But then the second one, to give you a second to think about it is what's one thing you would tell yourself 10 years ago about many retirements? But first, how can people find you?

Yeah, so the book, uh, will be out September 9th. It's called Retire Often and you can find it everywhere. And my website's retire often.com. So you know, there I've got some free worksheets, actually goes through some of this life planning stuff that we talked through. Um. But yeah, individual coaching, group coaching, a podcast, like all, all the things you need for,

Awesome.

for this is there, and on and on. Social. I'm at Jillian John's root. Um, and then what I would tell myself 10 years ago, let's see, I'm 42, so I'd be 32. Um, I might even do 20 years ago, Is that okay? Can

Yeah, go for it. Yeah. If someone's like just starting out or, mm-hmm.

Um, so I was 22, like I had this idea, I, I had this idea when I was 19. But I, would encourage, like, and I've done a, I've done a dozen of these, so like, I wasn't a slacker, but I would still encourage myself, like, it in. Make this part of the plan. Don't make

Hmm.

maybe it'll happen or if there's an opportunity, make this part of the career plan. Make this part of the financial plan, because now I see. All of the benefits that I've received financially and professionally from this, and I would be like double down on it, like let's do twice as much because for me it's always been a rich and positive outcome in a dozen different ways, but massively improved the trajectory of my life.

Well, yeah, that's, that's a powerful testimony for these many retirements. That's fantastic. and I and I think about it now, I'm thinking about this break that I'm taking to change careers.

Mm-hmm.

planning it six months ago. We were able to. Do one of our budgets one month on just my wife's income to practice it. And then we realized it wasn't gonna be that bad. But now I'm starting to think, Hey, we're about a year and a couple months out from my wife's contract coming up.

Mm-hmm.

in something for her and see what we can do there. So

Yeah.

have to report back on the podcast in a year or so and see what we ended up doing. But if we start planning for it now, it should be a whole lot easier to get that. Yes. so

Yep.

this has been a fantastic interview. This is definitely one of the longer ones, but this has been great. There's so much great stuff in here about people. Taking time off work. Um, thank you so much for coming on.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Thank you so much to Jillian for coming on the show. That was fantastic. And that's one of the longest interviews we've ever had here on Money Talk, and it's one of those conversations that comes so naturally because it's so exciting and engaging. So I'm gonna keep this a little bit shorter here today after the interview, since we've already gone fairly long with that wonderful conversation. And let's just jump into the money talking points. The first one is, how can you take a mini retirement? Well, we mentioned a few options in the interview. You could schedule it into your year. You could ask for extended PTO. If you're contract based, you could include time in between your contracts. So if you have a two year contract ending like my wife does, maybe she doesn't start her next contract until a month after her one ends, so that she naturally has time within there. You could quit a job and then wait to find a new job. Just look for time where you may not be working and fit it in there. But I also like the idea about being intentional about it. Schedule it into your work year, schedule it into your contracts. Being intentional about it, I think is going to allow you to enjoy it even more. It doesn't have to be super hard. I'm doing one right now without even realizing I was doing one. I'm studying for my certified financial planner exam, and I quit my job over a month ago. At this point, if you have the savings, take time in between those jobs instead of calling it unemployed. Call it FunEmployed. That's a word my wife and I like to throw around when we're between jobs. Is we're experiencing fun employment where you're in between jobs and having fun while unemployed, but let me know what's coming to your mind. What's a way that you can take a mini retirement? Of course, my contact information is in the show notes, and I would love to hear from one of you on this, whether it's via email or checking me out on social media. I. Let's move right along into the second money talking point here. What do you love to do? And this is gonna be me outlining a little bit of my ideal day and maybe helping you figure out what could your ideal day, week, and mini retirement look like? So for me, I like to hang out with my wife and dog. My ideal day includes waking up early, walking my dog, going somewhere fun, playing video games, and enjoying a nice home-cooked dinner. What does your ideal day look like for you? If you aren't sure, this could be a great chance to take a mini, mini retirement. Take a few days off where you focus on outlining your day, figure out things you enjoy doing. Figure out your ideal week. Figure out your ideal month so that you could take a real mini retirement in the future. Like I said, my ideal day would start very early. I'm a morning person and maybe that's something that you know you would not like. You have to wait until you wake up and sleep in without an alarm. I hope you enjoy that because I know I don't. So what do you love to do? How could a mini retirement help you focus on that? How could you take a break from work to focus on something that you like to do instead of feeling like you have to stop work altogether? I think that is the incredible mindset shift that many retirements can have on you is that you can shift from feeling like you have to retire and stop work altogether to taking breaks from work. What if you don't like doing enough stuff to fill the rest of your life? That's where a mini retirement can be great. It can give you just enough time to do what you really, really want to do, and then you can go back to enjoying work and something meaningful. So if you enjoy your job and don't really see yourself retiring, this could be a great way to even prolong that career further. You take a whole month off and now suddenly you're working till you're 70 or 75 because you enjoy it so much. But you're making sure to stay grounded and take sizable breaks with often mini retirements. It's such a great idea. I love it. And I think I'll continue preaching this from the mountaintops to my friends when they talk about getting burnt out at work or they're tired of their job, take a month off and guess what? You are likely going to come back and make more money, which is what we're gonna talk about in this final money talking point. What would it look like for you to take a mini retirement? For me right now, it's some regular studying for the CFP exam and working on my podcast, and I am enjoying it a ton. It's so nice to not have to cram everything in around a work schedule, and it's nice being able to schedule out my own days. I don't have to ask somebody for approval to move my schedule around and take a day off for you. It could look like going on a walk every morning instead of a grueling commute. It could also look like a near term pay raise, and honestly, this is such an amazing benefit. Not only do you get time off to enjoy your life. But you could also go back to a job that pays you more because someone's probably gonna pay you more to come back to work. Unfortunate that so often you have to find a new job to get paid more. But it's how it works. Most companies do not pay tenured employees what they're worth. And I bet the vast majority of people leave their jobs due to crummy pay. Uh, many retirement can have so many amazing benefits and just think one of them could be more money. You mean to tell me I can take time off work? And make more money. It's so backwards to think about it in that way that it leads you to more money. But I like Jillian's story about the person that she was working with that was so underpaid that they could have spent well over a hundred thousand dollars on mini retirements and still come out ahead if they had done them more often. I. So what are you leaving on the table by not taking mini retirements? I'm gonna leave it right there on that final question, and I hope this conversation gave you the permission to even think about taking a mini retirement. We talked about how it doesn't have to be this massive life altering event. It can be as simple as planning a gap between contracts, negotiating a longer break between jobs, or even using some stacked PTO. And honestly, I've realized during this episode that I'm on one right now. Leaving my job, studying for the CFP and giving the space to live my life a little bit differently. It's been phenomenal. I'm walking my dog more, spending more time with my wife. We're planning spontaneous midweek adventures. It's been pretty great. So let me ask you, what does your ideal day look like? How could a mini retirement give you the space to explore that? Be a full month off, or even just a few days to step back and ask, what do I really want to do with my time? And don't forget, there's even financial upside here. I'm not just talking about going out and spending money on these many retirements. You could go back to making more money after your mini retirement by switching jobs and finally getting paid what you are worth. So yeah, take the break and it might actually help your bank account too. So again, I'll leave you with this final question. What are you leaving on the table? By not taking mini retirements? Let me know what ideas come to your mind and maybe even what your ideal mini retirement would look like. I'd love to hear from you and you can find my contact information in the show notes. And thank you for listening to today's episode. The best way to stay up to date and connected with all Things Money Talk is to subscribe to the podcast and sign up for my email list. Head over to Money talk.show and submit your name and email right there on the homepage. You can also use the contact page on my website to send me any questions you might have, and who knows? You'll likely hear it right here on the podcast and I'll be able to answer the exact question you have. Remember, the best way to learn from today's episode is to go and have a money talk about today's topic with a fellow money buddy. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Money Talk. I'm your host, Skyler Fleming. Have a great week.