Latest / Real STRength with Sarah Draper / Designing a Dream Life with Mary Lyons | #24

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Designing a Dream Life with Mary Lyons | #24 · Real STRength with Sarah Draper

• speaker-0: Why don't you seem happy? That's not deep enough. Why do you want that? How much of my life was checking boxes in someone else's scorecard? Money has one job and one job only. It's not about what you keep. It's about what you get to spend and enjoy, having clarity and vision, and then taking aligned action. speaker-1: Welcome to the Future Walk Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Draper. Each week on the podcast, I explore tools to help you lead your best now and into the future, and I talk with top leaders to see how they stay focused when life gets cluttered. It's time to stop reacting to your life and start leading it. Welcome to Future Walk. Welcome to the Future Walk Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Draper, and I'm so glad you're here. Today I'm joined by Mary Lyons. She's known as the Wealth Woman. She's a wealth strategist with more than 20 years of experience helping people design lives that are both financially secure and deeply fulfilling. Mary helps people create more spendable income in retirement while increasing the legacy they leave behind. without sacrificing their ability to enjoy their money, that hard-earned money. So what drew me to her work is the belief, her belief that success doesn't require sacrificing your authenticity, your connection, or your joy. And as a wife and a mother, she understands balancing family and career, relationships and personal passions. And her goal is to help people achieve financial freedom so money supports their passions. Rather than limits them. So welcome the podcast, Mary. I can't wait to have this conversation with you. I'm so grateful you're here. speaker-0: I'm excited to be here. I think we're gonna have a lot of fun today. ⁓ speaker-1: ⁓ I think so too. We've already got so much alignment with ⁓ just like that future focus we we both have. ⁓ dream life. We were talking dream life and we're gonna get to a lot of those things, but to set the foundation, can you tell us a bit about yourself, how you ended up doing what you're doing? speaker-0: I'm gonna I'm gonna start in the way back mode. So, you know, I grew up with a dad who was a financial advisor from the time I was about four years old. And he was also an entrepreneur. So he started and sold many businesses along the way. And I ended up getting to have dinner table conversation about money on a regular basis. My dad would bring home client files with the names blacked out, and we would work on these case studies together. speaker-1: Way back, it's your way back. speaker-0: And I just thought that was a normal part of growing up. But I will also tell you, as a sixteen-year-old girl looking at that kind of stuff, I thought to myself, this is so boring. This is an industry full of like old fuddy duddies just crunching numbers in a back room. And I didn't really understand the full application of it because what I was doing at the dinner table was academic. So if you'd asked me in high school. If I wanted anything to do with the world of finance, I would have told you absolutely not. I'm too creative. I'd rather be doing something else. I wanted to be an English major. but when I went to college, my dad told me that he would not pay for an English degree because I would not be able to get a decent paying job after graduating. And if he was paying for my tuition, he wanted to say in the direction that I went. So ⁓ I took the closest major adjacent to English and I actually got a journalism degree. And then I have a secondary degree in a program called Plan Two, which is an honors liberal arts program at the University of Texas. But I graduated knowing I wasn't going to do anything with either of those degrees. And I took really the first job that was offered to me and I became a mortgage broker. But I had the opportunity to start a mortgage company. And so I launched into that. I got some of my financial licenses in order to waive industry experience requirements and became a mortgage expert. And I did mortgage planning, which is all about fitting the mortgage into an overall financial plan. And so most of the referrals that I got or introductions I got were from financial advisors. And the problem started happening in year two or three of my career when almost 70% of my clients were asking if I would become their financial advisor because they felt like they were getting more useful information about things like debt, budgeting, how they were structuring the growth of their assets than they were getting from someone who was just managing the investment portfolio. So I began to feel a sense of moral obligation to get into the world of financial services. And I ended up calling my dad and saying, I think I actually want to come work with you and do what you've been doing for most of your career. And so I I made the jump into that. And the first year was pretty easy. The second year I had gotten married, I moved to a new city. ⁓ I live in Dallas now. This is when I moved to Dallas. I didn't know anyone. I was about 25. six years old. It was two thousand seven. So the market was just starting to fall apart. and I was a I was a very young looking twenty six as well. And so walking into an environment with no ⁓ social context and trying to tell people what to do with their money that had no experience with me and they were looking at me going, You're the same age as my kid. Why would I listen to you? What could you know about money? was really difficult. And so I struggled for the next year or so. But ⁓ I actually met a a business coach who was willing to take me on for free for a month because I I couldn't afford him. But he was like, I I know I can help you. And inside of a month, it really transformed the direction of my career. And about a year, year and a half later, I broke into the top 10 advisors with my broker dealer. And I have been in that space pretty much ever since in the top one percent of the industry at a national level. ⁓ and I, you know, I think as women, sometimes we don't brag on ourselves. So I feel like I'm just gonna throw that out there. But the evolution of my career was interesting because I went from being an advisor to being a manager of advisors to being an owner of a company working with my dad. And when my dad retired, I had this moment where Everything I had worked for felt heavy. And when I was supposed to buy him out and take over the firm, ⁓ my husband said to me one day, Sarah, he looked at me and he said, This is everything that you have worked for. Why why don't you seem happy? And it and I realized sometimes you have to take a different path than the one that you expect to take. And I told my dad I did not want to buy out the company, and we ended up Completely changing what we were doing. Now, when I told him this, Sarah, I was living with him because we had just bought a house we were remodeling. So I was living with my parents and working with them. And I said, I'm blowing up your immediate retirement plan. We got to find a different way to do this. And I think he didn't talk to me for two days. But after that, he came to me and said, Listen, I'm going to approach this not as thinking about myself, but as thinking, like your dad for a minute. And I recognize this is about your life satisfaction. And you have a lot of life ahead of you. You need to figure out what you actually want to do. So that that's kind of a a long-winded story, but it sent me on a a quest to figure out what my dream life looked like and what was important to me as a human. And ⁓ I knew I wanted to stay in the business. I just knew I didn't want to do it the way I had been doing it before. speaker-1: What were some of the things you did as you explored that dream life? What were yeah, what were some some part of that journey? speaker-0: Yeah. I I think a large part of figuring out what you wanna do with your life comes from getting a grip on what's actually happening externally and internally. And so the first thing I did when I realized I wasn't gonna take over the company is I said, I'm gonna go back to just working directly with clients. I don't wanna manage other people. I wanna just have a little more space to figure things out. And then I hired a mindset coach. ⁓ And the mindset coach basically said, what do you want from your life? And every time I came back with an answer, each week he said, that's not deep enough. Why do you want that? And the explanations that I gave must have been very surface level explanations because he kept telling me, you need to go deeper. You need to go deeper. And it took me almost six months to realize that everything that I put onto my list of things that I wanted in my life had one thing in common. And it was a sense of peace and calm because I have a very frenetic life with a very packed schedule. And having a space for recovery is I think a very, very important part of continuing to achieve at high levels. And I wasn't giving myself enough space to think critically, not just about living my life, but to take a step back and say. what do I actually want my life to look like? And am I creating that intentionally and deliberately? Or am I just responding to external pressures and whatever is happening right in front of me? speaker-1: So you found this common theme over six months of that questions. What do you want for your life to be these qualities, these things like peace, calm, and space for recovery? Not your accomplishments, but how you wanted your life to be. speaker-0: Yeah. How did I want to feel? And I I I think that's a lot of times what I've seen with people who are high achievers is that they go on this quest of achievement for several reasons. Sometimes it's that they're not validating internally and then the success gives them external validation that tells them they're okay or they're worthy. And sometimes I find that it is a quest for if I accomplish certain things, I'm gonna feel a certain way when I get there. Only for most high achievers, when we get there, we just move the goalpost and we don't even take the time to celebrate what we've done. And nothing has actually changed about who we are. So that same need is still there to continue accomplishing as we go. So it's, I don't know. It took some really deep work to actually understand what my motivators were, because especially working with a parent for a decade, There's an element of separation that most adults have from their parents because they go establish themselves completely independently that I think I never really had because I worked with both my mom and my dad as an adult. And so the driver always came back to making sure they were proud of me as opposed to figuring out what made me proud of myself. speaker-1: That's that's really such an incredible insight. And I I'm thinking about all the legacy professions out there. And it may maybe it's like yours, right? A legacy and actual family business and and working together. There's also a lot of legacy professions, military as well, and law enforcement, medicine, like people young adults ⁓ will often go to what's familiar to them because that's what they were raised with. I can't help but wonder how frequently that happens. We don't even realize it. We're doing something our parents did just because that's what was modeled for us. That was shown to us. I mean you ask any young kid, what do want to be when you grow up? They'll probably say what their parents do or a teacher because those are the adults they're exposed to. And and for those that continue to do that, How important is that then to figure out who you are, who you independently are? You talked a little bit about independence. Like, what was that process like for you to find yourself? speaker-0: Yeah, it was very difficult. I sometimes I feel like I'm still figuring it out because I think what happens when you have radical change in ⁓ your motivators in particular is that you find yourself being uncomfortable in your skin because you know you're not the same person that you used to be. Okay. But the person you're becoming is not comfortable yet. It's not routine, it's not default, it's It's like when you learn something new, you're you're consciously thinking through it on a regular basis. And it takes so much more energy when you have to be consciously competent than when you're unconsciously competent. And so I think growth is very difficult any way you slice it because it is uncomfortable and our brains keep trying to pull us back to the things that we already know. And even if logically we know that doesn't work for us anymore, emotionally sometimes it just feels safer to gravitate back to that. And so ⁓ I had to get very deliberate about identifying what does my dream life look like? What do I actually want from my life? Not because someone else said this is what you should want, but because I do. And what that really looked like for me, Sarah, was identifying how much of my life was checking boxes in someone else's scorecard. speaker-1: Ha ha ha ha. speaker-0: Wow. Because we get these messages, whether it's from our parents or whether it's from society or whether it's from friends and family members about what success looks like. And we think if we do these things, we're gonna feel a certain way. There's actually ⁓ there's a really good book called Wanting by a gentleman named Luke Burgess. And he the whole book is about the sus the science behind mimetic desire. And mimetic desire is finding a model, mimicking them, because you think your life will look or feel like theirs will if you do those things. And it is really the reason that we've had the rise of the influencer, because they display if you do these things, your life will look and feel like mine. And so we try to do those things, and it's the same thing our kids do. They watch us and they repeat the same things that we're doing. But it it can be very dangerous because. We are then influenced to impose other people's idea of perfection or happiness or fulfillment into our own lives. And what actually makes us happy could be something radically different than what society says should make us happy. speaker-1: I okay, so Luke Burgess wanting and starting with that question. And probably I'm gonna guess you keep coming back to that question. I don't know, correct me on that if that's not the case. What does my dream life look like? You said it and forget it or you continually revisit it? speaker-0: Yeah. I think you have to keep going back to it because a lot of figuring out your dream life is trial and error. So I I learned over the course of a couple of years that when you have a blank canvas in front of you and someone says, What does your dream life look like? It is very hard to start painting that picture because it's intimidating. It feels like a really big task. I've been through some exercises where they say, What is a perfect day look like? That is such a hard exercise for me because if I repeat the same day two days in a row, I'm bored out of my mind. So I I that that's hard to answer. So ⁓ I actually break it into categories because I think it makes it a little bit more approachable. And then I want to start with the category that is easiest for most people. So we usually start a conversation around where do you want to travel? And that can be domestic travel or it can be international travel. And then that's an easy segue into what experiences do you want to have? Because experiences might involve travel, but it might be you want to meet Ryan Reynolds and just have dinner with him and pick his brain about how he's accomplished what he's accomplished. But you know, you go from there and then you start going deeper into things like family and relationships. Are there relationships that are in need of repair? Are there relationships in your life that are toxic? And and people in the financial services industry, this is not a conversation that financial advisors have most of the time. But to me, money has one job and one job only, and it's to facilitate a life you're truly excited to live. If you don't know what that life looks like, how on earth can you deliberately and intentionally use your money to create it? And so we go all the way through. We're going to talk about career, finance, hobbies, skills, family. Legacy, all of those things. And some of them make a lot of sense in a financial conversation, but some of them are very simple, right? I mean, I I realize I do better in my marriage when I have a weekly date night. If I got an hour of concentrated, focused, all in time, you can ignore me for the rest of the week. I am good to go. But if I don't get that focused time, I can be very difficult. And so, you know, it takes money. to put into your budget to have a date night that reflects what you actually want to do. And it takes the time and the deliberate scheduling to make sure you're getting those kinds of things. But I I think what I have found is there are times where I do something that is on my dreams list because I recommend that you calendar one dream to realize every single month. That way you always have something to look forward to and you always have something to share with the people around you that was exciting and that lit you up and that you can relive because you get the same dopamine a second time. The serotonin shows up again when you were talking about something you just did as when you're actually doing it. So, you know, I I think that starts to change the cadence of life. And then all the money stuff, just make sure it actually happens, but there have been plenty of times where I'm thinking, ⁓ this is gonna be so amazing, this experience, and then I do it and I'm like, ⁓ it was okay. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah, doing one ⁓ my gosh, one a month. There's so many powerful things in here. ⁓ I just wanna maybe I'll work backwards a little bit. That idea of sharing it with someone else. I I remember I'm a little sparse in the details at this point, but when I was studying positive psychology, and I used to do this with the students at the National Academy when in a course I taught about leader well wellness and well-being. And we talk about like quality conversations with people and how to be like actively engaged in a positive. Way, right, right, in an encouraging way. And the example is often your student, something good happens at school that day, and they come home, your your child, and they come home to tell you about it. And we've got choices then. We can be like, okay, yeah, uh-huh, I'm busy, or we can be like, ⁓ great, yay, and give them like 30 seconds of attention and then and then move on, or just ignore them altogether. But when you take that time to listen, to have them share with you like that joy, what you just said is what happens. Like they relive it. And they re and just keep digging those questions. They get to relive it. So now they get all those positive emotions two times. And now this time you're part of that with them. And so you get some residual benefit, but they also now you've become part of that story with them. So that strengthens your relationship with them. So just that I mean that's just one example of of so much, you know, of goodness that you shared here. So many good things about experiences, not just doing, but sharing them. speaker-0: I I I think it changes people's life. I mean, this is this is an area because I didn't do this. So part of this part of this conversation started before ⁓ before my dad retired. I had a business coach that I was working with and she sat me down and said, What are your goals for the year? And so I wrote out all of my goals and then she looked at them and then she looked at me and she said, That's it. And I was like, ⁓ are my are my goals not big enough? I mean, that was my immediate response. And she said, No, there's nothing on here for your personal life. Every goal you wrote down was a business goal and based on accomplishment. What about your personal life? And my response to her was, My personal life is fine. And she said, There's nothing that you would want to improve or change about your personal life. And then I realized, yeah, there there probably are some things. But that stayed in the back of my mind because I think high achieving individuals frequently just focus on the next goalpost, on the next goalpost. And there's to me, there's two kinds of activity, Sarah. There's there's activity that is telic, which means purposeful. ⁓ it's from the the Greek word telos. And what happens when you're focused on purposeful activities is that it gives your life a sense of meaning. At least it does for me, right? It tells me what I'm supposed to do when I wake up. you know, if my goal is to go run a marathon, that's telling me how I'm gonna work out, what foods I'm gonna put into my body, how I'm gonna allocate some of my time. But after I run it, maybe I feel really good about myself, or maybe I'm just already scheduling the next one, right? There's these peaks and valleys. You celebrate the win and then you have no purpose anymore. You've got to find the next thing. And so What I think happens with high achievers is they tend to skew that direction. The opposite of telic activity, atelic activity, are activities that are really about enjoyment. So if all you have is atelic activity, that's basically hedonism. We know that's not a great thing, right? ⁓ but if you don't have those activities you do just because you enjoy them, life is not a very happy place. And so if you have purpose and joy in your life. That's when you start to find true fulfillment. So anytime I talk to somebody about dreams, it's a balance of those two things. We want to make sure it's not just all consumption all the time, but it's also about giving and serving at the same time. And so I think when you start to create a link between performance, right, and enjoyments and reward, it is much easier to keep going without burning yourself out because you are more balanced. speaker-1: And your brain works better. I think ⁓ I think with Sean Aker in the happiness advantage, he's an author and researcher and TEDxer and speaker and all that. He's me. Yeah, love him. And and I think he in that he described what you you talked about earlier as that goalposts, right? When we often put our happiness or quotes, if you will, on the opposite side of that cognitive horizon after an accomplishment. And like you said. speaker-0: It's fantastic. speaker-1: That goal post, right? It as soon as you get there, it just moves. We never get to it. Because we we'll get to that accomplishment set goalpost, but we haven't gotten to happiness yet. And then we push it out, and we push it out and push it out. What they found through their research is that when you make happiness in and of itself, and all these different ways you've been talking about and doing that, but like when you make happiness the goal and you find these things, and whether it's gratitude or are savoring or or purpose and all all the various things we can do to find and create happiness for ourselves, your brain works better. It fires up the learning centers. It brings ideas together in new and different ways. It helps you see collaborations and possibilities and all of that. And then you you end up accomplishing what you want and probably far more, but that's no longer the the priority goal. Those things will happen. Together, families function better, all of that, individuals have more fulfillment in life. If you make those positive emotions, including that happiness, again the book's The Happiness Advantage, ⁓ make that the priority. The rest will follow. speaker-0: Yeah, I love that. You know, and it's ⁓ you said something a little bit earlier in the conversation and I wanna bring this back around to it because I think anybody who has kids has to start thinking this way. ⁓ because what happens is our kids, going back to what you were talking about, our kids do what we model. They because it's comfortable, right? They pick the profession based on what their their parents are doing, what's familiar. I think we have to make a concerted effort as parents. To model what living your dream life looks like with the ups and downs of trying to figure it out, if we have any expectation that that is a possibility for our children. And and I find so often I have quite a few friends that are female business owners, very hardworking, and they talk a lot about exhaustion. Because they're carrying the emotional load at home, they're carrying the emotional load at work, they're carrying the financial load, the logistical load, all of those types of things. And I can remember having a conversation with one of my friends and I I was getting ready to go on a retreat in Bali as a reset. And I asked her if she wanted to come with me. She could afford it. It would be no issue for her to go on this retreat. ⁓ and she said, ⁓ no, if I was gonna do that, I feel like I need to take my kids with me. I can't justify that. And And I had such an interesting response because I thought to myself, your daughters are learning from your behavior that they aren't allowed to do what they need to do to reset themselves. They have to always be taking care of someone else. And so those are things that I don't always feel comfortable saying out loud, but a lot of times I will apply them to my own life. And what I found fascinating about my own kids' response to the Bali trip is they said to me, Mom, you're like a you're so happy, you're so focused, you're present with us. They're like, you should do this every six months. Right. And I'm like, that is a to have your children look at that and say, okay, you took time to recover. Clearly you needed that. You're a better human once you've done those things. They're gonna internalize recovery as a part of accomplishment. speaker-1: Yeah, it it it is an absolutely necessary one. I think you brought it up at the very beginning. Peace, calm, and recovery. Right. That was those were the things that you sought out. That like that that's how you wanted your life to be. And you've been designing your life to to build that in. And I imagine it's not just your kids that have noticed. Like it's it's it's that energy you send out into the world as well. Well speaker-0: can tell when it's time, right? I mean it I I tend to be able to kind of redline the car for about six months. And then I get back in and I'm gonna redline it again. And that may or may not actually be healthy. That's probably a whole different podcast at this point. But I think at least understanding I get a lot of joy from the actual work, the connection, that sort of thing. Because to me, again, going back to the actual work that I do The the beauty of sitting down with people and helping them discover what their dream life looks like and talking with two spouses that may have totally different ideas of what life is supposed to look like, what retirement is supposed to look like, helping people find that alignment and and take the stress out of money and starting to make money fun because it's actually building a life and momentum and satisfaction. Seeing people go through the transition of feeling shame about where they are, regardless of where they are. I I have people come sit in my office and they're like, I'm ashamed of where I am. And I look at their finances and I'm like, I got I got a whole bunch of people I know that would love to be where you are. ⁓ but moving away from shame into that sense of like permission to be who you are, to experience life the way you want to. And having the money facilitate that because we're going for efficiency rather than risk and we're optimizing income strategies so that life can be fuller. It it's it's interesting just to me to see how much of the rhetoric in my space is about save more, minimize your life, don't spend the money on that. It's not responsible. Don't, don't buy the more expensive car, put the money into an account. And then people end up in this cycle where they defer gratification for decades. And then there's this magic date at retirement where they're supposed to be able to step into the fullness of their life. Only their advisor says something that sounds like, ⁓ you can't spend that much money, you're gonna run out. And even if they're in a great place, because they have created That synapse connection in their brain of minimization and I can't spend, and spending is irresponsible, right? That language is happening for them. Absolutely. They don't transition into living a fuller life in retirement, right? They stay stuck in that minimization mode. And that that to me is heartbreaking. That's the sign of a broken system. Because if we've got this one shot at life. It should be what we want it to be. And the role of someone who is dealing with the finances is really about maximizing your access and your use. So I I had an interesting conversation at a conference that I was speaking at a couple of weeks ago. And I was standing in a group of women and one of the women said, ⁓ yeah, it's not about what you make. It's about what you keep. And I I had to jump in. I said, it's not about what you keep. It's about what you get to spend and enjoy and then and pass to the next generation. It's about using the money to give yourself a much fuller life. It is not about minimization. And she just kind of blank stared me and then she said, You have you have just completely blown my mind. It's about what you get to spend and enjoy and pass on to the next generation. It's totally different goal. It's a different outcome. speaker-1: It's completely, completely different outcome. And it's about you. It's so individual. It goes back to your your key question. It goes back to like what it's about you and your family, whoever's in that sphere with you, living that life with you. Like, what does my what does our dream life look like? Because comparison, you talked about how people are like, ⁓ I'm shame or I feel this shame because I don't have enough. And you're like, maybe compare it to someone, but comparison is such a joy thief. And so we've got so many different things going on in life that we can't compare ourselves against someone else. It's got to come to what matters to you. What is it that you want to do and how do you optimize that to live the life you want to live? speaker-0: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. That's perfect. I mean, you nailed it. And I think figuring out, you know, to go exactly to what you said, your dream life isn't going to look like anybody else's. So having shame because your life doesn't look a certain way is not helpful at all. But I think that is also true inside of a marriage. And I think about this even inside of my own. My husband is a tremendously hard worker. He is an accomplishment driven man as well. But I think in his ideal world, he would be happy to just wake up and go hiking every day. Like that would just light him up. He'd be very happy to do that. And then he'd come home and he'd probably lift. He's a power lifter. And then he would probably read some books and talk to some interesting people. And that would be he would love all of that, right? I mean, it's it's ⁓ it would be beautiful. I would be bored out of my mind in that situation. I mean, I would enjoy going on the hike and maybe lifting, but then after that, I would need to create something because that process of like growth and creativity and and seeing where my limits are is really exciting for me. But finding a way to talk about what your dreams are and find that alignment inside of a couple when you want radically different things from each other, ⁓ I think can feel very dangerous, ⁓ or you can make it really fun. And so finding ⁓ I I actually had a psychologist tell me this and I think it's brilliant. And if it's okay with you, I'd like to to share it. Yes. Sometimes when we share a dream and we don't get the response we want from our spouse because they don't understand it, the best thing we can do is sit down and ask ourselves which part of this dream is negotiable and which part of this dream is non negotiable. So because It may be, you know, I'll use an example from my own life. At some point I told Mike I wanted a house and Taos. And I didn't just want a small house and Taos. I wanted a house that our friends and family could come to. And ⁓ you know, but I didn't articulate all of this to him. I just said, look, I found this house. I I want this house. And so he kind of was like freaked out by all of that and was like, why would you do that? What's the purpose of this? Are you trying to impress people? And I was like, ⁓ I'm so offended by everything you're saying right now. But when I went home, I was able to sit down and say, okay, I want the house because I want a place that we can make memories with our kids, where we can establish traditions so that when they leave, they want to come back to that place with their kids and establish those same type of happy memories. Right. Taos is also a place where because of the nature, I am calm. I get to go on hikes. I get to just settle very differently there than I do in the city of Dallas, where everything is fast paced. ⁓ but it's a long drive. Mm-hmm. A very long drive. And my husband was like, We're never gonna use this. Why would we buy a house here just to go here two or three times a year? So we actually ended up getting a lake house and it's got it's in a wooded area, it's got water, there's nature. We can walk around, we can go on the water, but it's an hour and a half away. So now we get to use it all the time. And it and and the thing is, when I looked for vision alignment and I said, look, these are the things that I want from this, but I don't care about location. Mike's response was very different because his number one priority is relationship with kids, right? Being a good dad to them. So the idea of tradition and time together was really appealing to him. And that's the part that actually mattered to me, but we didn't know that until we peeled back the layer of the onions. So I'd be curious to know, Sarah, are there situations that you've experienced like that when you're thinking about your dream life and where maybe you're not on the same page? ⁓ speaker-1: Absolutely. I it just like check, check, check, as you were talking, so many, so many things were coming up. ⁓ so my husband has recently retired and he is living your husband's dream life. Yeah, we we have we still have one child at home, you know, she's gonna be a senior in high school. And so we're not at the takeoff and travel as much as we want to stage, and that's you know, a year or two out. speaker-0: Yeah. ⁓ that's great. speaker-1: But yes, and so we we do together want to do those things. But the day to day is for us is very different. And so, ⁓ if I was fully retired and and not doing this or anything else, I would probably be working on a doctorate or something because I'm like, I need to keep learning. I need to keep going. I need to keep doing that. And and he's he's just recently retired. So he's just still in that downshifting. ⁓ but that you know like like that internal piece is so important. And and this being the Future Walk podcast, I've got to share the origin of where that idea of future walking even came from and what that what that's about is it was now eleven years ago. We were just in the Complete chaos of trying to make the day to day work of life with two FBI agents, not close to any family help or anything like that. Two kids, crazy schedules. Like life was just I say it's just survival mode. We were just trying to get through the next twenty four hours and sometimes get through the week ahead. Other than that, he traveled a ton, like there was just a lot, lot going on. So purely getting through a day was a huge accomplishment. We were on an evening walk one time because that was the one thing that we could prioritize if all else all else failed. At least we went on often we didn't even talk. We just walked. We had a dog at the time. So that was almost a necessity, but we would go and just just a few minutes together talk sometimes talking, sometimes downloading the day, often just figuring out the next logistics of the day ahead. And for some reason, and I still don't know why, I don't remember the specific start of the conversation, but I absolutely remember that we started talking about how we wanted our life to be, our lives to be, when Whitney, our youngest, was in college. So that this that was ten years ago from now, actually, not eleven, because we've got one year left on what we began to call our eleven year plan. We started talking about okay. And ⁓ and other things came downstream. It wasn't all in that conversation, but during that conversation was the first time we started to like lift our head up and look past that cognitive horizon, look past the goalposts ahead, like how did we want our lives to be? Where did we wanna live? What do we want our health to be like? What experiences, travel, all those things? And from there I decided to go to grad school. We decided to apply for jobs back across the country, move the family across the country, make these financial decisions, certain things with our health. I mean, so many things came from that conversation. And that's that's kind of the original future walk, if you will. And that's why this is what's a way, and I've since learned a lot more. Like your brain works better when you're moving. Initially it's tactical. The first five, ten, fifteen minutes, you're just like Getting through those executive tasks, figuring out what's important for the day. Great. Like I'll ⁓ most days I'll do a a very short walk just thinking what's most important that's coming up. Then beyond that, some of that quiets down. The default mode network starts to ⁓ increase in its prominence and you start to get a little bit more dreamy and and and like bigger pictures stuff as you're going. And then even longer, you can start to see longer horizons and your brain just starts to expand more and more. And then come back and write it all down. And that journaling piece is really important, but just come back and like write it all down. It's incredible the insights you get. And if you do it with another person, you have an increase in psychological safety, you have a decrease in like defensiveness or barriers to communication. So maybe it is something tough you want to talk about because maybe you don't f maybe don't feel an alignment on the house and touse. Right. And so walking and talking side by side is ⁓ more comfortable for for most difficult conversations rather than face to face. With another person, this is really good. So that yeah, like there's all all these categories you talked about, I love it, because travel experiences, those are fun things to dream about. speaker-0: Hi, well. So can I cross something out that you just said because I think it's really beautiful and it's worth underlining. And I'm I'm saying this as much so I remember it, so that you know, as for the audience, what you actually just described in that walk is about getting clarity on your vision for your life. Yeah. And then and then you talked about taking intentional actions in that direction. And and I think, you know, when people talk about manifestation and all that type of stuff. I think what it really boils down to is having clarity and vision and then taking aligned action. And that that's exactly what you just described. And the reason that it works is because when you know what you are working towards, you know what doesn't fit that. You you have an immediate framework for what you do want and for what you're going to let go of. And if you don't have that clarity or are not working towards that sense of clarity, then anything will do. So so True story for me, as a 20-something year old, I struggled with impulsiveness financially. Right. And so to the point where I took my credit cards out of my wallet, put them in a Ziploc bag, filled the bag with water, and then froze it in the back of the freezer. So that if I did want to buy something, I literally would have to drive back to my house and defrost my credit cards and then go back to actually make the purchase. And so You know, I I don't share that story a lot because people don't want to know that about their financial person. But what changed is when I knew what I wanted, I stopped doing that because those things didn't matter to me anymore. And I had clarity about what I was actually working toward. Right. And that's what you described is I know what I want, I'm working towards it. And even just getting to watch your face when you talk about that, the way you lit up was so beautiful. Because it's about like touching into that purpose and that happiness. But another thing that you talked about is instead of focusing on the problem, what you just described is understanding what the solution is. And I think so often people stay stuck because they keep talking about the problems and they keep focusing on the problems. And whatever you focus on starts to expand. And so your life just feels miserable and full of problems. But when you know what solution you want. And you know what the solution looks like and feels like, it is much easier to take action in that direction than if you're focused on the problems. You have no clarity of action. And I I I don't know if you did that on purpose, Sarah, the way you describe that, but I think that is such a huge, beautiful, important takeaway from what you said. speaker-1: Well thank you for thank you for all those reflections. It's ⁓ such an amazing tool. And I just I mean so I do this podcast is to help people understand there's a lot of things you can do out there that help you figure out where you're going and then how to get there and that and that alignment, that clarity on that vision and and then continuously coming back to it. Like that's another piece is it's none of this is set and forget. Like you said, w our brains will naturally go to problems because of of our negativity bias. And are that's just what we continuously do. So, as you mentioned earlier, like those are the connections that are wired tightly together. And so we'll naturally follow those same thinking patterns. And it takes conscious effort to break them. a way to start to do that is just like you pointed out, like figuring out the real reason why that's not what you want to continue to do. And it can be a health decision, it could be ⁓ life decision, it could be a financial decision. I think we all probab I I know I do have these places in my life that I feel resistance and friction when I try to not do it. I wish I could just freeze my credit cards. Not like as a you know like as a metaphor for it, right? You feel that it creates that friction. ⁓ But yet still like you go back to it because that's what the routine is, and that's what the routine is. And we go back and back and back and back. So when you can anchor it to something that you really want, this compelling vision, it will start to pull you in a different direction. And it helps, right? You still have to have things you overcome, certainly, but that could that can start to pull you in that direction and it can really, really help. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. I love this. I feel like I could talk to you all day about all speaker-1: I know we should probably okay. Well, I I gosh, this is so much so so so many good things. I would love to hear what you do. Like you're very busy. You've got your reset. You do your, you know, what'd you say, red line for six months and take reset. But what do you do more regularly every day, every week, long term? However you wanna think about that. How do you build that reset into your life? speaker-0: Yeah, I I try to start my day with the reset because once my day actually gets going, it gets really busy. So there's a couple of things that really help in my routine. ⁓ so one of these things that I don't actually do, my husband does for me. So when I wake up every morning, there is a mug full of coffee sitting on the credenza just outside of our bedroom, ready to go. So I get up, I let the dogs out to pee, I feed the dogs, and then as soon as I'm done with that, I grab my cup of coffee that's sitting there and I go sit on the couch and I do a crossword puzzle. That is like it is one of those things I don't care how much money I ever have in my life or how poor I may be if you know the sun doesn't shine the way it's supposed to. But that is something that I will always keep. And my husband does it because ⁓ he know like as soon as I see that coffee, the first thought I have is my husband loves me. Right. It's just such a beautiful moment and a reminder every day of how lucky I am. And so then I get to go sit and I get to kind of activate my brain in a calm way and do the crossword puzzle. And I'm a I I did say I wanted to be an English major. So I I love anything to do with words, that sort of thing. And ⁓ and I just kind of sit there for a little while and I ease into my day and then You know, after that I get ready and I go through my day at work and it is all focus. And I think with what I do, especially because it's both technical and emotional, I have to be wholly present in every single meeting that I'm in. And usually by about one o'clock, I'm starting to feel like a little tired. And so I will go and I will spend an hour in the gym or rowing. Those are the two things that I really love to do. So I'm either lifting heavy or I'm rowing. And then I eat a quick meal after that. And then I go back to work usually until five or six o'clock. And then after that, in the evening, frequently, just depending on the weather in Texas, it's too hot to do this right now. But we take a family ruck around the neighborhood, which ⁓ I really, really love. Right now it's too hot though. So we aren't doing that as much, but we might do a dip in the pool or something like that. So reconnecting that sort of thing. ⁓ just really making sure there's those moments of presence ⁓ throughout the day. And I do find that the walking in the evening, like you said, absolutely beautiful and helpful. That morning where it's just me time and there's not anything else going on and I can sit quietly with my own thoughts helps. And the midday workout is just re energizing so that I don't hit that afternoon slump. And then on the weekends, you know, I think sometimes being a mom, it's really hard to keep your time to yourself because kids have all kinds of activities. I feel like we're frequently overscheduled. But I think trying to squeeze in, like if you have a hobby, I like painting. Actually the paintings behind me for anyone that gets to see video are things that I did. it's just a time where my brain goes quiet. The rowing and the painting both are times where there's enough going on physically that I don't get bored because I'm pretty sure I have ADHD. but not so much that it requires ultimate concentration. And that's when my brain really kind of goes quiet and calms down and and starts thinking the way you're talking about on your walks. But I think just making sure you know what those things even are for you and trying to work them into your day as opposed to doom scrolling on the phone, which is always, always, always a temptation. And I'll find myself doing it and I'll like throw the phone away like ⁓ it needs to just get out of here. ⁓ But I think taking those moments matters. Yeah. speaker-1: Put it in a bag of water and freeze it. That'll take speaker-0: I know it won't work when it defrosts anymore. ⁓ speaker-1: ⁓ my gosh. So good. ⁓ I love that. You're so intentional and deliberate. And what was the word you used earlier? The t ⁓ your your intention with the T word. speaker-0: The telic activity versus the atelic activities. Yeah. speaker-1: activities, you're very, very intentional about about what you do. And you built life in, right? And so recognizing that life peace, but you've got to make yourself a priority or you got to keep you keep yourself a priority. I'm saying for our listeners, you've got to make yourself as important as anything else you're doing or you won't be able to do it well. And that's maybe that's when we risk seeking accomplishments for that feeling of satisfaction that otherwise is going to be there for you when you Find what really matters to you. What does your dream life look like? Set that vision and then and then align yourself and move in that direction. So ⁓ my gosh. Thank you so much. Thanks for sharing all those those routines that you have too. And that's a fantastic example for people. speaker-0: ⁓ Okay, how can you ⁓ I was saying thank you for giving me the space to share it. I appreciate it. speaker-1: What's that? Yes, thank you. ⁓ it matters so much. And I'm grateful and grateful you have those and that you shared them as you did. ⁓ how can people find you? speaker-0: Yeah, if you were looking for me, my website is just wealthwoman dot com. ⁓ and I also have a podcast. It is called the Wealth and Income Podcast for anybody who wants to learn a little more about the technical side of money and how it actually can help create the life you're excited to live. speaker-1: Okay, great. Thank you. The Wealth and Income Podcast and the Wealthwoman.com. Well, Mary, thank you so much for being here and you know, helping people achieve that financial freedom. so money supports those passions and that legacy is so important. Everyone, as she mentioned, please find Mary's work, find her continued work at The Wealth Woman, as well as her podcast, Wealth and Income Podcast. Make sure you follow this podcast if you're finding value and leave a comment about what resonated, what Mary has shared today, what resonated with you. And maybe I'm gonna amp this up. Put something in there you're willing, you're interested in doing that, you know, like take away comparison, take away what you think other people might think you should be doing or want to do. Maybe just put some crazy dream in there. Maybe, maybe you do want to meet Ryan Reynolds, right? Like maybe you do want to do something like throw it down and and see it, you know, when it those things can only start to happen if we let them solidify and writing things down is one of the best ways to begin that process. And then this week, take a future walk. And as you do that, ask yourself that question: what would my dream life look like? And as you walk and you think about that, let it flow, come back, write down all those ideas, that set clarity you're going to need to actually make that vision become your reality. So thank you for listening as you build the life you're working for.