Afford Anything - Build Your 15-Year Career, with Kiersten and Julien Saunders

Episode Date: October 21, 2022

#408: When Kiersten and Julian Saunders began dating in 2012, they fell in love quickly, and their relationship felt strong – until they started talking about money. They broke up as a result of their first money conversation. Luckily, they got back together, figured out how to have tough conversations, and paid off $200,000 in debt over the next five years. Then they started thinking about how to hack their careers. They came up with a plan for a 15-year career. Today, they join us on the podcast to talk about the 15-year career framework and how to approach your career - and your finances - in 5 year stints. Timing of discussion points as per October 2022: 00:25: Introduction to Kiersten and Julien Saunders 02:05: The money conversation that changed everything 11:25: Examples of interaction patterns around money discussions 12:08: Tactics to continue difficult money conversations 16:18: Starting a 15-year career 17:48: The focus of the first five years: your financial foundation 18:17: Transitioning to the second five years and defining your super power at work 18:50: Building your exit plan in the last five years 22:57: Thinking about side hustles and the factors of urgency and upside 24:29: How does a person know how to make money 29:28: Maintaining momentum towards your goals over the 15 year time span 31:37: Is it possible to accelerate the 15 year timeline? 35:12: Thinking about risk after your career Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You can afford anything but not everything. Every choice that you make is a trade-off against something else, and that doesn't just apply to your money. That applies to your time, your focus, your energy, your attention, any limited resource that you need to manage. Saying yes to something implicitly carries trade-offs. And that opens up two questions. First, what matters most?

And second, how do you make decisions aligned with that which matters most? Answering these two questions, is a lifetime practice. And that's what this podcast is here to explore and facilitate. My name is Paula Pant. I'm the host of the Afford Anything podcast, the podcast that is all about opportunity costs and therefore priorities. Today, we talk to Kirsten and Julian Saunders about the 15-year career.

Now, Kirsten and Julian Saunders started dating in 2012, and shortly after they began dating, They had their first money conversation, and it was so bad, it broke them up. Fortunately, they got back together. They figured out how to have tough money conversations. They paid off more than $200,000 in debt over the span of five years. And then they started thinking about whether or not they really needed to buy into this concept of a 40-year career. How short could a career potentially be?

And so they came up with a framework called the 15-year career. And that's a big piece of what we're going to talk about in today's upcoming episode. We're going to talk about two things really. First, in the beginning we're going to discuss their relationship, how they overcame, the money conversation that changed everything. We're going to talk about the ways that people, not just couples, but all people, interact, how that changes when different attitudes about money, come to the surface, and they share tips around how to have tough conversations, real, deep,

but tough conversations around money with the people in your life. So we're going to talk about that at the start of the show, and then we're going to transition to a 15-year career. The first five years focusing on your financial foundation, the second five years focused on defining your superpower at work, and the last five years focused on building your exit plan. We're going to be talking about side hustles, about urgency and upside, about how to maintain momentum, and how to think about risks. Now, Kirsten and Julian are well known in the personal finance community as the creators of a platform called Rich and Regular. And they recently published a book called Cashing Out. Here they are.

Kirsten and Julian Saunders. Hi, Kirsten and Julian. Hey, Paula. How's it going? It's going. It's going good. We are just living a dream over here. I'm sure you must be very busy with a book, with parenting, with everything.

Very full life, even outside of the normal 9 to 5. Yeah, there's a lot going on these days, but we're grateful to kind of tackle it all and we're learning to just enjoy the bumps in the ride a little bit. Well, for those who do not yet know. know you and who don't know your story. Can you introduce yourselves? Sure. I'll start. I'm Julian. Next to me, who you can't see is my wife and I guess business partner, co-creator, co-parent, Kirsten. We met in 2012. We started, you know, that big job that you get that changes everything. We both started on the same team on the same day. And when we should have been focused on what the

manager I was saying in orientation. We were kind of like looking at like who was that. And so sparks flew pretty quickly, which led to a sort of building a relationship, then breaking up because we had a pretty quick conversation, which turned into an argument about money, go figure. But we got back together kind of realizing like, wow, what was that about? Like, that was a lot. Why are we so different? Like, you know, why would we allow something like this to get in the way of all the good things that were feeling. And so we found our way back to the center and realized how common that issue was for a lot of people. And we were confused by it because so many people that we knew were not talking about these kinds of issues. And then we realized like, wow, this is really interesting. And so the sort of money

nerd and sort of cultural and social nerds in us decided to kind of dig deep. And from all of that, aside from our own sort of self-exploration, became our blog, rich and regular, where we started to share some of these stories and the hopes that we can inspire more people to have their own conversations so that they didn't fall into the kinds of pitfalls that we did. And then it grew and expanded from there. Tell me about that argument. Tell me about the money-related argument. I don't want to let the cat out of the bag, but I suspect it was that one of you had credit card debt. Yeah. Yep. That would be me. That would be me. I was in my 20s living a, a hot girl life before Meg the Stallion was a thing. But I was in Atlanta, which is famous for

branches and a bunch of other stuff. And I was living my best life. And I thought credit card debt was normal. I thought that was how most Americans lived. And so I had a lot of it. I had roughly $30,000 of consumer debt, but that included a car note for a very expensive, high interest, luxury car. And I had no plans to stop or to slow down. I always assumed. I could out-earn my spending because that's what I had seen my parents do. That's what I had seen a number of other people do. That was my plan. So when Julian confronted me about this vacation, how I was going to pay for it, you know, he was far more financially stable or responsible back then. So he was like, it's time to eat peanut butter and ramen and pay off this vacation. And I

wanted to keep the party going. And so when he confronted me, I was defensive and it led to some words being exchanged. And he basically said that he would not have dated me if he had known about my credit card debt. So I broke up with him. And to his point, a couple weeks later, we were just kind of like, what was that? Like, why were we so on the edge and so willing to let go of a good relationship? Because we had this different opinion about debt and the conversations and the breakthroughs that we had from there is really what guided us to start rich and regular. I'll also just add on the tail end there, just in case anyone's thinking it, that I understand that that was a very jerk. Dirk.

Obviously, that was not a very kind thing to say. But it was honest. Like, that is how I felt at the time because I had had trouble in the past where I just was not on the same page with the other person. And it was something I just would rather avoid altogether. And then in a weird way, I kind of felt duped a little bit because it was like, ah, but she's just, earning just as much as me. Like, why can't she get her leap together? But it was a bad thing to say, but looking back, I'm really glad that we had that blow up because it forced us to have a conversation that I don't know that we would have had until much, much later on in our relationship.

How deep into your relationship were you when that happened? I want to say it was like two or three months. Yeah. It was early. Yeah, still fairly new. And how did the topic come up? Kirsten, what was the trigger that made you reveal that you had credit card debt? Was it a trip that the two of you took together? Yeah, so we took a trip to Panama for 10 days together, which we agreed to split. And we worked for a travel company at the time. So we used points, and it was fairly affordable. But there was still, you know, the eating out, the drinking, the amenities, all of that stuff we put on credit cards while we were traveling internationally.

And when we got back, I was ready to keep the party going. I wanted to go on dates and I wanted to keep going out and plan our next trip. And he was buckling down trying to recover what he had already spent. He flat out asked me, like, how are you paying for all this stuff? Because I know how much you make. We make the same amount of money. I told him, I'm putting it on my credit card. And that's when he asked about like, how often do you do this?

Is this an exception or is this the way you live? And I was like, duh, it's the way I live. I don't understand what's the problem. I have high credit limits on each of the cards. I'm not max them out. I'm paying the minimum every month. When you're done with this one, just put it on and off. Yeah.

That's the point. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's how it came out. And then eventually we ended up writing down all of the bills. And it led to a larger conversation about how much debt I actually had. Yeah. I think I just got a little distant afterwards because, again, it was the first time I'd ever met someone who wanted to sort of like celebrate a vacation.

I didn't wrap my head around it. For me, it was normal to come back. I was like, all right, back to reality. And she just really wanted to keep the party going. And so she would say, hey, what are you doing after work? And I was just like, going home. It's going to be a lot of eating in for a while. And she just obviously did not understand that.

And so after kind of ghosting for a little bit, it was like, all right, what's going on? Is this something happened while we were there? And I was like, no, it's really just, you know, I would like to pay this bill in full. Right. That was what I was accustomed to. I had plans. And then I just very quickly realized that she didn't think that way or manage her money that way. And so that's really what led to the confrontation and ultimately the argument, which then led to the breakup. So when the two of you as a couple started discussing money and talking about the fact that you had different assumptions about money, about debt, I'm going to assume you probably had different assumptions and approaches to investing, to saving, what were, beyond credit card debt, what were some of the other topics that you had to navigate as a couple? And extending out from that, for anyone who's listening to this, what are some of the important money

conversations that they should be having with their partner or if they're single, their future partner? I think one of the earliest ones was just around the money, the cash flow that we did receive, the income that we did have, and what the purpose of that money was for. So for me, I always viewed money as a tool, but I viewed it as a tool for social connection, meaning it was for brunches with friends, trips with booze, new clothes that would impress managers at work. I just viewed it as this thing, this means to an end to help me connect and build social capital. Versus Julian had a more traditional financial background where he was like, no, money is meant to buy assets, things that appreciate and value things that are that are that lead to financial capital.

And so getting very clear on that before we even tackled the budget conversation and deciding which categories get what it was very insightful for us to make sure that we were coming at it from the same place. In my mind, social capital still led to a fulfilling life. And in his mind, traditional assets and financial capital led to a fulfilling life. So we both had the same goal in mind. But then it was a matter of balancing the budget to make sure that both of our journeys were accounted for. Yeah. And to that point, one of the things that was certainly revealed through that breakup and through that conversation was that I was carrying a lot of baggage with respect to my background. And so I came from tough times, as they say. I grew up poor in the 1980s in Brooklyn, New York, to a single mother. And so for me, even as I got a job, while I was excited about the fact that I was earning,

more income, I always knew in the back of my mind that one of my motivations, even as I thought about my real estate journey, like, it wasn't just so that I can like get this asset because I knew it was a great way to build wealth. It was also a backup plan. It was, hey, like in case my mom loses her home, this is something that I can do to help solve the problem either temporarily or even indefinitely. And so for me, there was a bit of a rub there because Kirsten's background, quite honestly, we jokingly say it that she comes from like a more Cosby show background, whereas mine was more like good times, you know? And so it was just different. Both, I guess you could say, are entertaining depending on the day. But, you know, the struggle was real. And even though

I was at a point where I was far more comfortable than I'd ever been making more money than I ever thought, I knew I couldn't really enjoy it for long. Even going back to the vacation, It was like, wow, the money we just spent on dinner would buy groceries for my mom for an entire month. And it was difficult for me to truly even be present on vacation because it was always in the back of my mind that, hey, on any given moment, something could happen. And I, as her only son, would have to spring into action to be able to sort of fill the gaps. And so it was a bit of baggage that led me to feeling the way that I did and lashing out as much as I did because I was like, there's no way we're going to get along anyway because you're not. to the way that I think or some of the responsibilities that I have to deal with. And so it was a lot of baggage there that kind of crept into the way that I managed and thought about money.

Right. It sounds, as I hear you talk about this now, that getting to the heart of the emotion, you know, fear, fear on one hand, excitement on the other, excitement to go have brunch with your friends and the joy of building relationships through that brunch, that getting to the heart of the emotion and the values, like a value of relationships, but also a value of security, that seems to be how you bridge that gap. Would that be accurate to say? Exactly. Yeah, we actually talk about this in our book in the Relationships chapter because we found this piece of data that, or a piece of a body of research that succinctly described it. We didn't know this at the time, but the research that we quote in the book is about conflict resolution, not being about the issue at hand. It was

never about the money itself, but it was more so around the interaction patterns that we'd have every time we talked about it. So I would immediately get defensive whenever he would confront me about my debt, my spending. I would feel like I need to explain it. I would feel like I am, I am defending the role that my very important friendships and family play in my life. And he would feel triggered by me saying that he was cheap and that he wasn't thinking about his romantic life as much as he was, you know, thinking about his mother's security. And neither one of those things are accurate. They're not, they're partially true. They're not, they're not the full picture. And so once we realized that, like, we have these interaction patterns, we started to create these

hacks to get through a conversation. We would come up with code words or safe words to actually, like, pause the conversation. Every time I say safe words, people's mind goes left. But that's what it was. It's a way of saying stop without saying stop because that puts people on their heels. But we would come up with a safe word that says, like, you know what? I've reached the limit of what I can talk about in this setting. So let's table this. We started to use tell me more, which is another phrase to kind of invite more conversation and signal that I'm not judging.

Like, I just need more information. I don't have enough to fully form an opinion, but I don't want you to feel attacked. So like, tell me more is like an invitation to keep talking. And we kept kind of developing these ways to communicate until we learned how to disagree or fight fair or just resolve or address any conflict that was coming from financial conversations. Well, one of the other topics that you talk about in your book that I want to transition to is this notion of a 15-year career. We've been talking about debt. We've been talking about the possibility of needing to take care, Julian of your mom. how was it that you made the transition from learning how to be a couple that got along

with disparate financial ideas and disparate financial backgrounds and values? Like, how did you get from there to where you are now, which is you're part of the FI community, you're writing about having a 15-year career, you're in this place of not just financial abundance in the logistical or practical sense, but also in the mental sense. So in addition to all those things, are also super passionate about, like, leaving a positive impact on our community, right? And so some of the things that motivate us was really just like learning, like the more we learned about money and sort of looking at that through a racial lens, like some of the things that we saw were like really horrifying. And even in the workplace and working in professional settings in corporate America, we started stitching these things together and realizing pretty quickly that we can't have conversations about. money without having conversations about work or the experiences that people have to go through in order to get that money. And it all just started to help us make sense. And so we started really thinking about that and then also thinking about the role that we might play as role models for

the people in our lives. And that's really what sort of has realized that this is a lot bigger than us. And that sounds kind of arrogant to say, but that has been our life experience. We've always realized that we were influential people individually and then even together that we just had this ability to positively impact people. And we found a lot of joy in doing that. When we started thinking about some of the conflicts and things that we had to get over, it was like actually, like, it's bigger than us. So we can afford to deal with some of these minor inconveniences or disagreements for the greater good of also knowing that one, there's something that we might be able to experience as a couple that will overshadow whatever this petty disagreement is. But the

result of that might also be that we serve as role models in the workplace, outside of work, within our communities, within our families, and so on. Those are the types of things that really sat with us and stuck with us. And it still sticks with us today. And it can be kind of heavy to wear that responsibility or to accept that. But I do think it gets a little easier. And I think if you build in enough, safe words, if you will, and just periods of just peace and opportunities for you to just nurture and nurture your relationship and your family, it tends to balance out. When I think about doing that work versus some of the other things that we have to do for money, it's like, well, yeah, I'll do that all day, right?

I'll be that all day versus sitting in a cubicle doing work that is unfulfilling, uninspiring. and in some cases, like harmful to my emotional or physical health. So that's really what we thought about, and that's kind of what's been pushing us the last couple of years. Let's talk about that transition for the people who are listening who are in a place right now where they're thinking, today is day one of this journey, and I want to start my own journey to a 15-year career after which I get to cash out of the game and do the thing that brings me joy or more fulfillment.

Where should they start day one? Yeah, it's an interesting question because one of the pieces of feedback we've heard from readers is that although they just heard about the 15-year career as like a framework, many of them already see themselves somewhere within it. So they'll write us and say, oh, I'm year six or you know what? I think I'm at year 11. But the 15-year career framework is really just meant to encourage you to begin with the end in mind.

So if this is your day one, whether it's year six in the framework or whatever, begin with the end in mind. And the end in this case is really just to feel like you have options and to actually have options. There are so many of us that aim for these 40 and 50 year long careers, but at year 15, we feel stuck. We don't feel like we can leave to try something new. We don't feel like we can start over. We barely feel like we can apply for another job at a different company. We just feel very stuck. And what the framework is meant to do is help you to have more options. It's broken down into three five-year sprints. And the reason for that is because there's very little downside to focusing on something for five years. That's kind of across the board. The first five years is about

building financial foundations, like a very solid financial foundation where you're paying down debt. You have a reliable budget. You understand the volatility of the things that you participate in. And so five years is a good stretch to know, like, in that five years, I'm probably going to need two sets of tires. Something's going to break at the house. I'm going to need an emergency funeral. So you've got kind of a good working model for what kind of flex your budget needs. The second five years, your six through ten, is about finding your superpower at work. And we define a superpower as something that can be monetized outside of the nine to five window that you currently use it in. and investing along the way. This is where you're really amping up trying to max out those taxable accounts, starting a brokerage, whatever you're invested in. If you're a real estate person, starting to build out your real estate portfolio, you're really focused on what your investing

strategy is for that second five years. And then the last five years is about building an exit plan. That's when you're starting to look at the landscape. You're starting to assess whether your skills are still relevant, which is a thing now, because of how fast world is changing, and whether or not you're underpaid, applying for jobs, seeing what the market rate for your skills are, deciding what you want to do after this next five-year sprint. And what we find in that last five years is that a lot of people don't need the full five years to get the clarity that they're looking for. A lot of people opt out around year 11 or 12 or start to feel like they can afford to take on

bigger risks and apply for different jobs. Some of that imposter syndrome starts to fade away because you've now got 10 years. years of investments and a solid net worth, hopefully by that point. And you feel more comfortable taking different paths. And so that's basically it in a nutshell. And at the end of the 15 years, you may even want to try your hand at being a small business owner or taking a year off for sabbatical or traveling the world or volunteering. There's just so many things that people don't consider because they don't feel like options. They stay at work because that's the thing that they know that's the thing that they've built their identity around and the 15-year career is meant

to disrupt that a little bit. I'd like to add something to that because it's not always or only just about paying off debt, investing at a high rate, and finding your superpowers that you can earn more money for the purposes of sort of repeating those last two things, right, so that you're in this constant cycle of creating money and doing those things or creating income rather. But it's also just acknowledging that people are tired, right? People are tired. And so after 15 years, which is just 15 years of working, let's also include that there was likely a significant degree of school before that. So you're tired from that. If you've had children, you're even more tired. If you're now at the end of that 15 year period, or let's say even at a 10 year period, like you may have

parents who are aging, right? And you want to be there, but you don't really have the time or the ability to do that. And so a lot of this really, really, really isn't just about building wealth. It's really about putting yourself in a position to kind of be the kind of partner or the son that you wanted to be, which is very difficult to do when you are required to go to the work and you can't afford to take that time. And so there's a lot of value in that we found in sort of preparing for that and giving yourself some room to breathe as opposed to experiencing burnout and hitting a wall and that being the thing that forces the issue. So we were kind of thinking about all of those things when we came up with that because there are different use cases or justifications for why anyone would want to be on that path.

Right, right. And so it sounds like with this framework of a 15-year career, phase one, the first five years is about getting really, really good at the financial basics. All of the core principles of financial literacy, of personal finance, that's the first thing to focus on. And then after that, finding your superpower and focusing on bringing in a higher income so that you can plug that higher income into your skill at financial management, that becomes the second phase. And then after that, the third phase is, cool, what's next? Yeah, let's have some fun. Figuring out what's next. Exactly.

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when it comes to deciding how you want to earn a higher income. Can you elaborate on the tradeoff between urgency and upside? Yeah, I think that was our attempt to combat some of the fast money schemes and high-risk activities that we see tossed out so easily on the Internet, on TikTok, on Instagram, by giving people a framework to really categorize the way that they make their money. There's a lot of opportunities, I would argue more so than ever before. to earn additional income outside of your nine to five. But depending on your temperament,

depending on how quickly you need that money and how much money you're ultimately trying to earn, it changes which side hustles may be best suited for you. So if you need money tomorrow, if you need money next week for rent, something like the gig economy, something like arbitrage where you're flipping goods on Craigslist or eBay. But if you're looking for something consistent, that doesn't take you away from your kids, that fits in with a lifestyle that you already have. It may take you longer to get those side hustle started, but it's a different category of goods. I'm not saying that you can't drive Uber or DoorDash or whatever it is for that same goal, but you might want to consider something in the creator economy or something in

the digital product space, something in maybe short-term rentals that's a little more passive, but takes a longer time to get started. How would a person know? So if someone who's listening to this who at this moment is thinking, you know what, I want both. I need money to get me through the next couple of months, but I don't want to put an income ceiling on myself. I don't want to always be chasing short-term money to such an extent that I'm ignoring the long term. How can a person balance the two? Just the other day, I struggled with answering a similar question, which was around, how do I know what my superpower is? I struggled with that. And I'm not exactly sure why.

I think because in my mind, it requires like a deeper understanding of who the person is and where they are. There are just so many variables. And for us, what we were trying to do was to create a simplified sort of grid that at least tried to clarify some of the confusion that was out there. And the reason for that was because we get those questions. We say, well, When people think side hustles, it's as if they immediately run towards the gig economy. That seems to be like the dominant sort of set of activities or types of opportunities that present themselves, which for a lot of people is just unrealistic, right? If you have children or if you have a type of job, like a teacher or something where you're working, you know, really long hours or something like that, those kinds of opportunities aren't really ideal. If you're a woman, some of those types of opportunities sort of have built in risks. So what we were trying to do was also to encourage people to explore more of the medium and long-term things.

And to your point, I think you can actually do both. You can have a job. You can actually do DoorDash or Instacart or any of those gig economy types of opportunities whenever you want to make yourself available. And you can also do something like start building some fundamental entrepreneurial skills, start learning digital marketing so that at some point if you wanted to. enter the creator economy or podcast because you enjoy those things and you identify those as your superpower that you would be putting yourself in a position to actually earn income through those types of opportunities. So I think it really just boils down to figuring out where the feedback loops are in terms of what you're good at. And sometimes that can be

feedback that you're getting from a manager and reviews. In other cases, it could be unsolicited feedback that you've gotten from friends and family, people that have told you that you're really good at certain things, even though you're not given opportunities to sort of showcase those things on the job. So it's an interesting thing because you really just have to figure out ways to collect feedback, whether it's through a formal or informal way, and use all of those things as inputs and indicators to then realize, all right, well, which of these things actually have earning potential now, you know, maybe six months from now or even later. What strikes me about the fact that this question is so hard to answer is that that in and of itself probably

shines some light on how big of a task it is to be able to cover your financial present and build your financial future. Yeah. I think that's what people struggle with is when they envision a future them, a future you, a future me, you just think of your current self, with gray hair or like a saggier face. Yeah. You don't consider how much what's happened around you has changed your brain. You don't consider how much not having to worry about debt has changed your brain or even figuring out a viable side hustle has changed the way that you think about income.

So it's very hard to imagine a world that in five years you might need less than you do now or you might want to work differently or more than you do now because the brain doesn't think exponentially like that. That's part of what makes it so difficult. And the cure that I found to be most helpful not to get all woo-woo is mindfulness, is being present in the moment every single day and not worrying about not fixating on what past me did and what future me needs. It's about really paying attention to what's happening today, making sure that we're making good choices, at least the ones that are statistically proven to be good choices, like investing on a regular basis and building habits and routines and rituals

around our financial strategy and going with that. But you're right, it's very difficult because you can't know how you're going to be different in five years. You can guess, but there's a whole lot happening right now that has radicalized and changed me in ways that I didn't think was possible three years ago. So it's a hard question, but it's where we start to learn. lean on the art and science that is financial planning, where it's like there's only so much the math can do for you. At some point, if you're really struggling with this to the point where

it's becoming a hindrance, you might need a different therapist or a different coach or something outside of the spreadsheet. They call it shadow work in the, you know, in the hipster area of the internet. But you might have to do that inner work to figure out what it is. That actually leads perfectly to my next question, which is over a 15-year time span, there are going to be certain years where you're enthusiastic about this and certain years where you're just burned out on this and willing to throw up your hands and be like, okay, screw this money stuff. I don't, I want to be an ostrich. I want to put my head in this hand and not think about it. How do you maintain that momentum? Yeah, I think you should welcome those years. Avoiding that conflict or that resistance

is where a lot of people go wrong. And what the 15-year career, the foundation and the steps within it allows you to do is to do that with somewhat of a safety net, to do that knowing that you understand how to generate income for yourself outside of a 9 to 5, that you have some sort of portfolio, at least a manageable amount of debt, so that you're not required to ignore your inner desires to do something different. Yeah, I also think that, and obviously depends on what part of the, 15-year career you're at. But one of the benefits of that failure is it's good to get it out of the way. You kind of feel like, wow, I'm really glad that I figured out that this is not what I'm good at or that I'm really glad that this is something I realize I don't want to do before I picked up and moved my family across the country or decided to go out and get another degree or do any of those things. A lot of this, again, sort of focusing on the fundamentals of debt freedom is getting to a point

where you welcome those risks, taking those chances earlier on in your life and in your career so that you don't look back after 15 or 20 years, having not tried anything. And now you're miserable and then you're feeling like, oh, my gosh, I don't really know where I should go next, right? A lot of this is really just about, to your point, building a strong core so that you can get to a point where you feel much more confident, trying things. And I think you'll realize that, you know, through that process, not only will you, like, have a positive impact on, like, your net worth, but you'll build so much more courage along the way. And you'll realize you'll have great stories to tell, you know, of things that you've tried that didn't work out. And you'll start to apply those lessons to some of the new

things. Now, in this framework of the 15-year career, again, phase one is really getting super good at the financial basics. For some people, that's a lot. that might take five years. It might take five years to climb out of debt, to start investing, to get comfortable enough with the concept of investing that they're able to develop an investment strategy and plan. Like, for some people, that's going to take a while. For others, they might be able to do that in one or two years. If that's the case, do they accelerate their timeline? Do they start searching for their superpower in year three? Absolutely. Absolutely. It's certainly something that I would encourage people to do, but it's entirely up to them. A few of the stories that we

shared in the book were of people who did just that and had remarkable results that allowed them to achieve their financial goals far sooner than they anticipated. And so again, that's one of the reasons or benefits, rather, being able to move forward once you've achieved one phase and been able to move to the other. And our experience has been the same thing. It's like, all right, wow, a few of the things that we thought were going to take a long period of time took as long as we thought. Most of them, actually, we were able to achieve significantly quicker. And I think that's like with anything, right? Like you do something for the first time after having thought about it for a year. And it's a god-awful experience. It's like, oh, my God. Like, this took me so long. I don't know

why do people do this. Why do people podcast? Like, I don't understand why it takes five hours to create a 45-minute thing, right? But then when you look back at, let's say, after a year or two years, you start to gain efficiencies, you gain systems that allow you to do things a lot faster. You may be in a position to where you can earn income and then pass off some of those responsibilities to somebody else that allow you to specialize and so on. And those aren't really things that you can envision or, you know, in the early stages. And so all of those things, I think, tie back to what we're trying to expose people to do or at least get them to think about it. say you owe it to yourself to rid yourself of any of the things, likely debt, that might be

holding you back from exploring some of those deeper interests that you have or exploring some of the things that we see are out here that are really lucrative, that might put you in a position to live the kind of life that you want. Once you remove those obstacles, now you owe it to yourself to try as many of them as possible. You may find that they're actually not even entrepreneurial endeavors. They may be, hey, actually, like, I went to school for marketing, but, man, I had no idea that I would fall in love with the legal work or with the corporate responsibility and sustainability things, right? We've seen people jump around, but you owe it to yourself to put yourself in a position to be able to say, hey, I can afford to take the risk of sort of putting this part

of my life down, exploring these new areas. And even if you don't like it, you now have the ability to bounce back or pivot in another direction. And I just think, It's far more difficult for people to do that when you need the money. When you can't afford the disruption, it becomes very difficult for people to embrace new ideas, new ways of thinking. So that's really one of the underlying reasons why we wrote that section. How does finding your superpower differ from that third phase of figuring out what's next? I would assume that whatever your superpower is probably closely relates to the third phase of figuring out what you want to do after the 50. your career is over. Yeah, I like what Julian just said, where he mentioned finding superpowers,

you being able to afford to take the risks of trying new things and acquiring new skills. But that last phase is about you welcoming the risk. You're excited to try something new. You look forward to the ambiguity and the uncertainty, not to the point where you don't feel stress. That's completely normal. But you actually are looking forward to something different. And I think we're seeing that more often, and I'm so grateful that we're seeing that with some of the greatest of all times, some of the goats right now are walking away from one thing to try something else. At the time of the recordings, Serena Williams just announced that she was going to step away from tennis. And we've seen this over and over again. We're just seeing more people walking away from the thing that they would normally default to like, I'll just figure it out.

Like, now's the time. I'm going to figure it out. I think that's the difference. It's slight, but it's distinct. The difference between being able to handle risk versus embracing that risk. Yeah. Being excited about risk. That's what you're working for because that's when the fun starts. How do you know when you're ready to cash out? How do you know when you're ready for the people who will literally be quitting their jobs?

How do they know when it's time and avoid falling prey to just one more year syndrome? I don't know that there's any one thing. I can share my own story. For me, it was certainly when my work life came in strong conflict with my values, when the things that I was doing in exchange for money, I knew was having a negative impact on my health or the type of father or the type of husband that I wanted to be. That's when I knew it was enough. And this was before we'd even achieved some of the core goals that we set out to achieve. But I also had to, to give myself the credit for the work that we'd already done. And it was like, wow, actually, while we haven't figured out everything or accomplished everything

that we want to, we've gotten far enough down the road to where I can afford to maintain my dignity and not continue to do these things that I know are having a destructive impact on my life. For some people, my hope is that they go through a super clean and clear experience, and they don't have to worry about that. and there's no economic downturn and the stock market is continuing to go up and their learning skills and they're finding clients. Like, I hope that is the case. But it's a difficult question. It's another one that I think is difficult to answer. Obviously, you can quantify it and say, hey, like my goal is to hit one and a half million. But I'd be lying if I said, I know several people who've hit their target numbers and they decided to stay. They decided that that wasn't enough. They found a new problem

that they needed to solve for, or new curiosity. And so we've seen that happen time and time again. I think it's one of those things that is very much just a feeling. And it depends on where you are in life and how confident or comfortable you feel. I think a lot of people are uncomfortable pulling the rip cord themselves. I think they require or need something to force them to sort of reconcile the progress that they've already made. It was certainly true for me. My hope is, some people can kind of hear my story. Kierston story isn't nearly as dramatic. But I hope some people can hear my story and trust that we met several people along the way

who've had very similar challenges and hope that they can do a bit more of that emotional work and figure out what they need to do so that they don't have to go back and forth and cycling and thinking about whether or not now is the time or not. And I'll also say this is one of the downsides of setting very firm, quantitative, goals or just letting that be the only goal. Because if you decided that that was the thing that you needed and then all of a sudden the market has a hiccup, well, then all of a sudden you may feel like you still have more work to do. When in reality, you may not, right? You've done all the right things like the pitfalls or sort of downturns that you may be experienced have very little to do

with you having made a poor decision or sort of done something incorrectly. And so that's why I think it's important to have quantitative goals, but you really want to make sure you have some other inputs there to help guide when the right time is for you. Right. You want my version? Yeah, yeah. My version was just really about asking myself a different set of questions when I knew I was ready when I started asking myself a different set of questions. And one of those questions was who is this job teaching me to be? And I realized that this job wasn't helping me be the person that I saw when I closed my eyes and I imagined 55-year-old Kirsten. I was not using any of the skills from the job and it was not helping me be a better mother, daughter, wife, any of those things.

What I was learning from the job was how to make presentations, work as inefficient as possible, lead people despite not knowing where I was leading them, use excessive resources for things that don't add to any of my employees' quality of life. And I just, it wasn't sitting well with me anymore. And then the other way that I knew I was ready to leave is that I'm generally a very outcome driven, reward-oriented kind of person. But I started thinking about the process of leaving and the process of becoming something different and kind of shedding the identity as director of marketing and becoming a

creator, an entrepreneur, a writer, and someone who really owns their time and doesn't look at the calendar as limiting. And when I started like spending more time imagining just what my days felt like instead of like, what's the outcome? How much money do I make? Am I on the cover of this magazine? Do I get this feature? That's when I knew like I was down for trying because I at least had something in my mind other than like another shiny object that I could attach my identity to. It was more about how I was spending my time and what kind of life I was designing for myself. Well, thank you for spending this time with us. Where can people find you if they'd like to learn more about you and your story?

You can find us at rich and regular.com. And then we are also on all of the socials under the handle rich and regular. We have Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Thank you to Kirsten and Julian. What are three key takeaways that we got from this conversation? Number one, our reactions to and relationships with money have a lot to do with our fears and our values, and both of those are impacted by the situations in which we grew up,

by the attitudes of the people around us, and by the behaviors that we've become normalized to. And given that everyone is coming from such a different, framework, that can make it difficult to have constructive conversations about money with people with whom we're close. It was never about the money itself, but it was more so around the interaction patterns that we'd have every time we talked about it. They shared an example from their own relationship about how Kirsten would feel defensive.

She would feel like she was being judged. whereas Julian felt like, hey, I'm worried about my mom and her financial security. Why aren't my priorities important to you? And of course, this is classic miscommunication. And thank goodness, the two of them figured out how to work through it. But part of figuring that out was understanding this core key takeaway that each person has a different relationship with money and that relationship is informed by both values and fears. And when you can recognize that

in whomever you're talking to, what are their values, what are their fears? Then you can begin to empathize at a deeper level. I would immediately get defensive whenever he would confront me about my debt, my spending. I would feel like I need to explain it. I would feel like I am I am defending the role that my very important friendships and family play in my life, and he would feel triggered by me saying that he was cheap and that he wasn't thinking about his romantic life as much as he was, you know, thinking about his mother's security. And neither one of those things are accurate. They're not, they're partially true.

They're not, they're not the full picture. And so that is key takeaway number one. Understand the values and the fears of your conversation partner. so that you can have more constructive conversations, and so that you can also understand your own relationship with money better. That's the first key takeaway. Now, key takeaway number two, be a little sophisticated when you think about side hustles.

The thing is, many of us are looking for ways to earn more money. We want to combat inflation, we want to get ahead financially, we want to diversify our income streams, but it's important not to think of side hustles. conceptually as a monolith, meaning it's important not to lump all side hustles together. There's a big difference between gig economy work, where, you know, if your backs against a wall, you need $500 this month. Cool, gig economy work can get you that, and it can get you that fast.

And sometimes that's exactly what you need. When the poop hits the fan, you got to do what you got to do. And so there are times when that is perfect. but there are other times in which the slow burn, building something that's scalable, but that takes longer to get off the ground, could be the better fit. And in that universe of scalable ideas, you could market a skill set that you have or you could market a product or become the reseller of a product. And even those forks are very different because a product-based business carries a different set of both opportunities and challenges from a service-based business.

So there are a lot of lifestyle questions that you'll need to answer before you decide which side hustle is best for you. There's a lot of opportunities, I would argue more so than ever before, to earn additional income outside of your nine to five. but depending on your temperament, depending on how quickly you need that money and how much money you're ultimately trying to, ultimately trying to earn, it changes which side hustles may be best suited for you. So if you need money tomorrow, if you need money next week for rent, something like the gig economy, something like arbitrage where you're flipping goods on Craigslist or eBay. But if you're looking for something consistent that doesn't take you away from your kids, that fits. in with a lifestyle that you already have, it may take you longer to get those side hustle started, but it's a different category of goods. I'm not saying that you can't drive Uber or DoorDash or whatever it is for that same goal, but you might want to consider something in the creator economy

or something in the digital product space, something in maybe short-term rentals that's a little more passive, but takes a longer time to get started. Start learning digital marketing so that at some point, if you wanted to enter the creator economy or podcast because you enjoy those things and you identify those as your superpower, that you would be putting yourself in a position to actually earn income through those types of opportunities. And so that is the second key takeaway. Finally, key takeaway number three, many people, even people who don't like their current job, who don't like their current career, many people don't buy into the notion of a shorter career time frame. not because they're enjoying what they're doing, but because they don't know what they would do next. And if that's you or if that's someone you know, then embrace the risk, the ambiguity, the uncertainty that comes with a shorter career.

It's like you wouldn't be in a bad relationship. You wouldn't stay in a bad relationship because you're afraid of the fact that you don't know what's going to happen next. you don't know who you're going to meet. You don't know if you'll meet someone. And if so, you don't know how long it'll take you to meet them, right? But you wouldn't stay, or at least I hope you wouldn't stay in a bad relationship just because of the risk and the uncertainty of what might happen next. You'd get out of that bad relationship.

So the same applies to a career. And it's different, of course, in the sense that you need money to survive. So you can't just cut and run right away. but that's why if you're not happy in the career that you have, you either make a pivot right now or you make a very well-funded but longer-term pivot. And that very, very well-funded, longer-term pivot, that is the concept of early retirement. It's rife with uncertainty. That's the point.

That last phase is about you welcoming the risk. You're excited to try something new. You look forward to the ambiguity and the uncertainty, not to the point where you don't feel stress. That's completely normal, but you actually are looking forward to something different. We're just seeing more people walking away from the thing that they would normally default to like, I'll just figure it out. Like, now's the time. I'm going to figure it out. I think that's the difference. It's slight, but it's distinct. Some of the greatest of all times, Some of the goats right now are walking away from one thing to try something else. At the time of the recordings, Serena Williams just announced that she was going to step away from tennis.

And we've seen this over and over again. And when you have ample funding behind your pivot, you have confidence. You have the confidence that comes from knowing that you have runway. There's a lot of power in that. Those are three key takeaways from this conversation with Kirsten and Julian Saunders. Thank you so much for tuning in. Please subscribe to the show notes. They're free, and you will get a synopsis of every episode, along with timestamps,

so that if there is some part of the episode that you really liked, you want to listen back to it or you want to share it with somebody. Like, hey, you know what? They said this thing right around the 17 minute mark. You should really listen to this. I know you don't have time for the whole episode, but just listen to these five minutes. Subscribe to the show notes so that you can get a synopsis, get a. the timestamps, share it with the people in your life that you care about, or refer back to it yourself. It's completely free. Affordanything.com slash show notes. That's afford

anything.com slash show notes. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed today's episode, please share it with a friend, a family member, a colleague, a neighbor. Spread the word about great financial health. Thank you so much for being part of this community. You can hang out with other members of this community by going to, you guessed it, you guessed it, Affordainthing.com slash community, where we have these breakout villages where you can talk to people based on any shared commonality, whether it's age range, whether it's geographic location, whether it's a specific topic of interest, like paying off debt or stock market investing. we have all these breakout villages where you can find your people.

So afford anything.com slash community also 100% free. It's here for you, just like the show notes, just like this podcast. Thank you again for being part of the Afford Anything community. My name is Paula Pant. This is the Afford Anything podcast, and I'll catch you in the next episode. So what is your safe word? It's actually Donuts. It has to be like a sweet word.

Something that in the middle of conflict. Like who doesn't just love donuts? Yeah. You can say it angry and it's still cute. You can be like, yo donuts? Takes the edge off.