Taking a Break Could Be the Smartest Financial Move You Make - Episode 121
In today's episode, I talk with my friend Jillian Johnsrud about something super important—taking breaks from work, also called mini retirements. We talk about how hard it is to feel tired all the time and why we think we always have to be working. Jillian shares how taking time off helped her feel better, enjoy life more, and even do better with money. I also open up about how I realized I was doing too much and needed to slow down.
About our guest
After starting with 55k in debt, Jillian became financially independent at 32. She and her husband have taken a dozen mini-retirements, adopted four kids, have two biological, lived abroad, traveled to 27 countries, and paid cash for their first home. They live in Montana by Glacier National Park, where they hike on the weekends. She's a writer, coach, speaker, podcaster, and drinker of hot tea.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Naseema: All right. My financially and intentional people, if you are an OG listener, you know that Jillian John Root is not new to this podcast, but she is one of my favorite people in the world and I'm always super excited to talk to her. And, um, I know we're gonna have an incredible conversation today 'cause it's gonna be some personal stuff mixed in there, which is really, really exciting.
But first of all. Jillian, welcome back to the podcast. I believe this is your third time.
Jillian Johnsrud: Thank you. Always, always a pleasure to be here.
Naseema: Of course, and I have been looking forward to this interview even before we had this conversation because I knew we needed to have it. And it's like been this thing that I'm like, I gotta talk to Jillian, I gotta talk to her. Um, and to be able to do that and have access to her, I really feel blessed because as you'll see, Jillian is an amazing person if this is your first time [00:01:00] hearing from her.
But anyway, Jillian. Um, welcome and I'll just give you a moment to kind of like talk a little bit, uh, like about your backstory, but really we're gonna talk about many retirements, what they are and why people need to know about them and why more people need to be taking them.
Jillian Johnsrud: Yeah. Yeah.
Naseema: Yeah. So what are you all about, Julia?
And like how did you discover, how did you discover this?
Jillian Johnsrud: You know, when I started my financial journey, um, I. My, my spouse at the time, and I, we had all this debt. We weren't going into high earning careers. Like I hadn't come from a family with like a lot of financial means, and so I didn't, I didn't think it was possible to retire early. Like that seemed too big of a stretch.
Like just not even, not even like, oh, maybe one day I was like, no. Okay, so that's not for me, but I [00:02:00] still have all these goals and all these dreams and all these things that I wanted to do. So I started thinking about like, what if I took these, like sabbaticals, these mini retirements, like little career breaks.
What if we just saved a little bit extra and we could step away from work to focus on these dreams of, of traveling and projects and hobbies and friends and family, uh, and adventures. And so that was kind of how we started it, even though I was trying to like build more financial freedom. And over the last, you know, it's been 22 years now, I've taken a dozen mini retirements.
Uh, the first one's really hard and scary, but it's like anything, the more you do it. The easier it gets and the better you get at it. And so as you start to gain that momentum and then you realize, actually, my life, my career, my work life balance can be entirely different than [00:03:00] what society said it had to be.
Uh, there's all of these variety, there's all these options, and I don't have to wait till I'm 65 to pursue these, these goals and these dreams that I have, like I can mix them in to every decade of life.
Naseema: Yeah. And what can many retirements look like? I know every one of yours is kind of look different, and the people that you help, they all look different. Most people just don't have a concept of this because we were taught to work until traditional retirement age, and then you can kind of enjoy your life. Yeah.
Jillian Johnsrud: Yeah, so I define mini retirements with three characteristics. Uh, it should be a month or longer. I find that's kind of the sweet spot to really focus on a big goal or to rest and recover from burnout. Uh, so a month or longer stepping away from your nine to five. So it doesn't mean you don't do anything. You could be traveling or pursuing a hobby or volunteering or whatever. You're probably still doing [00:04:00] something, doing stuff, but away from your primary career. Um, and then to focus on something that's meaningful. So that would make it different than, let's say you get laid off and you just like sit around the house and you mope about, and like watch Netflix until like you find a next job like.
Naseema: Right.
Jillian Johnsrud: It has to have that intentionality of I'm gonna pursue something that matters to me. So if you have those three things, those are kind of the basic framework, but you are right. There's. A thousand different ways this could look. Um, for a lot of people it is stuff that's tough to fit into nights and weekends.
That might be a through hike. Maybe they wanna hike like the Camino. Maybe it's a big road trip with their kids. Maybe it's a huge project that they want to accomplish. Maybe they wanna write a book. Um, but it's things that are tough to fit into nights and weekends, or. It's unrealistic [00:05:00] maybe to fit it into nights and weekends in this stage of life.
Naseema: Yeah.
Jillian Johnsrud: Because you have so many demands and your nights and weekends are full. So like I recently took a month off to learn tango.
Naseema: Ooh,
Jillian Johnsrud: Theoretically you can learn tango and nights and weekends, but I wanted to get like a solid base. I wanted to jump in. Uh, it's a hard dance to learn, so it took a month off and just practice and practice and practiced and practiced so that I could then maintain that new hobby.
During my nights and weekends, like I had this foundation to really enjoy this hobby for the rest of my life.
Naseema: I love that. I love that. But that's the kind of thing like people don't think that they can do that. They don't think it's possible. And a lot of times I think it's grounded in finances
Jillian Johnsrud: Mm-hmm.
Naseema: personal finance podcast, obviously we talk about finances, um, but most people think, how can I afford this? Yeah. [00:06:00] Yeah.
Jillian Johnsrud: funny because it does, it's so un, it's so uncommon. It's not a traditional way of thinking that a lot of people are like, this must be an extravagant expense. And the math actually isn't, isn't too bad. Even if you're getting a month off unpaid. So your employer is not gonna cover any of
Naseema: Mm-hmm.
Jillian Johnsrud: if you wanted a month off every other year.
So if you start in your twenties, you know you're gonna get 20 of these mini retirements have 20 incredible adventures throughout your lifetime. A a month off every other year, you would have to save an additional six and a half percent of your income,
Naseema: Mm-hmm.
Jillian Johnsrud: which isn't massive. Like it's, you know, if, if you're making $10,000 a month, then that's 650 bucks.
Um. And if you're making 10,000 bucks a month, that might be like an extra weekend
Naseema: Right, [00:07:00] right.
Jillian Johnsrud: but there again, if you're making a thousand dollars, that's $65 a month, like you can earn that baby cent. Some kids like
Naseema: yes.
Jillian Johnsrud: so in saving, either in reducing your expenses by that amount or increasing your income by that amount.
Um. It unlocks this massive potential to reimagine your life.
Naseema: In my case, um, I don't know, we're gonna talk about this in general. Um. I was like, oh, I'm like sitting on like this deferred comp of like $150,000 and didn't even consider it. So it doesn't even have to be like you intentionally are like now planning on it. A lot of people have money places that they haven't even thought about or they even have an emergency fund or something that they can tap into like.
There's probably more money sitting somewhere that you can [00:08:00] utilize or something that you can do, but also, I know you talk about there's still ways to generate income in your mini retirement, even if it's not your nine to five that people don't consider because maybe during this mini retirement your expenses are so low, like you don't need that overhead. Yeah. Yeah.
Jillian Johnsrud: Even simple things like, because you know it can take time if you wanna build kind of a side hustle or starting real estate, like those things. I take time to build, but let's say you want to go travel for six months,
Naseema: Mm-hmm.
Jillian Johnsrud: you could just rent out your place while you're gone
Naseema: Mm-hmm.
Jillian Johnsrud: that, you know, whether that's a thousand or 2000 or $3,000 a month, like might cover all of your accommodation while you're traveling, depending where you're traveling to, you know, so it could massively reduce the cost of your adventure, um, or offset your mortgage and all of [00:09:00] those payments.
So like. And it's, I, I've rented at my house a lot of times, like you kind of have to have, it takes a little bit of preparation to get your house ready. Um, but it is nice, like you don't need a house sitter. Like,
Naseema: Yeah.
Jillian Johnsrud: the furnace goes out, like someone's gonna notice and let you know.
Naseema: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so actually that's a perfect transition to kind of talk about my thought process and what's going on in my life and why I really feel like this is a great time to take a mini retirement. Um, and I don't know if you wanna kind of walk me through your process or if you just kind of wanted me to put everything out there and then we'll go back through it, or how do you wanna do it?
Jillian Johnsrud: Yeah. Well, let's, let's start with the initial idea and motivation behind this.
Naseema: So the initial idea of motivation was, um. I was at a place where I, I, I was on maternity [00:10:00] leave, so in a minute, retirement, and then I felt so guilty about not earning money like I had during that time that when I went back to work, I went back to work a little too hard and I went back from zero jobs to three jobs.
And me getting to a breaking point where if things don't change, I was gonna have a mental breakdown and literally I was. At that point, and it just so happened that things lined up and I was able to get almost a week off and then kind of like reset and like, okay, I'm okay, but things are gonna have to change. And so I was at that point and I was like, I know I wanna take a break, but I don't know how I'm gonna be able to do it, um, financially because. Having another kid added a huge, um, daycare expense, which is my childcare exceeds my mortgage. That gives you an idea. You know? So I'm like, how can I actually afford to do [00:11:00] this?
Um, and then get into that point where I was like, oh, wait, but I have money. And I ha and I and I generate income already outside of my job. I just can ran, I can, I need to ramp that up. And I'm sitting on like, if I decide to leave my job, this deferred compensation, which is $150,000 that I can access at any time. So that was the point, like that's how I kind of got there. Like, oh, I, I kind of can do it. But then, you know, now I'm at the point of like, well, how do I do it? Efficiently, strategically, what is that gonna look like? How much work is this gonna take? Because it does feel heavy and a little bit overwhelming.
The planning part.
Jillian Johnsrud: Yeah. Yeah. I, I love that realization. Because it is hard to come to for some people that like, oh, I have choices [00:12:00] and I could give myself permission
Naseema: Mm-hmm.
Jillian Johnsrud: to do something for me. Like sometimes we build freedom and we build flexibility and we build options. Then do we deserve the things we built for ourselves?
Naseema: Right?
Jillian Johnsrud: And that's like, it's a big energy shift of like, I built some good things for myself and actually I deserve to have the good things I built for myself.
Naseema: Yes. Yes. Yes.
Jillian Johnsrud: sometimes it takes a minute, um, to just receive the things that we've created, which is. You know, bizarre. But it, it's, it's real. Um, and so when it comes to planning, I, I do, I do not recommend winging it.
Um, like definitely a little bit of thought and intention, but there is a reality that when people are so busy and they're so stressed out and they're so burned out, they don't actually have like the [00:13:00] creativity. The bandwidth to perfectly imagine and plan this.
Naseema: Yes.
Jillian Johnsrud: So one of the things I teach in, uh, I have a book coming out and I do group coaching.
So I'm kind of, you know, working with people every week of like how to, how to go through this. Um, is planning phases like your mini retirement doesn't have to be one thing. It can have a few different goals, a few different intentions, and. Your phase one might be rest, recover. And during that phase of rest and recovery, we're gonna plan the other two phases. So there's gonna be a great plan, but we don't have to plan all of it. When you're the most tired and the most overwhelmed and like I think about burnout, like a narrowing of your vision.
Naseema: Mm-hmm.
Jillian Johnsrud: So if normally you can see like 180 degrees [00:14:00] burnout focuses that down to where you've got like 15 degrees right in front of you.
And the purpose of that, the purpose of burnout is to get you out of a situation.
Naseema: Mm.
Jillian Johnsrud: Like if you are in a forest and you're lost. Your only focus should be to get out of a dangerous situation. You should not stop. You should not draw flowers. You should not write poetry. You should not like make a fairy garden, like just focus on the task at hand.
And that's getting the heck outta dodge. Like so burnouts focus like that, that narrowing your, of your vision is. Is to help you get out of a situation. Your body knows it cannot stay in. It cannot survive here. So there's a reason you don't have creativity. There's a reason you can't imagine all these possibilities 'cause your body's like Nene, not yet.
First we get out of the thing then I'll let you be creative. Then you can draw flowers if you wanna draw flowers. [00:15:00] But right now focus at the task of hand.
Naseema: Yes. And that's definitely where I'm at right now. And that, 'cause I feel like, oh my God, but I have to plan all these things out, but I don't have time to plan. Like I literally the other day was telling my friend, like I. I know I need to do all of these things. I need to have these things in place, and I have this timeline in my head that I wanna do it by, but when am I gonna be able to sit down and process and come up with a plan for these things because I am in the trenches.
Jillian Johnsrud: Yeah.
Naseema: Yeah.
Jillian Johnsrud: Yeah. It's, it's figuring out what's the next right step.
Naseema: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jillian Johnsrud: when I get there, then I'll have more time and more information and I can figure out the step after that. Even in my group coaching, like it's, it's four months, like we're showing up over a long period of time to come up with this plan. And I was telling 'em last night, I was like, this is a lot and you will only have [00:16:00] 60% of a plan.
Naseema: that's it. And that's the other thing too, that a lot of people have to be okay with. Because you, the plan doesn't have to be a hundred percent fleshed out. Um, especially because it inevitably something is gonna go wrong with your plans, so it gives you that leeway. So you kind of know like, I ha it ain't all figured out.
It'll figure it itself out and things are gonna come up and we can work through those things.
Jillian Johnsrud: Things are gonna go wrong and things are gonna go right. Things that you never saw coming.
Naseema: Yes,
Jillian Johnsrud: New opportunities are gonna show up that were not on your radar. And so I say you're gonna have 60% of a plan and the other 40% is make believe.
Naseema: Mm-hmm.
Jillian Johnsrud: an assumption, it's a, it's your best guess, but you're not gonna know that 40% until you're in it.
Like you don't get access to that information until you start the journey. So what I have [00:17:00] people do is this process of like a weekly or a monthly check-in
Naseema: Mm-hmm.
Jillian Johnsrud: where you've. You've run an experiment over the last week, you had a hypothesis. It's like the scientific method. And at the end of the week you gather the information.
Okay, had this hypothesis, what actually happened? How do I actually feel what's actually going on in my finances? And you ask whatever pertinent questions you wanna ask, and then you take that new data. You incorporate it into the plan, you switch out some of that make-believe for this real actual information, and you pivot it just slightly, and then you try it again for the next week. And over time, you're, you're slowly adapting, you're integrating the information, you're responding to what's going on around you, and the plan is coming together. So I don't recommend winging it in like a 60% plan. Is amazing,
Naseema: Yeah.
Jillian Johnsrud: but don't wait until you feel like I have a hundred percent plan. 'cause you can't, you can't get a hundred [00:18:00] percent until you're in it.
It's almost like being a parent. You can know 60% of parenting before you're a parent.
Naseema: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jillian Johnsrud: of it you can only learn by being a parent, like you have to be in it.
Naseema: Most people only know about 10 to 20%.
Jillian Johnsrud: Yeah. Yeah. 60 was generous. It was generous.
Naseema: Yes, definitely. Definitely. Yeah.
Jillian Johnsrud: But if you say, I'm not gonna become a parent until I a hundred percent know absolutely everything, and I've mastered all of it. Well, you'll never have kids then. Like, because you can't, you can't figure it all out until you're in it and you're learning as you
Naseema: And it is almost dangerous to put yourself in that situation because it doesn't give you a lot of leeway, um, for failure or for things going wrong because you think you have it figured out. Out. And then when things don't go your way, [00:19:00] you're crashing out and and causing anxiety. So you're giving yourself this undue anxiety because you think you had it all figured out and nothing, nothing in life is a hundred percent fi figured out.
And I think the more people are accepting of that and have more flexibility, and that's actually what I tell people when they come in to deliver a baby. You know,
Jillian Johnsrud: Yeah.
Naseema: like, listen. Things never go the way that we think it's gonna go. The people who do the best are the people who are able to understand that and know that and, and give up that control that they think that they have.
The people who are hyper like it has to go like this have typically have the worst outcomes. And so, yeah.
Jillian Johnsrud: Yeah, it's something that, you know, in the book, in the last step, it's kind of like things are un unexpected on the [00:20:00] journey. And one of those is it can be very emotionally distressing if people, they knew 60%, 40% was make believe, but they convinced themselves that it was a hundred percent accurate.
Naseema: Yeah.
Jillian Johnsrud: And then things. The make belief stuff isn't panning out exactly like they thought it would 'cause it was just an assumption and it's a tough emotional pivot
Naseema: Mm-hmm.
Jillian Johnsrud: that generally, like you said, they kind of spin out, um. It can create some really, um, it can, I would say it can amplify negative self-talk that was always there under the surface.
Like all of those deepest fears they have about themselves, they start to articulate, uh, a really common one. People are burned out, they're super burned out, and they think I'm going to do this mini retirement. To recover from burnout. And while I'm recovering from burnout, I'm gonna do, [00:21:00] uh, these 793 things.
Um, and I'm gonna do 'em amazing. 'cause I'm awesome and I can do all the things.
Naseema: Mm-hmm.
Jillian Johnsrud: And their body all of a sudden realizes, oh, we have access to rest. And it's a little bit like if you were stuck in the forest and you had no food. And so you're like fasting, you're in starvation mode and your body feels hungry.
It doesn't feel so hungry that it can't get you to find food there again, like your body's survival mechanism, like, well, we don't want you to be so hungry that you're distracted from actually solving this problem, but once you get rescued and you're, and, and people give you food, and your body's like, oh wait, we have access to food.
Now we're super hungry, actually. Like we didn't wanna mention how hungry we were before because we didn't wanna freak you out. But we're super hungry and you'll stay hungry for a long time until it re. Recovers all of that food that you lost, and it's the same with rest.[00:22:00]
Naseema: Mm-hmm.
Jillian Johnsrud: You might kind of think you're tired, but your body is deceiving you because it's trying to get you out of this situation.
It's like, do not fall asleep here. Do not stop walking. Keep moving outta the forest. But once it realizes, oh wait, we have access to rest, it will feel tired. It will feel very tired, and it will feel tired as long as it needs to feel tired to get you caught up. So people think they're a little burned out and they have this 793 things they wanna do, and they're not doing them.
All of a sudden they don't have energy, they don't have motivation. They can't, they can't force their body to do this thing that their body's like, nay, nay. Now we have access to rest, we're resting. Um, and so that negative self-talk of, well, look, you're not even disciplined. You thought you were a hard worker?
Clearly not. You're a lazy person. What do you, you're like napping in the middle of the day like you thought you were gonna make all this progress. You can't even function outside of a job. [00:23:00] You are not even disciplined enough to get stuff done without an employer telling you to do it. Why did you give up all this income just to be a lazy person who naps in the middle of the day, at least before you were earning money?
And like this, this whole narrative starts happening I'm like, I'm like, okay, that's a story you could tell yourself or you could tell yourself the story of, huh, I guess I'm a lot more tired than I realized. It's a good thing. I have the ability to take a nap and just move on.
Naseema: That negative self talk is so strong, though,
Jillian Johnsrud: Mm-hmm.
Naseema: is so strong. Like the what? The guilt,
Jillian Johnsrud: Yes.
Naseema: the guilt people have for not being able to check off boxes
Jillian Johnsrud: Mm-hmm.
Naseema: is [00:24:00] so crazy because guess what? They've never heard that they are given permission to rest. They've never given themselves, they don't know if it is even possible.
So how can you give yourself permission to rest? You don't even know it's possible.
Jillian Johnsrud: It's real tough. This is whenever people are on the PHI journey, this is a shift that we have to learn. There are things in your life that served you really well and they got you from point A to point B and they did a real damn good job doing it. Um, there are mindsets and beliefs and attitudes that like caused you to persevere and get you to where you are now.
And those mindsets will not get you where you want to go next.
Naseema: Mm-hmm.
Jillian Johnsrud: get you from B2C, it'll keep you at B,
Naseema: Mm-hmm.
Jillian Johnsrud: but it's not gonna take you where you wanna go next. And it's really tough to lay to, like, I almost think about like showing appreciation, [00:25:00] like think you past self for believing this and for doing this and for overcoming and for persevering and for working so hard.
I appreciate you did that. And now we're gonna do something new. I.
Naseema: Mm-hmm.
Jillian Johnsrud: Now we're gonna try this whole new way of life. I appreciate we did that old way of life. That was great for that season, and now we're in a new season. We're gonna do things a new way.
Naseema: Yeah, yeah,
Jillian Johnsrud: But it is tough to give up something that served you well.
Naseema: yeah. How you got to where you are. Yeah. So typically with the people that you work with, how much rest time do you. Thing Did you recommend?
Jillian Johnsrud: Yeah, I mean, this is one of those things that we really,
we only wanna give ourselves the recommended minimum. [00:26:00] So like if you go and have a surgery and the doctor says, okay, you should be recovered in two days. You go, okay, I've got two days, day three, you feel like hell,
Naseema: Mm-hmm.
Jillian Johnsrud: but the doctor said you had two days, so you really think you should go back to work. Like, because we don't, we don't trust ourselves.
We trust someone else.
Naseema: Mm-hmm.
Jillian Johnsrud: Um, so it's probably gonna take as long as it takes.
Naseema: That's it right there.
Jillian Johnsrud: And there, in that weekly check-in that monthly check-in, let's check in with ourselves. Let's trust ourselves. How are we feeling? What are we experiencing? How tired are we? Are we still napping? Or are we starting to feel that regrowth of energy, of motivation, of excitement, of enthusiasm, of creativity?
Like, is that. I think about like a forest fire. It burns down the forest and everything's like charred blogs everywhere. [00:27:00] But then that spring and you start to see that new growth come up and it's like neon grade and you can see, oh, stuff is starting to grow again. Um, so for some people that's a month.
And for some people that's three years.
Naseema: Yeah.
Jillian Johnsrud: It, it typically depends. And I ask people to be honest with themselves. How hard have you been pushing? And how long have you lived that way? Have you lived that way for two years? You had a real soft, nice life, and then for the last two years have been hard or have you been pushing that way since you were like 12? It might take longer, like,
Naseema: Yes. Yes.
Jillian Johnsrud: the person who's been pushing themselves since 12 is like, okay, I'll give myself six weeks, six weeks. That's all I, that's all I get. That's all I need. And then I can, I can go back to it. Maybe, but your body might disagree with you. It's
Naseema: Mm-hmm.
Jillian Johnsrud: Hey, listen, I gave you this crazy energy and motivation since you were 12.
How about, [00:28:00] how about we refill for a little bit
Naseema: Yeah.
Jillian Johnsrud: like it? So yeah, between a month and three years. Um, but be honest with yourself of where you are on that scale. Like if you, have you had a busy year or have you had a busy life?
Naseema: Right, right. And I, but I know like what's in the back of most people's heads. 'cause it's definitely in the back of my head, well, how can I afford to rest that long? Like that's a luxury.
Jillian Johnsrud: It is, it is a luxury, and I would, I would say give yourself as much as you can.
Naseema: Mm-hmm.
Jillian Johnsrud: Like, because it's not, here's the, here's one of the weird things about mini retirements is people think it's just a net loss. I am gonna take this time off and it's [00:29:00] gonna cost me income, and it's gonna cost me extra money to go do cool things and, and therefore, I am only behind financially for the rest of my life. But life is weird and funny and nuanced, and it doesn't always work in those linear ways. It's really easy for us as humans to like predict negative outcomes. It's very hard for us to predict positive outcomes. I. Just from like an evolutionary thing, like you're, you're more geared towards survival if you're better at predicting negative outcomes versus positive outcomes.
But it doesn't mean the positive outcomes don't exist. Like one of my people in group coaching, she is in the middle of a new retirement, but she took another one like six years ago. She took a year off and she's like. Then the next job I got was way better and I made a lot more money and it totally compensated for that year off that I took.
Um, I, [00:30:00] I talked to one guy, um, that I interviewed. He, he took a year off and then his next job, he got a signing bonus that covered like. Half of a year off that he took and he made 50% more money at his next job.
Naseema: That is incredible.
Jillian Johnsrud: you just don't, sometimes people start whole new businesses. Like we took two of our mini retirements to invest in real estate and has made us an insane. Amount more money than that six months of work, would've you, you don't know how you might leverage this to where it becomes a net positive in lots of different ways. Um, so you might, I I've never, not that it won't ever exist, uh, but I've never seen a motivated ambition person bankrupt their life by resting.
Naseema: That, and that's my whole thing is that, [00:31:00] um, for me personally, I had given myself this timeline and I know that I need to rest. I. But my minute retirement was like going hard, like living the country, taking my kids outta school, selling my house, like all of these things. And this was definitely a wake up call for me.
Like, no, it really just needs to be like resting,
Jillian Johnsrud: Yeah,
Naseema: like slowing down. Yeah.
Jillian Johnsrud: of the reasons I encourage phases, because you can have multiple goals in your mini retirement. Some of them do not go together well, I. You can't do them at the same time, you cannot rest and start a new business. Starting a new business is hard and it's stressful. It is not restful. You cannot rest.
And like fast travel, I'm gonna do like 13 countries in Europe, those don't go together. So I think about it like ingredients in a recipe in each [00:32:00] phase. Pick ingredients that compliment each other. Don't pick things that fight with each other. Um, you can put, you can put the garlic in with like your spaghetti, but don't put it in with the apple pie.
Like, know what you're trying to cook here and pick things that go with that meal. Um, and so if you're like, I do wanna do an epic trip with my kids and I wanna rest, that's awesome. Do those at separate moments, like, because it can be really. Frustrating. 'cause you won't feel like you're making progress on either.
You won't feel like you're enjoying either. And when people have a lot of competing goals, it can create some anxiety because you're never really sure if you're doing the right thing in that moment.
Naseema: Yeah.
Jillian Johnsrud: Like I said, I wanted to start this business. I said I wanted to declutter my house and I said I wanted to rest.
Like, do I read a book right now or do I clean up the closet right now?
Naseema: Mm-hmm.
Jillian Johnsrud: Whatever you choose, you feel like maybe you're doing the [00:33:00] wrong thing, which there again, I try to, I try to construct these mini retirements to be enjoyable.
Naseema: Mm-hmm.
Jillian Johnsrud: That is not an enjoyable emotion to always feel conflicted. So like, let's, let's try to remove, you know, that emotional distress that doesn't need to be there.
Naseema: Yeah, I love that. And I can, I, I totally see that. Being a necessary step, and then you have the mental capacity to plan, like, what's your next move?
Jillian Johnsrud: Yes.
Naseema: So how do we do that part?
Jillian Johnsrud: You know, I, I would, I would, I would start
Naseema: Mm-hmm.
Jillian Johnsrud: and, and maybe that's okay. I'm going to, I know I have enough cash for a month off. So we're gonna start with a month off. And during that month off, I'm gonna figure out [00:34:00] the next six months off.
Naseema: Yeah.
Jillian Johnsrud: and, and even if it's like, okay, but I want a little bit more of a plan for a month off, then take a weekend, go away, away from your house,
Naseema: Mm-hmm.
Jillian Johnsrud: away from all your responsibilities, and think through it when you have like that time and that bandwidth.
Um, it's one of the reasons like these. These conversations are so important because they're not conversations we typically have, like while we're unloading the dishwasher.
Naseema: Yeah.
Jillian Johnsrud: Like, you're not gonna get those answers and that clarity and that confidence, like you need to give yourself a little bit of time and space.
Like, it's one of the reasons in the group coaching, we do an hour a week. It's not a massive amount of time, but we need like a small, little, tiny pocket of time where we're gonna think about this deeply and we're gonna explore this and we're gonna have meaningful conversations around it. Um, and then we'll get there.
It'll all come together eventually.
Naseema: Mm-hmm. [00:35:00] Mm-hmm. Yeah. I love that. I love that. Um, I know that you talk about. Like what it's like to ask for a minute in retirement and what that looks like. Um, like when you're approaching your, your boss and like, like a lot of people think they just ha totally have to like quit their jobs, but oftentimes they go and they talk and they're like, no, there's a little bit of flexibility.
Like they might be willing to give you that month off, that six months off or however month off. Um, to retain you because especially, you know, you've been somewhere for a long time. You're a valuable employee. Their best interest is to keep you, um, there, and so there may be a lot more flexibility in that.
Jillian Johnsrud: Yeah. Especially if, [00:36:00] if you want between one and three months, I would, I would, I would try to negotiate that, if this is a place you wanna come back to, if you're like. I never wanna see any of you humans. Humans again, like peace out, then you could just separate. But if you would be interested in having the option of coming back, I would have that conversation.
Um, and your, your job, your work is to make you taking this time off the easiest, cheapest, simplest solution versus replacing you.
Naseema: Mm-hmm.
Jillian Johnsrud: Um, and if you can kind of figure out all the logistics and do kind of that mental, emotional work ahead of time. 'cause you don't wanna just drop this problem in someone else's lap.
Naseema: Yeah.
Jillian Johnsrud: your manager's plate is full, they don't have time, they don't have energy. Um, but if you want it, like, I'm gonna put in some time and energy to figure this out. And then this can be a really creative, collaborative process. Um, usually HR is set up for [00:37:00] people to be able to be gone for up to 12 weeks.
They have the logistical capacity in to the system. Um, for leaves that are longer than that, it's not unheard of. But oftentimes what you do is you technically separate with the understanding of as soon as you're ready, as soon as you wanna come back, like please let us know. Like we've got a spot for you.
Like we would love to like plug you back in.
Naseema: Mm-hmm.
Jillian Johnsrud: And then, and, and that can be nice too, to feel like you have that security and you don't have to stress about your next job. Like, you know, you're gonna have one lined up, um, and you can just really enjoy your time off, uh, whether you need six months or a year or 18 months.
Naseema: Yeah. The other thing that people often struggle with is. If they do decide like that, they need to walk away. You talked about like the possibility, [00:38:00] not walk away from their job, but like leave the area and like what are they gonna do with their housing if they own a home, they're not renting. Like, do I have to sell my house?
Can I rent it? Like, you know.
Jillian Johnsrud: Mm-hmm.
Naseema: How do people navigate that and do they have more? Is it, it's not always as black and white as I think a lot of people think about it, right?
Jillian Johnsrud: Yeah, and I there again, in the same kind of framework of just make the next right choice. It's really tough to make the choice that you're gonna want in five years or in 10 years. Like if any of us think back to how old we were 10 years ago and like what. Our biggest goals were then, and like what we thought we wanted the most.
Then it's probably not even the same because over the last 10 years we've grown and we've changed and life's changed and good stuff happened and bad stuff happened. And
Naseema: Mm-hmm.
Jillian Johnsrud: so, [00:39:00] so I kind of encourage people like, don't try to make the choice you're gonna want in 10 years, 'cause you're gonna be a different person in 10 years.
Um, so when it comes to selling your house, you don't have to make that choice right away. You could make it a month in, you could make it six months in. Let, let's say you wanna travel around the world for a year and you're like, do I sell my house? I don't
Naseema: Mm-hmm.
Jillian Johnsrud: leave it empty for a month. See how that feels?
Put a long-term renter in it for six months. See how that feels? And then. Like we're talking about, as you go, you'll get more information, you'll learn more. And six months into a trip, you're like, yeah, we're never going back. Like we're building a new business. We're living in a new life. We're moving to Costa Rica, like we, and you have that clarity and you have that confidence.
And then, you know, yes, selling that house, that's the right choice, but you're not gonna know it till you're in it. So don't stress yourself out about making the choice before you have all the information.
Naseema: [00:40:00] Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes. Other big thing is if you have children. What to do about their school. And I learned this from you and, and I was, and, and I didn't know this was the option before, but like, it's just like, well, you know, you plan like on taking your kids somewhere and you don't know. Like do you totally unenroll them for school?
Do you do homeschooling? Do you. Put them in independent study, like what do you do? And, and I remember you telling me, you know, you can just like take them out the school system for a little while and
Jillian Johnsrud: And put him right back in.
Naseema: that. Yeah. Yeah. There's so many options.
Jillian Johnsrud: be one thing.
Naseema: Yes.
Jillian Johnsrud: If you wanna do, you know, we've done three [00:41:00] months in the winter, send 'em to school in the fall and enroll them. Do a epic trip, homeschool 'em over that, come back, re-enroll them, uh, and off we go. Um, it doesn't, it doesn't have to be, it's not like, oh, if we're gonna homeschool 'em, we have to homeschool 'em for the rest of their lives.
Like, no, you make the next right choice and then you make the right choice after that. Um.
Naseema: Yeah.
Jillian Johnsrud: And so giving yourself and giving yourself permission to change your mind. It's the same with healthcare. I was actually talking about this last night in the group call, like, well, what's, what's the right healthcare choice?
And I'm like, honestly, the right one is probably a few different choices. The right one might be Cobra for the first two months. Well, you wrap up all your things, you finish all your appointments, you have the same primary care, like, and then the right choice might be going on the exchange.
Naseema: Yeah.
Jillian Johnsrud: And maybe you do that for a while, and then maybe a year in, maybe the right [00:42:00] choice is a part-time job
Naseema: Mm-hmm.
Jillian Johnsrud: and you get healthcare through them.
Maybe you wanna travel the world for a year. And the right choice is traveler's insurance. Like you don't have to make one choice for this huge span of time. Like you can make different choices and you pick the next right one. And then, as you know more. You pick the next right choice after that, like change your mind, um, as you learn more things.
Naseema: yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Okay. That's my stuff.
Jillian Johnsrud: Oh, wait, I don't have any sound.
Can you hear me?[00:43:00]
Naseema: That was really, um,
Jillian Johnsrud: and you're back. Video and sound. Perfect.
Naseema: that was really weird. My. Computer did something crazy. Okay. That's okay. It's just gonna record a different track. Hold on. Uh, no, everything is still recording. It was a glitch,
Jillian Johnsrud: That's fine.
Naseema: That's okay. We'll fix it in the back end. Okay. But yeah, I was gonna saying like that's like. You gave me some really good stuff to think about, but I really wanna dive into your book.
Like you are the pioneer to me for like many retirements, and so I've been so looking forward to this book. I pre-ordered it, which I recommend everybody to do, [00:44:00] but once a book coming out, what's it about? Why does everybody need to buy it? Because everybody does.
Jillian Johnsrud: uh, it is available for pre-order and it will be out in September 9th. Uh, uh, all those places will just ship it to your door. Um, so it kind of covers these.
Naseema: name of the book?
Jillian Johnsrud: Oh yeah, you need a name. Oh, that's crazy. We don't need to say the name. It is called Retire often. Retire Often. Um, because while I am a big fan of mini retirements, um, my secret goal is that you do this over and over and over and reimagine your whole working career and what, what your life could be that people don't defer.
All of these goals and ideas and dreams until they're 65, when they may or may not happen. Um, so the. And the premise of the book is, is twofold. It's how, how do [00:45:00] we pull this off? So there's four steps. The first one's like that planning, and then it's your career and your finances. And then the fourth one is like unexpected stuff.
Uh, that might feel real weird to you, but I've seen it lots of times and we can navigate it. Um, but the other message is how do many retirements actually. Make your whole life better. How do they improve your finances? How do they improve your career? How do you uplevel as like an ambitious, motivated person by utilizing this?
And I think about it like I played, uh, basketball in high school, um, and in sports, you know, you have a halftime
Naseema: Mm-hmm.
Jillian Johnsrud: and everyone takes the halftime. The most ambitious players take the halftime, the most motivated players. Take the halftime. The hardest working players take the halftime because it's essential to refocus, to regroup, and to [00:46:00] reimagine what this next half of the game is gonna look like.
You need that moment. No one's like, you know, I'll just play through. Don't even worry about it.
Naseema: Mm-hmm.
Jillian Johnsrud: because I care about basketball, so I'm not gonna take the halftime. Like that's bananas. If you care about the game, you take the halftime because you care. And so how do we leverage these to improve? I. All of these areas, our health, our relationships, like our wholeness as as a person and our finances and our career, like they can, they can improve every area of our life.
So it gives you all of the logistics of how to do this, uh, step by step so that you'll have that 60% plan. Um. But then it also just encourages you as like, this is an awesome way to live. Like life can be so much bigger and more interesting and exciting and adventurous. Like oftentimes, I remember thinking when I was [00:47:00] younger that people in middle age, uh, were boring. I just thought they were kind of lame.
Naseema: Yeah.
Jillian Johnsrud: interesting. They weren't exciting. They weren't doing cool stuff. And then I became middle aged and I realized, oh, they're just tired. Like they're just worn out. They're overwhelmed.
Naseema: Yes.
Jillian Johnsrud: you can roll back that burnout. We can still be interesting and exciting and motivated and creative just like you were at 17.
Like you can still have that, that passion for life and that idealism, um, if you, if you give yourself that gift.
Naseema: Yeah. I love that. I love that. So the way that the book is formatted, like, is it one of those books you just read through and it gives you like ideas of like what it's like to retire often? Or is it like something that, you know, [00:48:00] you, you go in and you learn about one thing. Like how is the format, like how do you want people to digest the book?
Jillian Johnsrud: So I've laid it out in these four steps. And so you just go step by step. Um, and they're not even necessarily, I put 'em in in a certain order. They don't have to be sequential. Like when I do my group coaching, I do one step per month, which is why it's four months, but people can join at any month. 'cause you can join during the career month.
You can join in the, like let's be mindful of how this goes. Arrive month. Like you can join in the planning month. Uh. As long as you do all four steps eventually. Uh, so it gives you like, these are the four big areas that you need to have that 60% plan. Um, and it's, it's all the tools you need to really think through it, to plan it, to organize it, but also a little bit like.
This might like, like I was talking about, like it's easy to predict how things might go wrong,[00:49:00]
Naseema: Mm-hmm.
Jillian Johnsrud: but it's a little bit of like, this might go better than you think. Like there might, there might be some unexpected upsides that honestly, it's easy to predict the downside. It's almost impossible to predict the upside, like the ways it will go wrong or are like easy to articulate.
The unexpected random things that might go right are real hard for our imagination to create.
Naseema: Yeah. Yeah. What are the four sections?
Jillian Johnsrud: so the first one is kind of planning. So it's about those, those phases and it's thinking through what's, what's the. Right next mini retirement. How do I think about those phases? Um, and then it's employment.
Either how to negotiate the time off, how to do networking, how to find a great next job, how to use this to uplevel your career. Then finances, how do we, how do we budget for this? How do we financially prepare for this? How do we build financial resilience [00:50:00] and flexibility so that this can be a lifestyle?
So it's kind of like short-term and long-term thinking on that. Financial and healthcare is in there 'cause that. Especially for Americans, that freaks us the heck out. Um, and then the last step is like the unexpected. The unexpected, maybe challenging things like I was mentioning, you might be burned out and you might feel tired.
Naseema: Mm-hmm.
Jillian Johnsrud: Here's how you might spin out on that. Or you could just say, huh, more tired than I expected. Good thing I have time to take a nap.
Naseema: Mm-hmm.
Jillian Johnsrud: Enjoy the rest of your day. Um, so it's a little bit of those things that, because honestly. Most people don't have a lot of friends and family who are also going through this process.
They feel very alone. And so their experience feels incredibly unique.
Naseema: Mm-hmm.
Jillian Johnsrud: Like they don't, they're not like, oh, I bet everyone feels this way. I bet everyone deals with this. It is incredibly common. [00:51:00] There's really simple solutions to it, but it doesn't feel common and you have no idea what those solutions are.
So I've, you know, I've worked with hundreds of people who've done many retirements. I've heard so many of these stories. Um, well, it feels overwhelming and scary for other people. I'm like, oh my gosh, no, everyone deals with that. Here's what we do. Like, it's not even a big deal. Um, which is one of the nice things.
It's why I actually started doing group coaching. 'cause I did, uh, for like eight years. I've done a one-on-one. And so I hear all the stories and I'm like, yep, that sounds pretty typical. And I was like, you all just need to talk to each other. Like you're all going through the same thing. Like you need to know other people are in the same boat.
And how are they handling it? How are they figuring it out? Um,
Naseema: Yeah. So the book comes out in September. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So pre-order on all the places you can pre-order books. Yeah.
Jillian Johnsrud: Retire often. Uh, [00:52:00] and if you go to retire often.com/book, it's got all of those links. Um, and there's some free worksheets there if you wanna kind of get started on that. Um, and I have a podcast called Retire Often. And so you get to hear other people's mini retirement stories and it, it creates a little bit of that.
Like, here's what other people. How, how are they thinking about it? How are they planning it? How did it go? Like what were the challenges? What were the upsides? And the more, I think people hear those stories, um, they don't feel like they're just like the lone weirdo out there doing this thing that everyone thinks is a bad idea.
Like there's a couple of us that think it's a good idea.
Naseema: Mm-hmm. And then in the meantime, you have your group coaching program, and you said that you can pop in at any month. How do people have access to that?
Jillian Johnsrud: Yeah, retire often.com/i think group coaching. Um, and yeah, we start the new module the first of every month and uh, [00:53:00] I have a beautiful, lovely workbook and there's little videos for each exercise. And then we do a group coaching column. We kind of go over our homework and what did we learn and what did we think and what questions do we have and how are other people thinking about this?
Um, so it's nice to have that community. It's, it's all of the tools and all of the exercises, but it's also that group of people who are doing it with you. And, um, especially if you're a person who likes a little bit of structure and a little bit of accountability, like it's nice to have something on your calendar.
Like, okay, I need to show up for this hour and like, uh, and engage versus, I should probably get to that someday like. I should probably think about that at some point. But then week after week goes by and uh, you know, we never get around to it.
Naseema: Yeah, but I love this. This has been like very, very good for me, selfishly because now I have a plan and I listened to the podcast, but I really wanna dive in [00:54:00] some more and kind of binge it. I, of course, already pre-ordered the book. Now I just know, um, I'm really serious about this and I wanna do it the right way.
So I'm also gonna join your group coaching program so I can work through those steps with you. Um, so yeah, this has, this has been everything I needed and, and stuff I didn't even know I needed. Um, the rest part mainly.
Jillian Johnsrud: And on for the group coaching. Um, some people do it before they start and some people do it while they're in the mini retirement, you know, 'cause they didn't have the bandwidth before. So I have people who are like three months in, six months in a year into their mini retirement and are
Naseema: Mm-hmm.
Jillian Johnsrud: okay, now, now I should probably come up with the plan for this.
Naseema: Yes, yes, yes, yes,
Jillian Johnsrud: Um, so I encourage people if you're planning a one within 12 months or in it, if you're further out than that, it doesn't. It doesn't feel real enough yet to get the most out of it. Just read the book, uh, to like future plan. [00:55:00] But if you're kind of like, I'm about to jump, uh, then that's, it's a good step.
Naseema: Yeah. I love that. And then for people who just want to get in contact in general, where can they find you?
Jillian Johnsrud: Yeah, I have a fun, sporadic random newsletter that I send out sometimes, occasionally. Who knows when I don't know. Um, so that's always a fun surprise and either my name, jillian johns rude.com or retire often. And on social media. I'm Julian John's rude everywhere, so
Naseema: Yay. Oh, Jillian, this has been the best, like I, you guys can see. Well, I love talking to Jillian. She's, she's just a great person in general, and, um, I've really, I. Gotten a lot from this, and I know my audience will, so I appreciate you from the bottom of my heart. Like I just, I don't think, you know, like how much you mean to me and how much I think about you often, and I always like, [00:56:00] you're that person for me.
I'm in a lot of area areas like parenting, like all of those things that always look too. So I, I really appreciate you so much, Jillian.
Jillian Johnsrud: Oh, well, thanks for having this chat and I am excited. I'm excited for you and your audience to like, see this unfold and like, and it's, it's so hard and scary, like at the beginning, but it's, it's like most things, like before you do it is the hardest part. Um, and then it gets better.
Naseema: Yes. It's, it's about that decision, kind of like, but once you make it and you're, you're into it, you know, you can put the wheels in motion, but it's hard to get to that point where you even know you need to make that decision. And I think a lot of people are there right now, so. Yeah.
Jillian Johnsrud: Yeah, permission.
Naseema: Well, thanks again, Julianne.
This has been amazing.
Jillian Johnsrud: Yeah, we will talk soon.
Naseema: Yes.
Hey there I’m Naseema
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