Morning Routines and Future Plans

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Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of IHERT Radio Good morning . This is Laura . Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's episode is going to be a slightly longer one, part of the series where I interview fascinating people about how they take their days from great to awesome and any advice they have for the rest of us. So today I am delighted to welcome Brian Harry to Brevor Breakfast. Brian is the author of the new book Time Freedom, which will be out soon. Brian, welcome to the show Thank you, Laura. I'm really glad to be here. I'm excited to have you. Why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself? Yeah, so I am an author and a speaker. My book is coming out in September, but I'm going to tell you how you can get it early . However, I believe in living the lifestyle that you're meant to live, creating a life that you love, creating work that you love, and that's where my passion is. And that's what I want to I love talking about. Well, maybe you could tell a little bit about your background. Are you in the personal finance world? I am. I am a financial advisor . That is my job by day , and I have structured it though in a way where I'm able to essentially work at it kind of intensely and full time for about nine months of the year. And then head off to northern Wisconsin to a cabin that my wife and I own there. And with our son we take the summer and we ski and we fish and we do all those fun things . Not that you can ever, as an entrepreneur completely forget about your business, but it does offer a time to think about bigger and different things and make creative connections when you're not in the date today. And then at the end of the summer, our son head back to California where we live most of the year, our son goes back to school and I head back to work. Exactly. Well, is that time freedom. I mean',s let talk about what the definition is for time freedom. Yes, I do definitely believe that's time freedom. Usually when I describe time freedom to people I start with what it's not . There are two things I believe that is not one thing is it's not work life balance . I've always struggled with work life balance. I feel like it's just taking a day off in the middle of the day to work two h ours late at night . And so whereas work life balance, to me is hours and days and how you structure that. Time freedom to me is weeks but even more so months and years. Like how you structure a full year of your life to be more seasonal how you approach work and play in that regard . The other thing that time freedom is not is financial freedom . And I had always approached financial freedom believing that that was the key to unlocking time freedom . And that's really what this book is about, which is that they're different. Financial freedom to me is, of course , having absolute freedom where you never have to work again . A wonderful thing , you know, to be able to choose exactly what you want. However, I still think that you can achieve meaningful freedom while still having to work if you can just work in a way that meets your needs. And so time freedom allows for that. So in essence, time freedom is just a different path , it's a different way of living . It's one that's maybe less focused on optimal wealth building and optimal career building where you're where you can still do elements of those things, but your main focus is how you structure your time and how you live your life day to day so that you're not putting off the things that you really want to do now. Well, and one of those things I imagine was for you now, the cabin in Wisconsin, was that what led you to pursue this? It is. So ever since I was a kid, my grandparents, this is a thing, I guess, if you grew up in the Midwest, at least in Wisconsin, is that you're lucky as a g randchild if your grandparents have a cabin in northern Wisconsin. And so I had been doing that for years and then they had to sell the place when I was in college. And if of course, I had no money in college. If I had it, I would have bought it . But second best option, I met my wife around that time and she lived up there. So we I was able to continue this Northwoods part of my life, you know, you know, since since the beginning and that it's just one of those things that to me is , I mean, it's ingrained in how I live. And so I've always wanted to do that. I've always wanted to pursue this life where I had summers off. I could never make it work. And then finally, I figured out, you know, how to do it. And so yes, to me , summers at the lake is time freedom. For other people, it's you know, bumming around Europe for three months or, you know, it could look different to different people. I'm continually expanding what it means to me. And I think it ebs and flows and changes over time as well. Well, it's interesting to get at that angle with the finances because I'm sure one of the reasons people people , you know, there are men and women who listen to this show, but I know men in particular often have a story in their lives that they need to be able to support their family. And sort of the assumption with this is that that's going to involve year round full time work . Perhaps your wife could go to a cottage somewhere at a vacation destination for the summer with the kids, but not you, right? Like there's have you encountered that narrative , I assume . I certainly have. And it's not I would just call it beyond just men. It would be conventional lifestyle in the United States. I mean, that's just really what you do. And you know, even though I had wanted this for all along, I still got wrapped up in the normal way of doing things until I was finally able to break free. Now like obviously a big element to be able to live this way is if you have the luxury of being an entrepreneur or you can flour and that doesn't mean having to have this high growth business that is a radical new idea. But if you have some sort of way in which you can work on your own and design your lifestyle around your work, you have much more freedom to be able to take these extended periods of time off . Although I would also argue that more and more companies these days I guess , especially forward looking or progressive companies are trying to do different work models where perhaps you work four days a week or you're able to take more extended time off. So there are other opportunities out there . Well, let's talk about that because yeah, when people hear the idea of working flexibly and being able to take time off, I mean what would that look like for a lot of people? Can anyone find the sort of work that could be done in a time freedom way . Well if I can start with the obvious one, which is entrepreneurship. So if you are a solopreneur, you have a small team , I actually do believe that you can structure your business in a way that you can get extended periods of time off . Regardless of the industry that you're in, you just have to think creatively and you have to have that be your number one goal. And it's not just about developing passive income, although if you could do that, that's great. I think a lot of it comes really down to what are you offering as your service and how can you shrink it down compress it basically and offer that service a shorter period of time and then take those services and then move them into the months where you want to work. You know, for me it's never in the summer months . Now you can do that also through lever aging your team. So if you have , you know, even if you're a solo entrepreneur, I think you should have an assistant because that assistant can do things for you that then free you up, even if it's just managing your calendar or your inbox or doing operations pieces of the work that you don't love . Again, you can use how you structure your work and how you structure your team to find the time off . For those that are not entrepreneur s , I think it comes down to of course developing a skill and being very good at your job so that you can then find places of employment that honor types of ideas . And for example, and so for example , I think there's there's these are things that a lot of people have a hard time going, I'm going to work seasonally. I need to like step into that. So what are some ideas? One is for example, if you can take off the first Friday of every month or find a job that doesn't work on Fridays, that's a wonderful idea. Or if you take two weeks off over the winter holidays, can you add a week onto the front end and a week on to the back end and take a full four weeks off ? There's I think a difference in having four weeks away versus two weeks away. I actually I've really heard it described to me that when you hit the six week mark, that's when it really really feels different . But there, you know, if you can save up vacation and do some strategic things, again, if you're focused on this, I'm sure we've all met people at work. They're like, wow, they are always good about taking their vacation . It seemed like they always have these cool three week trips planned. Like those are ways to definitely recognize more time freedom in your life. Well, we're going to take a quick ad break and then I will be back with more from Brian Harriet . Hey listeners . Today's tip is powered by National University . As a listener of before breakfast, you know my goal is to help you make the most of your day without sacrificing work or family time . That's why I'm so happy to introduce an institution that shares the same values . If you are thinking about going back to school , you're probably wondering how to fit it all in. National 's flexible online formats, four and eight week courses and monthly class starts help you begin your degree sooner , finish faster, and do it all on your own schedule. So you have more options for managing work , family , and school . With over one hundred fifty and degrees credentials and certificates to choose from , they have a program that fits your career goals. Learn more today at nu . edu . Hey listeners. Thanks to Suju Organic cold pressed juices and shots, I don't feel like I need a twenty step wellness routine to feel my best . They have something for whatever you need. I'll grab a green juice like Mighty Dozen on busy mornings when I want easy nutrition or berry lemon gut health in the afternoon for a pick me up. It tastes great and has probiotics and even prebiotic fiber, which is what we're all looking for these days. Get real wellness from functional superfoods , not from a trend your algorithm is pushing. Suja's powerful cold pressed fruit and vegetable juices and daily wellness shots prove you don't need a wellness retreat to feel like you took one. Just sip and let the superfoods do the work. Skip the fads, choose wellness that actually works. Cold pressed, organic, and blended with benefits. Suja organic. Hey listeners, there's a lot of noise in the business world today . Leaders like you need clear insights from professionals you can trust . That's why truest security is created navigating beyond the expected, a podcast built for decision makers who want clarity in a changing market. Every month, you'll get expert perspectives corporate and investment bankers who are helping clients tackle important challenges. Hear how leaders across industries are adapting to new technologies, making smarter decisions, and strengthening their ability to grow and secure critical capital . It's practical advice that cuts through complexity for leaders who need to know what's coming next . Subscribe at truest dot com slash beyond podcast . That's TRUIST . com slash beyond podcast Copyright Truist Securities Incorporated, Member Fenra and SIPC . Well, I am back talking with Brian Harriet, who is the author of the book Time Freedom. So you are in the financial world and I know that a lot of people view this as sort of like, okay, I'm aiming for retirement. Now maybe that's at age sixty five, but maybe in the, you know, the fire world , it's earlier. And the idea is that you hit a number and that this number will then support you for the rest of your life. What are the problems you see with that idea? I see several problems with it. One problem, the main problem is that it usually has to be a really big number and life happens and we have expenses and you may not, you know, for personally , you may never plan to send your child to private school but because of the way they learn , you really need to. And that all of a sudden costs m oney. And so to build up that giant nest egg , listeners may be familiar with the four percent rule, but this is the general rule, a rule of thumb that says if you're invested in a certain way , a pretty standard way, that you can pull four percent of the money that you have out each year and safely live thirty, forty years on that money . Well , you know, if you're a millionaire and you've saved up a million dollars, that means you can pull forty thousand dollars out . My goodness, I mean it's I mean, I'm sure in some parts of the country and with, you know, if you're extremely frugal, you can figure that out. But I think a lot of people would have a hard time living off of forty thousand dollars. And so then you start to bump it up to two and three million and at four million, you're up to one hundred sixty thousand dollars. All that to say, the number is really big . And so what then happens is that you are scrimping and saving on your way to this number . When you try to get to that number, you think, well, maybe I should just work another year or another two years or another five years just to make sure that that number is high enough . And then once you ultimately do decide to retire , now you're one hundred percent beholden to what happens in the markets . And heaven forbid , it's the year two thousand or something like that where you've retired at the top of the market and you're pulling your money out and the market is going down at the same time . I know personally, I would just have I would a lot of anxiety around that . And right. And so that's and that ultimately is kind of what happened with me. I get like I had mentioned, I always thought you need to achieve financial independence first to control your time . And then we were getting kind of close to that in twenty twenty and then the COVID crash hit and it recovered right away. But in the moment , that was a thirty five percent drop. And I just saw all those years of saving and investing just like disappear right in front of my eyes and thought, well, I guess I'm going to be working forever again. And so I just I feel like when you only look at it through the money lens of the retirement and the big nest egg that you have to build up, you're you're a little myopic in terms of again thinking how can I make this work for me ? And you don't have as many levers to pull. Let me put it that way. Yeah. Well, and with that, I think you and I agree that work is not this terrible thing. Right. I mean , like there's a lot of people in the sort of fire community where the idea is like work is terrible. And so you want to not work. Like the goal is to not work . And part of that, you know, you need to live crazy frugal, you need to save all this money so you can live off the, you know, passive income. It's like, well, if we take that out, we say, well, there's ways to work that aren't terrible . There's, you know, you don't only have to work in like forty hours in a job you hate with two weeks of vacation a year as a way to earn money , then it becomes much more tenable to keep working for a long time . Yeah. In that community they, even want you to build up an FU fund so you can tell your employer to FU. I'm like, okay, that's interesting. Yeah, I don't love that perspective at all . Yes, if you can create work you love, I would actually advocate you work at as long as you can because you get so many benefits from work beyond the monetary benefits, the social connections, the sense of achievement, the problem solving, all of these wonderful things . And I agree with you wholeheartedly that work can be wonderful . And that's actually what happened in twenty twenty, when I told my wife, we're not going to be hitting financial freedom soon. And when she asked me, well, what does that look like to you ? First I didn't have a good answer and then I finally realized that I did like doing what I was doing. I just wanted to have an opportunity to take longer periods of time off to recover when I needed it . And she then said, well, why don't we do that right away? And we couldn't do it right away, but we figured out a way within three years to make that happen. And that is when we started going back and living in Wisconsin over the summer and had and we've really been doing that since twenty twenty one. It was one of the silver linings, I guess, of COVID. And then we've just kept it going. Yeah, I love that. Now , this is always a beef I have with, I get pitches sometimes from, you know, people who are in that world and they're like, well, I'm not working. I don't have to work anymore. And then they're running a podcast, they're writing a newsletter, they're giving talks, and they're writing books. I'm like, But that's what I do. Like, you're still working. I'm working, we're both working. We're just doing work we like now, right? And there are ways to do work we like and earn money. I was my biggest fear looking back now is that I would have scrimped and safe to get to the point where I didn't need to work , only to then realize that you wanted to work again. So again, do all that working in a difficult job for so long to then realize that you just wanted to create work you loved. That's ultimately what you wanted is you wanted to create work you love, work on your terms , work in a way that you wanted to work from where you wanted to work with the people that you wanted to work with. And that's where it's all at. But part of this time freedom, I mean, you do still advocate saving and investing money and one of the ways people can sort of work less is to have both your current income and some investment income. But I suppose you would need to invest differently in that case if you are pulling money out continuously or wanting assets that kick off a lot of income versus I'm investing this to pull out twenty years in the future. That's right. And certainly for someone I do believe a lot of people kind of start off after school, you know, profession and you don't know any other thing other than I'm going to put my head down and I'm going to work hard. And so that 's good. And if you can save while you're doing that, that's even better. Then you wake up mid career, like , a personal story, and you think, Hm , why am I doing this job that I'm doing? Is it the right work that I want to be doing ? The fact that you have had some money saved up is very freeing. It's not enough to retire on, but it's enough to be able to say, I want to now create work that I choose on my own. And I'm going to have perhaps some inconsistent income for a couple of years while I fig thatured out. But I can because I've saved up. So you're absolutely right. It's quite free . Where it comes to like how do you invest differently , this is what I observed in twenty twenty, where when you're getting closer to using your money , you don't want it to drop so significantly . And I was not prepared for that, and that's why it caught me off guard. So if you want to live with time freedom, that does mean that yes, you're going to to need perhaps not always, but perhaps pull some money out of your savings earlier than you otherwise would. So you need to protect against that downside. And the easiest way to do that is just to hold more a cash or cash equivalent , you know , accounts. And the common financial advice would say that you know, you're losing out by having that cash because that cash should be invested in the markets and be earning more . But I would argue, you know, so maybe it's not earning maybe it's earning five percent less per year , but it's giving you this freedom if the job that you had is awful and you need to leave or you want to invest some of that cash into a business that you can then turn around and start generating revenue on. You can earn a lot higher returns using that money that had been in cash to support you in your freedom goals . Like anything, it's a balance. We're going to take one more ad break and then I'll be back with more from Brian Harriet What you can't see across your international payments can hurt your bottom line. JP Morgan brings clarity to your treasury operations with near real time FX reporting to help optimize your cash flow JP Morgan twenty twenty six JP Morgan Chase and Coll rights reserved. JP Morgan Chase Bank and A member FDIC Deposits held in non US branches are not FDIC insured, non deposit products are not FDIC insured, not all products and services are available in all geographical areas, cjpmorgan. com slash payments disclosure. Hey listeners , if you've been thinking about going back to school , it starts with believing you can and taking that first step . National University makes it possible with flexible online formats, short courses , and monthly starts designed for busy professionals . From now through july thirty first , you can apply for National University's Believe and Succeed Scholarship , offering up to six thousand dollars each year for eligible bachelors and master's programs. Learn more today at nu . edu . Hey listeners , my mornings are busy . I need simple routines. Along with my coffee, I choose to start my day with Suja's mighty dozen green juice. It's an easy way to get fruits and veggies in first thing, without having to think about it. With Suja organic, you get real wellness from functional superfoods, not a twenty step morning routine you'll abandoned by Wednesday. These powerful cold pressed fruit and vegetable juices and daily wellness shots prove you don't need a fancy wellness retreat to feel like you took one. They really have something for everyone. I like berry lemon gut