Finance Friday: How Sabbaticals Make You Happier, Healthier, and Wealthier

Mindy:
Welcome to the BiggerPockets Money podcast where we interview Cindy and talk about sabbaticals.

Cindy:
And yes, it will take spending more money on these experiences, whether it’s travel or deep sea fishing or whatnot, but I had never been so happy in life. Having these experiences actually is almost like investing yourself and pays way more dividends than if you had just saved that money and didn’t go out and take that travel or explore that interest.

Mindy:
Hello, hello, hello. My name is Mindy Jensen and joining me today is my Military Millionaire co-host David Pere.

David:
What’s up everybody?

Mindy:
David and I are here to make financial independence less scary, less just for somebody else, to introduce you to every money story because we truly believe financial freedom is attainable for everyone no matter when or where you are starting.

David:
Whether you want to retire early and travel the world, go on to make big time investments in assets like real estate or start your own business, we’ll help you reach your financial goals, get money out of the way so that you can launch yourself towards your dreams.

Mindy:
David, I am super excited to bring in Cindy today. She and I met at Camp Mustache earlier this year and she had a really interesting presentation about sabbaticals. And I thought, you know what, I need to introduce her to my listeners and I need to share with them her story about taking a sabbatical, because it changed her life. I have known several people who have taken sabbaticals that have also changed their lives, and what a great concept. Take a little mini break, take a long break and reevaluate what’s going on in your life and see which direction you want to take your life, even if you haven’t reached financial independence yet.

David:
I definitely think there’s something to be said for that. In fact, I guess if I think about it, right? Technically I took a mini sabbatical with my trip out of the country last month. I was gone for three and a half weeks. I don’t know that I’d really consider that a sabbatical, especially since I work for myself. But it was a lot of fun and much needed.

Mindy:
I met Cindy at Camp Mustache this year and was blown away by her presentation about sabbaticals. In 2019 while speaking with a friend who’s an executive coach, she was given the assignment of a career audit to come up with 100 ideas for alternative careers, which led to an aha moment. She’d been aware of the concept of sabbaticals for several years, but this exercise brought it back to the forefront of her mind. Cindy, welcome to the BiggerPockets Money podcast. I’m so excited to talk to you today.

Cindy:
Thanks so much, Mindy. I’m excited to be here.

Mindy:
Let’s talk about this aha moment. What led you to even start talking to your friend about alternative careers?

Cindy:
Well, I had been on the corporate rat race for a while since graduating from business school and just working my way up, working from company to company, moving around the country for these jobs. And after I guess about eight, nine years, 10 years, I just was super burnt out and just ready for a break. Things been going on at work where I was just burnt out. And when I was talking with my friend who’d been a colleague at a prior company, she suggested that we do a bunch of career coaching exercises. She’d been a friend who decided to be an executive coach, so she insisted on leading me through these exercises. And one of them was the career audit, which turned out to be more of a career life audit and which I did come up with 100 different ideas for alternative careers.
And they definitely spanned the gamut from more of the traditional marketing path where I’ve been on being a chief marketing officer to opening an Airbnb as an eco resort to working with dogs and conservation efforts. So really the first 20 or so was super easy to come up with. And then as we got through more and more of the ideas it was really hard to get to 70 to 100. But the concept of this exercise is like design thinking. You come up with 100 ideas on post-its, then you organize them into different themes and then you start formulating a plan as to how to explore these ideas. So what really showed me was that I’m much more than just my traditional career as a marketer. I have all these different ideas and interests and hobbies and why not try to explore some of those ideas.
And like you said, Mindy, I did have the concept of sabbaticals for many, many years, just never had the courage to really execute on them. He’d even written a plan in 2018. This is the day I’m going to hit, this is when I take the sabbatical. It’s so hard to get over the inertia and the fear. And with this exercise it made me realize, yes, I have a lot I could do on a sabbatical and really I should start thinking more seriously about it and maybe even publicly committing to this idea of a sabbatical so that I’d actually carry it through.

David:
I think that’s the power of coming up with 100. I’ve had executive coach kind of walk through that before and really with any list, right? It’s very easy to say, let me come up with 10 ideas for ways to generate revenue in my business, or 10 reasons I love my spouse, or 10 reasons I want to lose weight, those are all super surface level. It’s not till you get past 20, 30, 40 that you really start digging into creative things or generating, no matter how ridiculous. And that’s why when they talk about planning your vision or what you want your life to look like, that you get into 60, 70, 80 and you’re like, I can’t come up with anything. I want, I don’t know, a Bugatti, a private jet.
And you just start writing crazy things down that when you finally look at your list, you realize, well, thing one through 10 were like, I’d like to own a house. Well, that’s not really a vision that’s going to, that doesn’t necessarily get you going, right? I like the idea of 100, the career exercise and things where you have to sit down and write down a list of 100. That really challenges your creativity.

Cindy:
I think at the beginning you just throw ideas that are what society expects of you, what has been the traditional path. So you had to get really creative to really think about what you truly care about that’s not more evident.

Mindy:
I simultaneously love and hate the 100 list because it’s super easy for 17 and then 97 you’re like, what is another thing that I could do? What is another thing that I could do? And you come up with that and you’re like, I already did that for number 35. It gets really, really hard. Did you get all the way to 100?

Cindy:
I did. I was definitely struggling towards the end, but you know what? I don’t like to give up and so I’m keep going until I get there. Definitely some of them like, that’s a little stretch when I look at it now, but I think it’s the exercise of getting to those themes that becomes really powerful.

Mindy:
So at Camp Mustache, somebody came up to me a little bit later, right after your presentation and asked me about what I do and how could they do this too? And I’m like, well, how would you do it? Write down 100 ideas that you have. I took it and I threw it right back at him right away. I love this idea so much. I said just a moment ago that I love it and hate it. I really love it, but it is really, really hard. How long did it take you to come up with this 100 list?

Cindy:
I think technically the exercise is supposed to take an hour or two, it probably did take me a little bit longer.

Mindy:
An hour? Oh my goodness. I would think a week or a month. I can’t think of 10 right now.

Cindy:
Maybe it’s one of those things where you’re like if you overthink it then you’re just manufacturing answers that aren’t really reflective of who you are.

Mindy:
That’s a good point.

David:
The last time I had one of those lists, it was three or four days that I don’t think I got to 100.

Mindy:
I think the concept is good if you don’t get to 100, if you get to 87 or 42, you’re still thinking past the initial five easy ones. So what was your financial position in 2019 when you were speaking to your friend who said, give me 100 ideas for careers?

Cindy:
At that point, so I graduated from business school with MBA, which as you know MBAs are pretty expensive, especially at these type of schools. And luckily for me when I wasn’t even introduced to the concept of the fire community, I was already practicing a lot of those things in which I had always lived a more frugal life, I guess. I didn’t even know I was doing this, but I gera arbitrage by taking a role in Northwest Arkansas where cost a living was quite low and they still paid pretty well. I was able to pay back my loans pretty quickly by 2013, I graduated in 2011. I had I guess five, six years of building up savings, which is when, 2018 was when I started that first written down plan of a sabbatical. At that point I had a 70% savings rate. And by 2019, I don’t know exactly how much I had, but I was definitely at a point where I felt financially comfortable.
2018 was when I first learned about fire and that helped accelerate my investing and index funds, which was a good time to do that. I think for me, taking a sabbatical wasn’t so much about do I have money to take this break? It was more the fears of what’s going to happen afterwards, will I ever find another job that I really like? Is this time going to be worthwhile? By the time I decided, 2019 when I did this exercise, came up with a more serious plan, I said, you know what, I’m going to quit in spring 2020, which as y’all know, great timing with the pandemic, also the low of the stock market at the time. That was a little bit disappointing. I just was so geared up to do it. I even did things like funded my FSA to do LASIK, knowing that it would get full benefits of leaving my job earlier in the year.
And then I had publicly committed to friends and family that was going to do this. And when the pandemic hit, it was like, well, maybe I should rethink this a little bit or let me just delay it and see how things go. I think at that point my stock market portfolio did take a substantial hit. And again, it was more of the fear, well if I take time off now, what’s going to happen if it’s a sustained bear market? Am I going to find a job? Instead of taking the sabbatical I had a very frank conversation with my then job about feeling a little bit burnt out. I really would like to take some time, can I take a sabbatical? I think I only would’ve had the confidence to do so because I had been preparing to take time off and had the savings and all of that.At that point you’re kind of enjoying the mental benefits of being able to push for what you want without fear of say losing your job or any implications. At that point, I went to my employer, I wasn’t able to get a long three months or anything, but I did get about a month off of work as vacation, which actually ended up being a fantastic way to prototype a sabbatical. In August of 2020 I took a month off, and let me tell you, that month off was like, I’ve never felt so alive like in that one month and all the prior years of working just long hours, working at various jobs. What I did with that one month was very intentional. The first half I took a solo road trip all the way up to Oregon, and of course it’s during COVID, so was doing it solo and meeting friends along the way and just taking time to camp and hike in nature and mentally recharge.
Along the way I met a friend who was into real estate and that’s where I got inspired to start looking at real estate in the second half of my month. And that was, I just dove deep those two weeks started looking at multifamily units in the LA area. And before I knew it the month was up and I was like, what? I still have more I want to do. I did go back to work and really reflected, was that break enough? Is there more I wanted to do? How do I tell my employer? When do I do it? I really wanted to make sure that I left my company in a good spot. I waited until my product launches had gone through and eventually did leave in fall of 2020 October.
At that point, in terms of my financial situation, from March at the low of the stock pocket to October, 2020, my net worth had gone up like, I don’t know, was it like 20, 30%? I actually felt even more comfortable just leaving my job without necessarily side gigs or anything to supplement that income. Because I think seeing that, you just realize if you stay the course, you don’t have that financial fear as much anymore.

Mindy:
Let’s go back, you got 30 days of vacation. Was it paid or unpaid?

Cindy:
It was paid.

Mindy:
That’s nice.

Cindy:
It was like I paid sabbatical for a month.

Mindy:
Paid sabbatical. That’s the best sabbatical.

Cindy:
It was unexpected. I was asking for a three month unpaid sabbatical.

Mindy:
And they gave you a month paid. Okay, that’s awesome. And then you came back, you finished up your product launch and you left. How long were you sabbaticaling in October of 2020?

Cindy:
I told myself I would love to take a year off, and as I started the sabbatical, I realized, yes, that actually might be a good timeframe because the first two months after just being on the grind for so many years, it took me a long time to just decompress. There are definitely days of just Netflix, things like that. I did deal with, well, this feels really different. Am I making the most of my time? Feeling guilty about not doing some stuff. I actually think during that time went to my first camp fire or maybe it was my second camp fire. But when the new year rolled around and I think maybe just the way the job market was, surprisingly I started getting outreached on job opportunities.
So during this time I structured my sabbatical in three buckets based on the thought I had done prior with the 100 jobs exercise and other things. So really how do you recharge in the soul? For me that meant creative projects. That was a theme that came up in the 100 jobs. Second is the physical bucket, so outdoor pursuits. And part of that is I do enjoy the outdoors, but also it’s still the pandemic. So more limited to deep sea fishing and hiking and camping, things like that. And then the third bucket was work, which is the alternative career prototyping. I went back to that list and explored things. Like I said, I explored real estate during that month off. I did end up looking at various multifamily properties. It didn’t actually end up, I didn’t actually close on those prospects, but it was still a good learning exercise.
I also looked at what it would be like to be a content creator. Like I mentioned, I’m in marketing, so a lot of times I do a lot of stuff like creating a website and all of that, but more from a strategic level and working with agency. I wanted to see what it was like to actually create something myself. So one of the hobbies I got really deep into was deep sea fishing. And so I created a fishing blogging website called Fish to Fire. And it was a way for me to prototype what it would be like to be creative, making a website, writing content, which is quite difficult, so the utmost respect to you all. And so along those lines, I was just going through all of this and February, March came around in these jobs outreach and I’m like, I’m not exactly ready to go back to a traditional job yet, but this is a way for me to just explore different careers.
There were two job opportunities I ended up interviewing for in the next few months. In the middle of all that, I actually picked up a gig as a consultant unexpectedly and also prototyped what it would be like to work for myself and doing marketing consulting with a furniture company, which helped me prototype what interior design and exploring that side of things would be like. So anyways, long story short, I got these job interviews, I ended up getting two offers to my surprise. I think part of that is both fantastic jobs, both felt like dream jobs, but I don’t think I could have interviewed well at those jobs had I not been taking that sabbatical. I was just so mentally worn out. If I was interviewing for those jobs while at my last job, I probably would not have been able to get both offers.
So then came this agonizing job decision, the roles are completely opposite and ended up taking one and pushed out the start date to July. And so all in all my sabbatical lasted nine months, although I felt like it was shorter because these interviews included interview projects and I was also doing consulting. I could not have anticipated or predicted the way the sabbatical went, but I think it was the best possible sabbatical I could have ever hoped for.

Mindy:
Well I think that’s interesting. You can’t predict the way that the sabbaticals going to go. You can only roll with the punches that get thrown your way. But you said both of these felt like dream jobs. That’s awesome. Now I have this giant task of choosing this dream job or this dream job. Which one do I want? You’ve set up your life in such a way that now you get to choose which amazing job you want instead of being stuck at this horrible job you hate but you have to continue doing it because you have to put food on the table, because otherwise how are you going to eat? That leads me into my next question. How were you funding your life during these nine months?

Cindy:
Because I had been working for quite a while, I did have enough savings built up and I know I’m very privileged to be in this situation to be able to quit my job during COVID when so many others were struggling to find a job. I know this is very, very lucky, but I definitely spent years building up the savings and then seeing how the stock market had changed and then boosted my net worth. I just realized at a certain point you get to the financial journey of saving and investing that the income that you have from your job no longer is as impactful as the investments you make. So even though in the nine months I hadn’t actually made much income, saved the little bit I made from the consulting gig, my net worth went up a tremendous amount, maybe another 20, 30%. I don’t recall the exact numbers.
I think it really changed my mindset in terms of, do I be very frugal? I no longer do the 70% savings rate. I now more like, I don’t know, ranges 30 to 50 or something. I started realizing I want to invest in these experiences. The sabbatical was also a great way to prototype what early retirement could feel like. I realized there’s just so much that I want to explore. But I don’t need to wait until my early retirement to do some of these things, I can make time to explore these hobbies. And yes, it will take spending more money on these experiences, whether it’s travel or deep sea fishing or whatnot, but I had never been so happy in life and I think the way you do a sabbatical would be different for everyone. Your needs are different, but it’s definitely worthwhile to take some time for yourself and to recharge and really think about what would make you happy.
So another executive coach I’d take, a Workshop from, Marshall Goldsmith, he had said the best thing you could do to is to ask yourself every day, do I do my best to be happy every day? And so sometimes, at least for me it was easy to get stuck for planning in the future when sometimes in the present having these experiences actually is almost like investing yourself and pays way more dividends than if you had just saved that money and didn’t go out and take that travel or explore that interest. I hope that answers your question, I went to different topics.

David:
Well, that kind of leads me into, so one of the things you said and you just glazed over it at the beginning of your topic about your sabbatical that I wanted to hone in on real quick that I think is important, is you said it took you a long time to unwind and settle into the long one. There were some times when just Netflixing or whatever, but it took you a long time to actually settle into the groove of being off work. I recently got back from a three and a half week trip in, we went to Peru and Columbia, me and some friends, and you and I were talking before the show where we’ve both done the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, which is incredibly challenging altitude and hike and very surreal and peaceful.
You don’t realize how burnt out you are until you take that much time disconnected from the world and phone off or airplane mode and actually legitimately not working. It is amazing how good it is for the soul to take that kind of time off and how many ideas you have and how creative you can be and how much flow you can get into. It’s like your energy levels just completely change as a person. I think you breezed over that, but I think that’s huge. I would just encourage people that if you have an opportunity to take vacation, there’s this stigma I think in the US a lot of times about taking vacation. There’s a joke, in the military, we get 30 days of vacation a year and it’s a running joke that nobody wants to take it. You have to ask permission and it’s like, I don’t want to be the guy who takes vacation time because nobody wants to be that guy.
And it’s like, take your vacation time, take it, go, travel, enjoy. And so I would just encourage if you have the opportunity to travel and get away from work and actually disconnect, do it. It is so good because experiences are absolutely just, I agree, I think they’re the best thing you could possibly put money into.

Mindy:
Let’s talk about getting back to work after a sabbatical. Was it always your plan to return to work afterwards?

Cindy:
I think I was pretty open minded as to what kind of role I returned back to, but I wasn’t in my fire journey. I wasn’t at a place where I could just early retire or anything. I was more at the midway point. So enough where I felt comfortable taking some time off and not enough to never go back to work.

Mindy:
Did you have any pushback from family or friends?

Cindy:
Yeah. I think earlier on when I first had that idea in 2015, 2016, I talked to friends about, or family, they laugh about. And there was a point in time where I opted for, I asked for a severance package because my role was, I was in a different part of the country and they wanted me to move to another part and I decided to just leave the company altogether with severance package. I think I was too scared at that time to just take a little bit of time to really reflect and relax and think about what my next step should be. Instead I rushed into the next job which ended up taking me to another part of the country where I ended up being pretty unhappy. I think about that time like, had I just taken a little bit of time to reflect and not panic to get another job, I might have found a role that was a better fit for me professionally and personally.
Now I do think things all happen for a reason, but that experience, I got a lot of pushback. Why would you opt for a severance package, just move with the company, who cares? That is almost like, it’s not quite a sabbatical, but similar kind of topic where you’re voluntarily quitting your job so to say, but with severance. By the time I actually took a sabbatical in 2020, I think at that point I had build off enough financial cushion, I definitely had chats with my family and they were actually surprisingly to me, very supportive. Because I think you can’t put a price on mental health. And so there was so much fear built in the years leading up to it that when it actually happened I didn’t feel stressed from that kind of financial perspective or if any that sort.
I did feel like I had friend and family support. And at that point there had been a few friends that I had seen taken sabbaticals of their own and just had glowing reviews of their time off.

Mindy:
Did you plan any part of your sabbatical? Did you spend time thinking about, okay, this is what I’m going to accomplish? Or was it just like, let me decompress for a long time and see what happens?

Cindy:
Definitely more of a planner. So like I said, in 2018 I had written out an entire Word document of all the buckets I want to do, all the tasks I want or interests I wanted to explore. But when I did take the sabbatical October, 2020 though, it wasn’t like a planned, this month I’m going to do this. I think I’ve since learned that, like you said, it’s good to roll out the punches. It’s amazing when you have the mind space, what themes, what opportunities come up. I think it was October when I started, October, November, December was a lot of just decompressing, deep sea fishing, things like that. January I decided that, I always wanted to try ceramics, so I did ceramics intensely every day for a month.
And soon realized I can’t keep doing this, otherwise I won’t accomplish any of the other things I wanted to do in sabbatical. By the time February rolled around was when those interviews started and March was when I picked the consulting gig. It didn’t quite go how I had planned, but again, it was actually all for the best.

Mindy:
Well, I think it’s interesting that you wrote out all the things that you wanted to do. And the reason that I asked this question is, tying into, you said it could be a mini retirement. I have found that people who want to retire and specifically who want to retire early, get to the point of retirement and then, what? What am I supposed to do now? They don’t plan for what to do afterwards. They make all these plans to get to retirement, but then retirement comes and they’re like, oh well now what? You know what, I shouldn’t say specifically early retirees, I should say all retirees. There’s, what is it? Death by retirement where you know retire and then you’re dead six months later because you have nothing to do and work was your purpose. I think with a sabbatical you’re not going to die in six months.
But with a sabbatical you’re not going to get as much out of it if you don’t plan loosely at least what you’re going to do or how you’re going to take advantage of this time off. Even if your plan is just I’m going to take my kid to the park every single day, or I’m going to go to the gym every single day, I’m going to do something six days a week or I’m going to take a new class. Ceramics every day for a month sounds kind of fun actually. I don’t know that I want to do ceramics every day for a year, but every day for a month could be really cool. Or I want to write a book. So sit down and write, you have to write every day if you’re going to write. I’m going to do this, I’m going to do that. But having a plan is so much better than just I’m going to take some time off. There’s my plan.

Cindy:
I would actually say yeah, planning for sabbatical beyond the financial aspect, I think equally important or more important is mentally. I would say I had planned with the prototyping with that one month off, and it’s all about living a more rich life. So you can start exploring some of those interests while working. What sabbatical gives you is you no longer have to be at a certain place in time, nine hours or more for corporate workers working at a job that doesn’t fulfill some of those interests and hobbies and all of that that you have. So you’re getting more of that time to do more of having that rich life for yourself. And then another thing that just reminded me is in August that month I took up, I was very prescriptive because I had such a limited bit of time to explore all these things.
It felt hectic and really jampacked, but it made me feel so alive, like I said. And it was because I was very intentional and I knew I had a small one of time, whereas when I left in October it did feel like more nebulous and not as am I being productive enough. Which I think can be a little bit of a fallacy too because sometimes you just need time to just sit with yourself. But that is a thing I think with a sabbatical where you don’t have a specific end date or retirement. When don’t you have a specific end date, there is a danger where you think you have more and more time. I agree, I think there is definitely value to having some structure as well, which I end up getting a paper planner. There are different techniques you could do to try to introduce more process instructor into your life.

Mindy:
What I have found with my husband Carl, is that he used to be a lot more like your August sabbatical where he wanted to do all the things in this one short time frame. So you just do them all the time and this is how you go all the time, which is not fun. And then now I’m trying to convince him that you can be more nebulous and it’s totally okay to just sit with yourself and think. It is 100% valid to read a book that doesn’t teach you anything. You can read. He picks up Stephen King’s It, I’m like the one book that scared me to death, no, don’t leave that in the bedroom. Face up with that creepy clown on the front. Yeah, no thank you sir. But it’s 100% okay to read a book that you enjoy that doesn’t teach you a thing. Valid 100%, I agree with that.
I like a minimal plan, a loose outline even just, hey, today I need to do three things and here’s my list of a thousand. So I need to pick three of those things as opposed to.

Cindy:
I would say another thing with a sabbatical is that each sabbatical could be very different. And for me, after taking that August one and the long one, I was like, this has been so valuable that I see myself taking more in the future. It doesn’t have to be a certain way. I end up taking another mini sabbatical for two months this past summer because I ended up changing jobs to the other job that was a dream job. The sabbatical was something that was a gift I kept giving because I ended up getting two jobs from that sabbatical. And that sabbatical this last two months in June and July was very different from either the previous two. The pandemic had opened up travel again, so this one I focused on the things that I had traditionally thought I would take on as a sabbatical in the past where I was able to travel to Cavo and Iceland and take trips with friends and family.
And so I think, yeah, there is no rhyme or reason to what a sabbatical could look like even for a single person. I’m just so thankful I had the opportunity to do that travel because I think through the sabbatical and living that richer life leading up to it, you just realize at the end of the day it just comes down to people. And having the time and spending the time to cultivate and develop that community, whether it’s local or long distance, it just was so refreshing. And so when I did come to this new job, I just felt ready to tackle and it’s been a great experience so far.

Mindy:
That’s awesome. Did you have to explain your sabbatical to your employers or did they get the concept?

Cindy:
That’s a good question, because I think what the fears is like how are you going to explain the gap on your resume? And what I found was there was no questioning of it. In fact, if he did bring up sabbatical in the interviews, it was a plus. People either said, I’ve taken sip alcohols before and got really excited. Or there are people who say, I wish I could take a sabbatical. What did you end up doing? It just actually became more of a talking point to connect with others than necessarily something that you have to hide and try to explain away as a negative. And again, I think mileage may vary, there are probably certain careers that better lend to or where sabbaticals are more common. I wasn’t a computer engineer or anything, so I did have that fear as a marketer that it’s not as common that I wouldn’t be able to explain, but turned out I was able to became more of a positive than a negative.

David:
What’s next? Do you have a plan in place to be able to try to take some more sabbaticals or are you at a point you think financially where you’re going to be able to just walk away soon?

Cindy:
I’m in a place where I’ve been in a year long escrow process on a new construction home in LA, which hopefully will close in the next two months, but that will definitely slow down my fire journey. But that’s intentional. I realize I want to set down roots and I love LA and that’s a good, great fit for the kind of life I want to lead and the community I have here. But I still think I have always, this is an arbitrary number, I always had wanted to retire at 45 and crunching the numbers I feel like it could still get there. But this job I’m at is awesome. It is a tech job and it’s fully remote and a very different type of culture from other jobs worked at.
I just feel that hopefully things go well and I just continue as this job until early retirement, but well, I’ll figure it out. And even if I end up wanting to change directions or go to a different job, I don’t really have fears about taking another sabbatical at some point in these next 10 years or eight years or so.

David:
Absolutely. What side of LA are you building on?

Cindy:
South Bay. It’s in Gardena. It’s more of a gentrifying neighborhood, but I love all the great food that’s around it. And it’s more central location.

David:
Not too shabby. Not too shabby.

Mindy:
Cindy, do you have any bits, any last pieces of advice for people who are considering a sabbatical?

Cindy:
Yeah, I think a sabbatical can be whatever you make out of it and you won’t know until you jump, I guess. And to have faith that things happen for a reason and you can only, I think a really great step is to be able to talk to different people who have had done sabbaticals to get a sense of what their experiences are like and each sabbatical can be so different. So again, there’s no one way to do things. For me, a lot of the value came from that mindset shift, that unlocking experiences now is actually worth more than just scrolling away money and investing it necessarily. I definitely found that I was much more stressed and anxious. Before taking sabbaticals it was all about striving and achievement and now I’m much more able to find that inner peace and that equanimity.
Sometimes it’s worth it to go slow to go fast. The funny thing with anything in life is once you do it once it becomes much easier to do it again. So strengthen that muscle of resilience and being resourceful and being just open minded to new experiences. I think new experiences sabbatical can just pay so many more dividends that you wouldn’t even expect. I would definitely suggest everyone to explore the concept of a sabbatical and could be one month like my first one or nine months or even two months. It really can be any size and any kind of experience, but it’s just so rewarding to be able to take that time and that mind space to explore something new.

Mindy:
That’s awesome. Cindy, thank you so much today for coming on and sharing your story. I think this is going to be super helpful for people who are on the fence about taking time off. It seems like it doesn’t really affect you career wise, which is, I’m a little older than you and any gap in your resume a while back would’ve been like the kiss of death. Can you explain this gap? It took me a month to find a job. Well, we can’t hire you either then. It just seems like anything was such an awful experience to try. I remember fudging some numbers in my resume, don’t tell my employer, in past I would fudge my numbers because you don’t want to say that you had a month off, so you’d be like, from nine of 2020 to nine of 2021 is when I worked here, even though it was really August and you didn’t get a new job till October. So it looks like there’s no overlap, but maybe there was a month. I don’t know. Is that wrong to admit on a podcast?

Cindy:
To add to that, I actually-

David:
Shame.

Cindy:
… not only did I find better jobs or better fit culturally and just interest wise, but also I got a higher title and higher salary. Sometimes you can’t do that unless you take that break, that mental break. This is something I’ve heard from other friends who’ve taken sabbaticals as well, they actually ended up finding better roles where they’re much happier at.

Mindy:
Well, we didn’t talk about any downsides. Did you experience any downsides with your sabbatical? I just always thought it was great. I didn’t even think about maybe there was a downside.

Cindy:
The downside is like, yes, I would’ve loved to keep investing in the stock market while it was down. But you know what, I don’t think those experiences I had in sabbatical, there were much more worthwhile than the extra money I put in for investing. I think the first two months of the sabbatical, I did feel a little bit guilty like, am I making the most of it? Why doesn’t it feel like the August month that I had off? That’s why it’s so important to start investing in that full life before you even get to the sabbatical or that early retirement, so to say. I think that’s where a lot of the pitfalls would be is more of that mental mindset.

Mindy:
I love it. Cindy, again, thank you so much for your time today. Where can people find more about you?

Cindy:
You can find me on-

Mindy:
Are you still on Fish to Fire?

Cindy:
I am on Fish to Fire. You can find me on fishtofire.com.

David:
I love that.

Mindy:
What’s the biggest fish you caught?

Cindy:
Bluefin tuna.

Mindy:
That’s awesome.

Cindy:
In Southern California. It’s great to be able to catch your own fish. Like commercial by-catch or anything. And it’s just the freshest sushi we could even ever have. It’s fun.

Mindy:
Okay, Cindy, thank you so much and we’ll talk to you soon.

Cindy:
All right, thank you.

Mindy:
All right, David, That was Cindy with her amazing story of a mini sabbatical, a longer sabbatical, and then yet another sabbatical. I love what she had to say near the end of the show. She said once you do it once, it’s easier to do it again. She’s taken a month, a nine month and a two month sabbatical. I love that. I love the idea of just taking a little bit of a mini break. Now I got to go talk to Scott.

David:
Good luck with that. Have fun.

Mindy:
So a couple of takeaways that I have from this episode is the 100 list. That is such a great idea. Sit down and write out whatever it is you’re thinking of, your 100 list. If you’re thinking of changing careers, write down 100 different careers that you could do. If you’re thinking about going on a sabbatical, write down 100 things that you want to do. Write out a bucket list, that movie, The Bucket List movie. I thought that was really cute. I think that’s a really great idea to have a list of all the things that you want to do and you keep adding to it as you cross things off, as you add more things to it. I forgot about this, I forgot about this. It’s an ever expanding list of things that you want to do.
But I think having these ideas, having this written down is so valuable and so important. And seeing it in black and white can show you this is possible. But that 100 list, holy canole, if you’re struggling with something, if you’re at a crossroads, if you’re trying to think what should I do next? Sit down right out 100, right out your 100 list and see what you get.

David:
I think for me one of the bigger takeaways was, and this is something that really is just a big takeaway because I had this epiphany last month personally, is just how little we realize, how you just don’t realize how burnt out you are and how much you actually need that break and how long it’s going to take you to settle into that break and how important it is. And so taking those breaks and legitimately taking the break and actually disconnecting from your phone, putting it on airplane mode and going on a hike out in the middle of nowhere or traveling to another country, whatever that looks like for you. But actually disconnecting and going off with friends and doing something to experience a new culture or a new place or just spending time in thought or something, is so important to just your wellbeing.
And when you come back, it seems so counterintuitive because you’re like, oh man, I’m so busy, there’s no way I can afford to take time off and I’m going to be get behind and I’m not going to be able to do X, Y, Z and I can’t afford to do dah, dah, dah. The reality is, and I would argue that you may not be afforded not to because you’re just going to continue to get burned out and you just don’t realize how burnt out you are. And so I went away and whatever and I come back and it’s like I have been so productive in the two weeks I’ve been back. I’ve produced an entire course, I’ve revamped a business plan, I’ve drafted an entire journal planner from start to finish and redrafted it and sent it to a designer and a formatter.
It’s been kind of crazy the amount of stuff that I’ve gotten done in the two weeks and I think I’ve recorded nine podcasts. It’s been busy. And so I would just encourage you to take those breaks and give yourself time to recharge and experience life because you don’t realize how much you need it.

Mindy:
That was fantastic. We’re going to end it right there because that was perfect. We’ve come to the end of this episode of the BiggerPockets Money podcast. He is David Pere. David, Tell them where they can find you.

David:
Every social platform at either Military Millionaire or From Military to Millionaire.

Mindy:
And I am Mindy Jensen saying, grab that brass ring.