FI Minded - Financial Independence, Early Retirement & Lifestyle Design

I’ve never felt like I’ve had style. Honestly, I’ve always felt a little intimidated and lost when it comes to fashion.

With that in mind, I didn’t put a lot of emphasis on it. I opted for safe and affordable options versus clothes that I felt comfortable and confident in. I don’t think that’s entirely the wrong perspective. Personal style isn’t something that everyone cares about but I do want to make a case for it.

For better or worse, your outward appearance does say something about you. It impacts first expressions and is an extension of your personality. Most importantly, it impacts how you feel about yourself. The right piece of clothes at the right moment can help me break out of my shyness, feel more confident, and channel the energy I want to display.

All of this is especially true when it comes to dressing for work, a place where first impressions, outward appearance, charisma, and confidence play a huge part in success and career growth.

So let’s say you decided this is important and you want to put some focus on it, how do you go about finding your personal style? 

Well, I don’t have the answer for you but Parke Ballantine does. They are a creative director, fashion stylist, and model. I met Parke through my girlfriend Gaby after they did a stunning photoshoot together and luckily they were nice enough to share some fashion advice with us.

In this conversation, we talk about how to get started if you just aren’t sure what your personal style is. Parke shares styling tips like the rule of thirds, how to incorporate color, and how to be fashion-forward when it’s hot outside. We also have an important conversation about the balance of sustainability and affordability.

Key Takeaways:

• Where to start if you aren’t sure what your personal style is
• Applying the rule of thirds to fashion
• How to incorporate color into your wardrobe
• How to use accessories as your statement pieces
• How to be fashion-forward in the summer heat
• Balancing sustainability, affordability, and being fashion-forward
• Where to donate or swap your clothes
• The power of people

More of Parke:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/parke.ballantine/

More of The Struggle is Real:

Find show notes and more at https://www.tsirpodcast.com/

Follow us on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/tsirpod/

To-do lists help you remember what needs to get done, they create order, they set priorities, they relieve stress, they help you delegate, and they track your work progress.

I could go on and on about the benefits of to-do lists but I am confident you already know this.

I’m not one to prescribe a specific method for managing your to-do list but if you are looking to implement a system or overhaul your current, there are some elements that you should consider.

Today, we are going to talk through those elements, I will share how I personally handle each, and I am going to leave you excited and ready to manage your to-do list like a pro.

Key Takeaways:

• Digital versus analog options for creating a to-do list
• Using a list versus a calendar
• Should I have 1 master list or multiple to-do lists?
• How to handle recurring tasks
• 3 tips for successfully completing your to-do lists

Mentions:

Email Management Tips for Young Professionals Overwhelmed by a Cluttered Inbox: www.tsirpodcast.com/102

3 Tips for Managing Your Work Calendar Like a Pro: www.tsirpodcast.com/104

More of The Struggle is Real:

Find show notes and more at https://www.tsirpodcast.com/

Follow us on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/tsirpod/

Do you ever feel like you’re living in Groundhog Day where the events yesterday, feel like today, and you’re probably going to have those same feelings tomorrow? The weeks are moving fast yet you don’t feel like much is changing?

If this is the case you might be in a rut. If I’m being honest, I’m coming out of a period of my life where I’ve felt like I’ve been in a rut. I’ve had my head down, hard at work. I’m really satisfied with most of the elements of my life right now but I have this underlying feeling of unease. I don’t need to blow anything up but I’ve been looking for some change.

Luckily, Les Alfred came into my life at the right time. This conversation gave me some ideas for embracing more spontaneity, mixing up routines, and busting out of my rut. Implementing her practical advice has me feeling like I’m headed in the right direction now.

Les is the creator and host behind the wildly popular podcast, Balanced Black Girl where she covers various aspects of wellness with approachability and care.

I’ll be honest, I became a bit of a superfan after binging her show in preparation for this conversation and one of my favorite series she did was all about leveling up. The first half of this conversation we talk about practical tips for busting out of a rut but as we enter the second half of the episode, we talk about so many implementable concepts like time audits, your confidence account, and creating a brag file. I think all 3 of these concepts will level up your career so stick around until the end.

Speaking up that, hit the follow button on your podcast player right now. We are finishing up the managing the things at work series next week with an episode about conquering your to-do and we are going to follow that up with a series on creative ways to expand your professional network. So if that sounds like content that you need right now, hit the follow button so you don’t miss out.

I hope you enjoy my conversation with…the Leo, yogi, and the creator of Balanced Black Girl…Les Alfred.

Key Takeaways:

• Why social relationships are harder to control than other elements of your wellness
• How to embrace more spontaneity as a regimented person
• How to bust out of a rut by making small changes to your routine
• Creating a list of scary goals
• The lethal combo of having a 9 to 5 and being a small business owner
• How to perform a time audit
• How cutting things from your routine can be a great thing
• The importance of being hard to manipulate
• Why confidence isn’t a feeling but an action
• How to make deposits in your confidence account
• The importance of creating a brag file at work

More of Les:

Balanced Black Girl Podcast: https://www.balancedblackgirl.com/podcast

More of The Struggle is Real:

Find show notes and more at https://www.tsirpodcast.com/

Follow us on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/tsirpod/

For all the ways we depend on them, it’s kind of amazing how little attention we tend to pay to make sure our calendars are working for us.

Your calendar can set your day-to-day priorities but without intentionality, that will fall to other people’s priorities. This has been really evident for me in 2023. It crept up on me but meetings started to take over my day. I was jumping in and out of meetings all day long only to look down at my to-do list getting bigger, not smaller.

This was all out of good nature. I thought by keeping my calendar as open as possible and making myself available to anyone even on short notice, that I was doing my part at work.

This could be the right approach especially if you’re in a service-based role where most of your work is done through customer interaction. But if your job depends on you completing work and projects, this can be a problem.

Have you heard the saying, “Show me your calendar and I’ll show you your priorities?”

Calendar management is the systematic process of organizing meetings, events, and tasks. It includes creating, scheduling, and accepting meeting invites along with resolving conflicts. A good calendar management process also includes guiding principles to help shape your day and maximize the return on investment you can get from your time.

So how can we use our calendar to maximize our output? What principles should I consider as part of my calendar management process? Today, I will give you 3 strategies I’ve been trying in 2023.

Key Takeaways:

• What is calendar management?
• How to protect your focus time
• How to aggregate your meetings into blocks
• 3 questions to ask yourself each Monday to prepare for the week
• How to find “doubles” in your day

Mentions:

E102 - Email Management Tips for Young Professionals Overwhelmed by a Cluttered Inbox: www.tsirpodcast.com/102

More of The Struggle is Real:

Find show notes and more at https://www.tsirpodcast.com/

Follow us on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/tsirpod/

I remember being on fire for the first few years of my career. I was learning so much and every day brought a novel problem to solve.

Boredom wasn’t even a thought. I didn’t quite understand why people felt stale in their careers.

And then things started to slow. What was once a unique puzzle to solve, turned into an ongoing job responsibility. My job was filled with less learning and more…work.

Finding a balance between being comfortable in your role and stretching your limits is challenging. This can be especially challenging for those of us who find a lot of satisfaction and purpose from stimulated work.

I don’t want to be wishing it was Friday afternoon. I want to be excited for Monday. I want that same feeling of excitement from early in my career. But continuously cultivating that energy takes intentionality and some proper planning.

Today’s guest, Carla Fowler, will give us ideas on how to reenergize your work. She’ll share questions you can ask yourself if you are feeling bored, what are the components of a good project to get you excited again, and why all of this is important. 

Key Takeaways:

• How to create a “Relive your year” practice
• The importance of continuous growth in your work
• Signs that you’re moving toward career stagnation
• How to drive your career growth
• Questions to ask yourself if you’re feeling bored at work…and what to do about it.
• How to create learning projects to elevate your visibility and develop your skills
• The importance of learning milestones
• Performance discounting
• How external projects and challenges can build momentum for other areas of your life
• How do we keep growing and exposing ourselves to new things?
• Looking for “doubles” in your life

More of Carla:

www.thaxa.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carla-fowler/

More of The Struggle is Real:

Find show notes and more at https://www.tsirpodcast.com/

Follow us on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/tsirpod/

Between reading through messages, crafting the right responses, and keeping tabs on the emails that require follow-up, staying on top of your inbox can feel like a job in itself.

Email can be a pain but it is a critical component to most knowledge-based roles that many of us college graduates step into after graduation.

Until I started working in the “real world,” I didn’t know this though. And the thing that blows me away? College never taught me a system for efficiently managing my email. It was something that I had to learn on my own.

I don’t want you to be in the same boat. In this episode, we are going to learn a system you can implement right away that will have you spending less time on email and more time on the projects that really matter.

Level up your email management game by tuning into this episode.

This episode is part 1 of a 3-part series all about managing your work which includes email, calendar, and project management.

Key Takeaways:

• How much time the average worker spends on email each week
• How to make inbox zero work for you
• The 3 categories for processing your email
• The golden rule that has saved me hours each week on email
• What to do with each category of emails
• How to set up action-based folders that keep your primary inbox clean
• A tip for non-urgent emails out of sight

Mentions:

Workers Now Spend Two Full Days a Week on Email and in Meetings (WSJ): https://www.wsj.com/articles/workers-say-its-harder-to-get-things-done-now-heres-why-2a5f1389?mod=hp_lead_pos13

More of The Struggle is Real:

Find show notes and more at https://www.tsirpodcast.com/

Follow us on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/tsirpod/

When I was in grade school, my dad and I were up in Detroit for a track meet. We thought it would be fun to cross over into Canada. Although technically, it was the first time I had left the United States, it wasn’t until a week after my college graduation that I took my first real international trip.

I did a 4-city stop in Europe and I caught the travel bug. I’ve made a few more trips to Europe, traveled in South America, and expanded my adventures in the United States.

Although I’m not going as far as to say it’s a requirement for a happy life, there are so many benefits of making traveling a habit. It can be a release from the day-to-day grind that life can force us into sometimes. You meet new people, make unforgettable memories, and even improve your communication skills. But what that first trip really did for me was expand my horizons and become more mindful of other people’s cultures and values. I can confidently say that I am a more sympathetic and open-minded person because of traveling.

You don’t have to quit your job today and travel the world, although today’s guest would have a thing or two to say about that but I’m hoping after this conversation I’ve convinced you to pick a spot you’ve always wanted to travel to and book that plane ticket.

Renee Bruns took this piece of advice to heart. She created a career sabbatical to pursue what we’ve all wanted to do at some point in our life: break a Guinness Book of World Records.

Renee is now the record holder for the most amount of countries visited in one year in a wheelchair. In 2022, she visited 66 countries bringing her all-time total to 117 countries including all 7 continents.

In this conversation, I challenge her with 5 common reasons many of us don’t travel. She fires back with reassurance and tangible advice for overcoming these excuses.

Key Takeaways:

• 5 surprising reasons Americans don’t travel
• Ideas for low-risk, high-reward places to travel to
• How to get by without knowing the language
• How to find affordable transportation
• Travel money saving hacks
• The benefits of hostels
• How to ask for a sabbatical at work and offer creative options to your employer
• When it might be time to leave your work to travel
• Why you shouldn’t be afraid to travel

Mentions:

www.HostelWorld.com

www.couchsurfing.com

More of Renee:

www.reneebruns.net

More of The Struggle is Real:

Find show notes and more at https://www.tsirpodcast.com/

Follow us on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/tsirpod/

Thank you so much for joining us in this special episode. The Struggle is Real podcast hit a significant milestone. You are listening to episode 100.

Kyle and I have been considering what we want to do to celebrate this milestone. We’re awarding superlatives to some of our favorite episodes. If you think back to high school these were the senior yearbook categories for things such as biggest flirt, class clown, most likely to succeed…

We put our own spin on this and will be handing out superlatives to some former guests. Up to this point, we have had 86 guests on the podcast so this was not an easy feat but we made it happen.

This episode is meant to be super light-hearted, fun, and honestly really geared toward the listeners that have been with us along the journey. We throw around a lot of guest names and episode numbers. Don’t worry, we have links to all of the referenced episodes in the show notes.

A huge shout out to you for tuning into the podcast. I’ve had so much fun creating this content and interviewing guests, and I’m really looking forward to making it even better. And on that note, we end this episode discussing some of the changes you’ll be seeing with The Struggle is Real, hopefully, all really great things for you. So stay tuned to the end.

Enjoy the conversation with the man in the shadows, the producer of the TSIR, my little brother…Kyle Peters.

Key Takeaways:

• Best tactical advice: JP - Larry Hagner (generative questions), KP - Jonathan Miller (how to give a powerful apology)
• Unforgettable story: JP - Dee Goines (meeting the Rock), KP - Nate Dukes (reinventing his life)
• Unexpected surprise subject: JP - Megan Barnett and Lee Carson (dietary fiber), KP - Jewel Hohman (making friends in your 20s)
• Guest that blew me away: JP - Benjamin Wong, KP - Amhad Jabbir
• Guest that was most relatable at the time: JP - Joel O’Leary
• Guest to get a drink at the bar with: JP - Andrew Biernat, KP - Ali Binazir
• Someone you would trust your life with: JP - Krista Edwards, KP - Sean Mullaney
• Guest that needs a part 2: JP - Jewel Hohman
• What’s next with TSIR podcast?

Mentions:

Ahmad Jabbir - www.tsirpodcast.com/61

Ali Binizar - www.tsirpodcast.com/36

Andrew Biernat - www.tsirpodcast.com/65

Andrew Paulson - www.tsirpodcast.com/50

Brenden Kumarasay - www.tsirpodcast.com/97

Corey Nathan - www.tsirpodcast.com/55

Dee Goines - www.tsirpodcast.com/11

Jared Schuster - www.tsirpodcast.com/25

Jackie Cummings Kowski - www.tsirpodcast.com/64

Jenny Foss - www.tsirpodcast.com/83

Jewel Hohman - www.tsirpodcast.com/72

Joel O’Leary - www.tsirpodcast.com/31

Jonathan Miller - www.tsirpodcast.com/15

Krista Edwards - www.tsirpodcast.com/78

Larry Hagner - www.tsirpodcast.com/56

Mason Burchette - www.tsirpodcast.com/71

Megan Barnett and Lee Carson - www.tsirpodcast.com/73

Nate Dukes - www.tsirpodcast.com/41

Sean Mullaney - www.tsirpodcast.com/39

Susan Bratton - www.tsirpodcast.com/63

Tim Traill - www.tsirpodcast.com/37

More of The Struggle is Real:

Find show notes and more at https://www.tsirpodcast.com/

Follow us on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/tsirpod/

Have you heard of the term situationship? I’ve been seeing the term across different media outlets but I hadn’t dug into it much until I found Myisha Battle, today’s guest, writing about how they might be the future of dating.

At first, situationships seemed to be a terrible idea to me but Myisha has changed my opinion on them. Now I’m thinking, a situationship is exactly what many 20-somethings might need at this time in their dating life.

If you haven’t heard of the term situationship before, it is defined as that is a relationship that is emotionally connected, but without commitment or future planning. It’s beyond a casual hookup or friends with benefits. A situationship could include going on dates, having sex, and building intimacy but exclude labels like boyfriend and girlfriend at least at this point of the relationship.

Myisha Battle is a sex and dating coach and the author of the book, This is Supposed to Be Fun: How to Find Joy in Hooking Up, Settling Down, and Everything in Between.

With her expertise, we have a really great conversation about if a situationship is right for you, the benefits of this relationship archetype, and how to exit this kind of relationship if it is no longer what you’re looking for. We always talk about tons of other great dating subjects like how to set up your dating app profile to attract the right kind of people for you. If you’re looking for some clarity and support in your dating life right now, this is the perfect episode for you.

Key Takeaways:

• How different parts of the world view sex
• How to communicate with your partner about the sex you want
• How to set up your dating app profile
• How to show up as your full self on dating profiles
• How to land someone that is nothing like you’d expect
• Could a situationship give you the dating flexibility you’re looking for?
• How to end a relationship and breakup with someone with compassion
• Framework for breaking up with someone
• How to know when to take a break from dating versus when to push through

Mentions:

Wheel of consent (Betty Martin): https://bettymartin.org/videos/

How to play the 3-minute game (Betty Martin): https://bettymartin.org/how-to-play-the-3-minute-game/

More of Myisha:

Website: https://www.myishabattle.com/

Book - This is Supposed to Be Fun: https://www.amazon.com/This-Supposed-Be-Fun-Everything/dp/1541602218

More of The Struggle is Real:

Find show notes and more at https://www.tsirpodcast.com/

Follow us on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/tsirpod/

In episode 96, we talked about the FIRE Movement, a group of people who are focused on early retirement, sometimes decades before the traditional retirement age of 65. They’re doing this by building their passive assets to a level where it provides enough money for their living expenses.

I love the idea of no longer needing a paycheck to afford my lifestyle and maybe you do too.

This is the 2nd episode in our FIRE series where you’ll learn 5 potential paths to FIRE so you can determine which path is right for you.

Key Takeaways:

• Selecting the post-retirement lifestyle that fits for you
• A breakdown of Lean, Fat, and Traditional FIRE
• How Coast or Barista FIRE could help you downshift your work earlier

Mentions:

What is the FIRE Movement? Retire in Your 30s | E96: www.tsirpodcast.com/96

More of The Struggle is Real:

Find show notes and more at https://www.tsirpodcast.com/

Follow us on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/tsirpod/