Mindful FIRE : Life Design for Financial Independence

In this episode: career to calling, meaningful experiments, enoughness, mindful discernment, financial freedom with Lance Diaresco

Episode Summary

After leading global brands at Disney, Levi’s, and Google, Lance kept asking himself question: “Is this all?” He shares how a sabbatical, mindfulness, volunteering, and small experiments inside Google helped him move toward coaching and purposeful work without one reckless leap. Adam and Lance explore enoughness—balancing drive and contentment—and how to define success across ambition, workload, money, and time.

Guest Bio

Lance Diaresco is a former global brand leader at Disney, Levi’s, and Google. He now coaches leaders, facilitates workshops and retreats, and is developing work on discernment.

Resources & Books Mentioned

• Journey to the Heart by Melody Beattie
• The Simple Path to Wealth by JL Collins
• Search Inside Yourself

Guest Contact Information

• Website
• LinkedIn

Key Takeaways

• Let “Is this all?” open a process of curiosity instead of forcing an immediate answer.
• Experiment before leaping: facilitate, volunteer, coach, and learn what creates energy.
• Define enoughness as the balance between ambition and contentment.
• Use financial freedom to design meaningful work, protect time, and contribute without pressure.

In this episode: arriving in the present, kind curiosity, breath awareness, beginning again, intentional action with Adam Coelho

Resources & Books Mentioned

• Free FI Life Jumpstart journaling exercise
• Mindful FIRE Legends community

Episode Summary

Rest in the simplicity of this moment with a short guided meditation from Adam Coelho. You’ll notice how you’re arriving, settle attention on the breath, and practice returning without judgment whenever the mind wanders. With nowhere to go and nothing to accomplish, each inhale and exhale becomes an invitation to experience your life as it is happening now. The practice closes by helping you choose how you want to show up for yourself and others.

In this episode: financial independence as runway, career reinvention, self-imposed pressure, writing a first book, coaching-driven leadership with Jeff Jaworski

Episode Summary

Three years after leaving Google, Jeff Jaworski returns to share how FIRE gave him room to build The Shift, write The Leader Shift, and shape work around family and purpose. Jeff and Adam explore why the habits that create success can hold us back in a new chapter—and how to build without recreating the pressure of the rat race.

Guest Bio

Jeff Jaworski is the founder of The Shift Coaching & Consulting, a former Google executive, and the author of The Leader Shift. He coaches leaders and organizations to replace heroic leadership with teams that think and scale.

Resources & Books Mentioned

• Adam's free FI Life Jumpstart exercise
• The Leader Shift by Jeff Jaworski
• Mindful FIRE episode 151

Guest Contact Information

• The Shift
• Jeff on LinkedIn

Key Takeaways

• FIRE can create options and runway for meaningful reinvention - not just retirement.
• Distinguish pressure that is real from pressure you manufacture yourself.
• A new chapter requires new behaviors; what got you here may hold you back there.
• Scalable leaders ask before telling, explore possibility, and lead performance - not metrics.

In this episode: visualizing your work-optional ideal week, mindfulness, financial independence, life design, mini experiments

Episode Summary

In this guided meditation, Adam invites you to settle into the breath and visualize your ideal work-optional week. You’ll explore where you are, who you’re with, what you’re doing, and how that life feels in your body. The practice closes by turning your vision into one small experiment you can try today.

Resources & Books Mentioned

• Mindful FIRE Legends community
• Free FI Life Jumpstart Exercise

Key Takeaways

• Meet yourself as you are with the kind, curious awareness of mindfulness.
• Picture an ordinary week in your financially independent, work-optional life—including an “ideal Tuesday.”
• Notice the feeling of that week and where you experience it in your body now.
• Choose one mini experiment—one small step toward your ideal week—to take today.

In this episode: mortality as motivation, memento mori, pre-grets, escaping autopilot, one-more-year syndrome, living wider and deeper with Jodi Wellman

Episode Summary

Jodi Wellman explains how remembering that life is finite can help us stop postponing it. She and Adam explore counting your remaining Mondays, turning “pre-grets” into action, balancing future security with aliveness now, and using small experiments to add vitality, meaning, and connection.

Guest Bio

Jodi Wellman is an author, speaker, positive-psychology practitioner, and founder of Four Thousand Mondays. After 17 years in corporate leadership and 12 years in executive coaching, she made memento mori—remembering we must die—her life's work.

Resources & Books Mentioned

• You Only Die Once — Jodi Wellman
• Die With Zero — Bill Perkins
• Monday Mornings Left Calculator
• Astonishingly Alive Assessment
• Mindful FIRE Episode 232 with Pete Adeney
• Shay's Warriors

Guest Contact Information

Website · Instagram

Key Takeaways

• Count your remaining Mondays to make time feel scarce and valuable.
• List “pre-grets,” then give each meaningful goal a date and first action.
• Keep useful routines, but add novelty before habit domination turns life into autopilot.
• Assess whether your life needs more width—fun and vitality—or depth—meaning, purpose, and connection.

In this episode: The Gap and The Gain framework for appreciating your progress on the path to financial independence

Episode Summary

Adam Coelho leads a 22-minute meditation inspired by The Gap and The Gain. Rather than measuring against a moving ideal, listeners compare where they are now with where they were four or five years ago. The practice replaces impatience about reaching FI with appreciation for current progress and the life unfolding today.

Resources & Books Mentioned

• The Gap and The Gain by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy
• Mindful FIRE Legends community
• Download my FI Life Jumpstart

Key Takeaways

• Measuring against an ever-moving ideal creates “the gap”; measuring backward reveals “the gain.”
• Notice how “not there yet” thoughts feel in the body before trying to change them.
• Recall professional, personal, and financial progress from the past four or five years.
• When caught in the gap, ask “Is this useful?” and shift toward gratitude, learning, or a concrete gain.

In this episode: geoarbitrage, location independence, financial freedom, living abroad, visas, scouting trips with Richelle Gamlam

The next Ask What's Possible Workshop is September 18th - Learn more & Sign up

Episode Summary

Richelle Gamlam, founder of Move Abroad Coach, joins Adam to explore how moving abroad can help people design a more aligned, affordable, and expansive life. They discuss geoarbitrage, “first not forever,” the income/visa/tax triangle, fears around moving with kids, and how scouting trips can turn a dream into a concrete plan.

Guest Bio

Richelle Gamlam is the founder of Move Abroad Coach and host of The Move Abroad Coach Podcast. After 13 years abroad across six countries, she helps people create location-independent lives overseas through mindset, strategy, visas, income planning, and practical relocation support.

Resources Mentioned

• Adam’s FI Life Jumpstart exercise
• Move Abroad Masterplan - Only $37
• Move Abroad Escape Plan Bootcamp
• Boundless Life

Richelle’s Contact Information

• Website: moveabroadcoach.com
• Podcast: The Move Abroad Coach Podcast
• Instagram: @moveabroadcoach

Key Takeaways

• Geoarbitrage can accelerate FI by lowering living costs while preserving income.
• Start with the life you want, then align income, visa, and taxes.
• “First not forever” reduces all-or-nothing pressure around moving abroad.
• A scouting trip should test daily life, not just tourist highlights.

In this episode: visualizing your life of financial freedom, releasing unhelpful stories, cultivating mindfulness, envisioning what you want

Episode Summary

This guided meditation explores how the stories we tell ourselves shape the reality we experience. Adam Coelho invites you to settle the mind, bring your vision for financial freedom into awareness, and notice not only the life you’re imagining after FI, but also the story you’re carrying about whether that vision is possible. With kind curiosity, the practice helps you identify doubts, resistance, or limiting narratives — and gently choose the stories that move you toward the life you want.

Resources & Books Mentioned

• Mindful FIRE Legends community
• FI Life Jumpstart envisioning exercise

In this episode: envisioning, thinking BIG about life, redefining hard work, Mindful FIRE, rediscovering true priorities, and choosing Slow FI with Nic Ferry

Join us for a live envisioning workshop Friday Aug 14th to think BIG about what you want for your post-FI life so you can start living it now.  Learn more & sign up. 

Episode Summary

Nic Ferry shares how coaching, mindfulness, and envisioning helped him move from workaholic striving toward a more intentional life. He describes finding the “impossible” house, getting a military move paid for, choosing family over chief resident status, and creating opportunities in obstetric anesthesia and international medicine.

Guest Bio

Nic Ferry is a physician, anesthesiology resident, father of three, and Adam’s first coaching client. His path blends financial independence, family-centered decision-making, and a growing commitment to low-resource medicine abroad.

Resources & Books Mentioned

• FI Life Jumpstart
• Ask What’s Possible Workshop
• The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
• The Gap and The Gain by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy
• The Simple Path to Wealth by JL Collins
• The White Coat Investor by Dr. James M. Dahle

In this episode: financial independence, life design, envisioning, mini experiments, asking what you actually want with Adam Coelho

Episode Summary

Adam explores the deeper question that comes after building financial freedom: what do you want that freedom to make possible? Through three anonymized stories, he shows how FI can create options, but clarity comes from envisioning, experimenting, and choosing a new story before life defaults into “one more year syndrome”

Resources & Books Mentioned

• Free FI Life Jumpstart Exercise
• Ask What’s Possible Workshop
• “The Predicting Brain” by Regina Pally