Mindful FIRE : Life Design for Financial Independence

In this episode: mindful breathing, upcoming challenges, past resilience, visualization, setting intentions with Adam Coelho

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Episode Summary

Is there a decision, conversation, or opportunity on your horizon? In this guided meditation, Adam Coelho invites you to practice meeting it with confidence, clarity, and ease.

Begin by settling into your breath and noticing what’s present in your body and mind. Then recall a challenge you’ve navigated before, envision yourself moving through your current situation, and explore what would help you approach it. Close by setting an intention to create that supportive condition.

Adam Coelho leads this guided practice, recorded with the Mindful FIRE Legends community, which gathers to discuss financial independence, practice together, and support intentional living.

Resources & Books Mentioned

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

In this episode: healthcare and FIRE, why healthcare costs so much, physician burnout, patient–doctor allyship with Jordan Grumet

Download the free FI Life Jumpstart

Episode Summary

Who benefits when healthcare becomes more expensive—and less personal? Jordan Grumet returns to discuss The Healthcare Heist and his argument that corporate intermediaries undermine care. We explore electronic records, insurance, malpractice, and the pressures dividing patients and doctors. Jordan shares patient actions and a vision for change through shared storytelling, before discussing healthcare’s implications for FIRE and why happiness shouldn’t wait for retirement.

Guest Bio

Jordan Grumet is a physician, host of Earn and Invest, and author of Taking Stock, The Purpose Code, and The Healthcare Heist.

Resources & Books Mentioned

• Free FI Life Jumpstart
• The Healthcare Heist
• Taking Stock
• The Purpose Code
• The Citadel
• The Jungle
• Being Mortal
• Earn and Invest
• The Purpose Code Substack

Guest Contact Information

Jordan’s website

Key Takeaways

• Who Jordan believes profits from broken healthcare—and who pays the price.
• Why your doctor may be your ally, not the enemy.
• Practical ways to push back on denials and advocate for better care.
• Healthcare questions to answer before you leave your job.
• Why the life you want shouldn’t wait for your FIRE number.

In this episode: a companion meditation to episode 250 with Lance Diaresco, breath awareness, becoming, connection, contribution with Adam Coelho

Episode Summary

Who are you becoming, beyond what you are accomplishing?

In episode 250, “Define Enough and Design Your Next Chapter,” Lance Diaresco joined me to explore moving from career to calling, defining enough, and creating a life with greater meaning. In this companion episode, I invite you to bring one of the ideas from our conversation into your own experience through a guided meditation.

We begin by settling into the breath and practicing the simple act of noticing, returning, and beginning again. Then we explore the three questions in Lance’s “me, we, world” compass:

• Me: Who am I becoming?
• We: How am I connecting?
• World: How am I contributing?

There is no need to force an answer. This practice offers space to notice what arises, envision how you want to connect and contribute, and feel into the life you are creating with kind, curious awareness.

You can enjoy this meditation on its own or listen to my conversation with Lance in episode 250 for the ideas behind the practice.

About Your Guide

Adam Coelho is the host of The Mindful FIRE Podcast. This guided meditation was originally recorded with the Mindful FIRE Legends community.

Resources & Related Episodes

• Episode 250: Define Enough and Design Your Next Chapter with Lance Diaresco
• Join the Mindful FIRE Legends community

Key Takeaways

• Each time you notice your mind has wandered, you have a chance to return to the breath and begin again.
• Let “Who am I becoming?” invite curiosity rather than pressure to find the right answer.
• Explore how you are connecting in your current life and the life you envision.
• Consider how you contribute in big and small ways, then notice how that contribution feels in your body.
• Use the three questions as a gentle way to reconnect with yourself, your relationships, and what matters to you.

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

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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.