Mindful FIRE : Life Design for Financial Independence

In this episode: 12 minute guided meditation to find peace, ease and a space of refuge in this moment. 

Today’s meditation is a practice of creating space in our lives. We practice cultivating a space of refuge in our busy lives amidst all the challenging and difficult things happening in our world (war, layoffs, the economy, etc). 

In this space of refuge we can just leave everything at the door and just be with ourselves in this moment.

We begin this meditation by intentionally leaving everything at the door and we connect with how you are feeling in this moment in your body, mind and heart.

After some time resting in this space of refuge we transition into some loving kindness, compassion practice for ourselves and then extend it out to all beings everywhere. 

I hope you enjoy this practice. 

In this episode: "Trying Life On", 5 Freedom Principles, Purposeful Work, & more with Maurice Philogene. 

Adam Coelho talks to Maurice Philogene, a former senior executive at an IT consulting firm and a retired federal agent, who is now a full-time real estate investor. They discuss Maurice's philosophy of "trying life on" and how he has been able to mesh together his different interests and careers. They also talk about the importance of envisioning, reducing big dreams into achievable goals, and building a personal and work blueprint.

Episode Takeaways

• Maurice's philosophy of "trying life on" involves meshing together different interests and careers to build a lifestyle you don't need a vacation from.
• Maurice reduces big dreams into achievable goals by having people write down their perfect day in vivid detail and building a personal and work blueprint around it.
• Maurice encourages people to build meaningful relationships and intentionally make decisions related to time, financial, and geographic freedom.
• Maurice believes that adults forget to dream and that we need to remember our purpose of plugging into life planet as intended.
• Maurice believes that if we really want to do something, we will find a way to make it happen.
• Maurice encourages people to be unapologetic in their pursuit of a meaningful and fulfilling life.

Maurice’s Contact Information

• Maurice Philogene on LinkedIn
• Quattro Capital : https://www.thequattroway.com/

Maurice Philogene Bio

Maurice Philogene is a former senior executive at an IT consulting firm, a retired federal agent and lieutenant colonel, and a full-time real estate investor. He is also a former street cop in Washington DC. Maurice's philosophy is to "try life on" and he has been able to mesh together his different interests and careers to build a lifestyle he doesn't need a vacation from.

Today's meditation explores the question: What is enough?

This is one of the core questions that drove me to create this podcast.

So many of us in the financial independence retire early community are trying to grow our wealth so we can reach some arbitrary number, assuming that once we get there, we will achieve freedom and everything will change.

But the question is, what is enough?

So often, when people reach their desired number, they think they need more or just a little more time, what’s often called "one more year" syndrome.

Today we explore this question of what is enough in a meditation, where we practice allowing each breath to be enough, just as it is.

I hope you enjoy this meditation. 

Derk de Korver joins The Mindful Fire podcast to share his journey to becoming a professional Ironman Triathlete, reaching the World Championships several times.

 He recalls his time in Dublin, where he and Adam Coelho, the host, bonded over side hustling and partying. 

Derk talks about his transformation to becoming a healthier person, and how his goals shifted from just wanting to finish his first marathon, to wanting to qualify for Kona, and eventually winning his age group overall. 

He also shares his decision to stop racing professionally and focus on his family and business.

Guest Bio

Derk de Korver was born in the Netherlands and moved around a lot in his youth due to his dad's work. He went to college in the Netherlands, and started working for Cargill, trading orange juice concentrate. 

He moved to Dublin to work for Google and discovered a new part of himself -- training for a marathon. He eventually signed up for his first Ironman, and after three years of training, he qualified for Kona, the world championships. 

He has done it four times and finished 8th overall and 4th in his age group in 2019. He has also won several Ironman races overall. He recently decided to stop racing professionally and focus on his family and business.

Guest Contact Information

• LinkedIn: Derk de Korver

Key Takeaways

• Derk de Korver is an entrepreneur, triathlete and Google employee.
• I met Derk in 2012 when we worked on the same global team at Google's Dublin office.
• Derk started his journey to achieve his goals by signing up for a marathon.
• He trained for an Ironman event and stopped drinking for the year because of his focus.
• After three years of Ironman, Derk managed to qualify for the Ironman World Championships In Kona, Hawaii.
• He achieved multiple successes in Ironman races and placed 8th overall in the world at Kona and 4th in his age group in his last race in Kona.
• Inspired by his success, Derk decided to go pro, and raced professionally for the next two years.

Take a moment to appreciate how far you come in your life with this new guided meditation by Adam Coelho. 

So often people race from thing to thing trying mightily to reach their goal...

But once they get there...

They just look immediately past that goal to the next goal

Never stopping

Never fully appreciating:

• How far they've come
• All the things they've learned
• All the things they've overcome

To be who they are

Right here. Right now

This practice invites us to take in the good and appreciate all the wonderful things we have done and achieved in our life. 

Meditation Overview

• We begin by taking a moment to check in with yourself and to observe the sensations of breathing in your body.
• I then encourage you to reflect on your life five years ago and all you've achieved since then
• Then you'll explore something from the last 12 months that you are proud of
• Finally, I remind you that your brain is predictive and that by paying attention to the good things in your life, you will be able to experience more of them.

I hope you enjoy this guided meditation which was inspired by my podcast conversation  with my friend Nirav Shah on episode 64.

“I'm not leaving Google, I'm actually joining another company and in order to join the other company, I've got to move” - Jeena James

In this episode of The Mindful Fire Podcast, Adam Coelho interviews Jeena James. Jeena shares her incredible journey of growing up in India, working at Google for 13 and a half years, and then transitioning to a startup environment. She talks about the challenges of making the transition and why she felt the need to push beyond her comfort zone. Jeena also offers a unique insight into her current role at Catchpoint and how she is helping to shape the digital experience monitoring and observability platform.

Guest Contact Information

• Jeena James on LinkedIn.
• Jeena's Instragram

Guest Bio

Up until recently, Jeena James was the head of the WebPageTest business unit at Catchpoint, a digital experience monitoring and observability platform. She has an economics degree from India and started her career at Google, where she worked for 13 and a half years. Jeena is based in the Bay Area and is passionate about pushing the boundaries of what is possible.

Key Takeaways

• She started her career with Google in India, where she worked for 13.5 years.
• She experienced working with customers and users of Google products from various angles, from advertisers to publishers to app developers.
• She realized that in order to get to the next opportunity, she had to leave Google
• In 2019, Jeena decided to move to a startup environment and joined Catchpoint as the head of the business unit
• Jeena shares her experience and learnings from working in a few different statups

This guided meditation is all about creating space for possibility in the face of challenging situations in your life.

While we all have challenging situations in life, I created this meditation for my 12,000 Google colleagues who were laid off last Friday and the thousands of other people affected by layoffs in the tech sector. 

I am grateful to still have my job but so many of my friends do not. Friday was a wake up call - a reminder of why it's so important to be intentional about your life and to build financial resilience to overcome challenging times. 

Overview of the practice

• We begin by finding a comfortable and alert position, then taking three deep breaths to notice the breath sensation in our body. 
• We are practicing mindfulness and observing our thoughts in a kind and curious way.
• Then we zoom out on our life a bit and bring to mind a challenging situation we are dealing with - a layoff, a divorce, death of a family member or pet.
• We observe this situation with mindfulness, which is simply a kind, curious awareness 
• Then we shift to exploring what possibility might exist, however small, in this challenging situation.

I sincerely hope this meditation is useful to you as you process the challenges you face and shift into embracing the possibilities life is presenting to you.

Wishing you all the best on your journey. 
Adam

In this podcast episode, Adam Coelho and Ashanti Branch talk about Ashanti's move from engineering to teaching. Ashanti explains the moment he made the decision to switch and how he had to keep himself from constantly thinking about the money he could have made if he had stayed in engineering. They also discuss the five F’s and strategizing for success and how it can help us achieve our goals.

Key Takeaways:

• Ashanti Branch is an educator who left engineering to pursue teaching.
• He saw a news report about a project he was working on in San Jose, California, catching fire, and this was a sign for him to leave engineering.
• He had to make a financial sacrifice in order to pursue his passion.
• He works hard not to compare himself to his friends who are still in engineering and have been promoted to VP roles.
• He is satisfied with the passion and purpose of his work, even if the financial side of things does not always make sense.
• He uses a system with his men's team called the five F's (fitness, family, fun, finances, and finish it) to set goals.
• It would have been helpful to have someone to strategize with when he was making the transition to teaching.
• Ashanti is thankful for the work he is able to do.
• He encourages others to ask themselves what it would take to feel satisfied in every area of their life.
• He encourages others to make decisions based on their passion and purpose, not just the numbers.

Guest Bio:

Ashanti Branch is an engineer-turned-teacher and founder of the Ever Forward Club, an organization that works to help young men of color reach their full potential. He has a passion for helping others find success and fulfillment through education and personal growth. 

Guest Contact Information: Get in touch with Ashanti and bring him to speak or lead the “Taking Off The Mask” workshop for your team.

• Website: everforwardclub.org
• Instagram: @everforwardclub
• Ashanti's Talk@Google on YouTube

Today’s guided meditation is all about cultivating and sharing kindness.

We’ll begin by checking in with ourselves and observing our breath.

Then, we'll take some time to gather and multiply kindness within ourselves.

Then we will practicing sending kindness out to others.

Finally, we open to receiving kindness from others.

I hope you enjoy this practice