Jillian joins Brad and Jonathan to share her story and celebrate the launch of the new podcast Everyday Courage.
Everyday Courage
The ChooseFI family is launching a new podcast today. Everyday Courage is officially live!
Please take a moment to subscribe to this new podcast.
Jillian wanted to create this podcast because living intentionally goes beyond hitting your FI number. Before Jillian and her family hit FI four years ago, she felt like they had already started living intentionally. They had been able to travel to 27 countries, adopt four kids, and buy their home in cash.
I really felt like we were leaning in and doing things along the way as we grew our financial independence. But becoming financially independent was still a big transition. Just because you have a lot of options that being good with money creates, doesn’t actually do the work for you. You still have to learn how to be awesome in your life and in your work.
Jillian feels that this is especially true for women. Many of us might unconsciously lose our identities along the way. As life progresses, you might get married, have kids, or work a series of jobs that aren’t in line with your passions.
If you are good with money, then you might start to see more options along the way. However, if you don’t know what you want your life to look like, then these decisions can be very overwhelming. Everyday Courage is intended to help you explore your passions and start this journey of self-discovery.
Jillian’s Story
After getting married at 19, Jillian became a military spouse. With that, she moved around the country with her husband for many years.
As she moved around with her husband, she took whatever jobs that were available in the area. The series of jobs included working at Starbuck, an HR department, commission sales, and more. As a couple, their combined income topped out around $80,000. But they were still able to achieve their goals and achieve FI.
Listen to Jillian’s first interview on the podcast here.
External Pressures
All of the different jobs and tasks that she had to lean into along the way made it a challenge to stay true to herself. Although she felt like she was consistently working on improving herself, it would be all too easy to listen to the external pressures along the way.
For example, in her last regular job, Jillian told her coworker that she felt successful. Her coworker just asked, ‘how can you feel that way?’ From the outside, it may not have looked like she was successful by society’s standards. With a modest home, older car, and no fancy degree, society may not have considered Jillian successful. However, she was absolutely a success. She was able to accomplish everything that she set out to do, chased all of her dreams, and hit financial independence.
It’s so easy to let the external world define how we’re successful. What boxes do they think we need to check before they’ll sign off on the fact that we’re living a life that is true to ourselves and what matters to us.
Instead of letting the world define success for you, it is important to define success for yourself. Although the world equates fancy cars and large homes to a successful life, you are the only one that can determine what your successful life looks like.
We really have to be clear about what does matter to us. Because we can’t do all the things and we can’t be everything to everybody. And if we take the pressure of everyone else’s expectations. That might be our parents, and that might be our friends or our coworkers or society at large that says here’s who we think you should be, we start to lose who we are and we start to just float through life living someone else’s best life, maybe, but it sure as heck isn’t ours.
In order to build a life that is true to your values, it is important to constantly be intentional about your desires. Think about what your gifts and passions are. Think about what you want your life to look like.
Take a look at our community wins for 2019!
New Year, New Decade
In this next year and decade, what kind of life do you want to build for yourself?
If you are having trouble finding the direction you want to move forward in, then Everyday Courage is the perfect place to start. The goal is to help you realize that your life can look different and be bigger if you want it to. It will just take a little bit of courage to take charge and make changes.
The show is designed to help to take action in manageable podcasts. The show is under 20 minutes long with deep dives into the questions you’ve been asking yourself.
I wanted to create something that it felt like its doable. We could fit it in, we have eight minutes, we have ten minutes.
Even if you only have a few minutes a week, Everyday Courage could help you to transform your life. Take a minute to subscribe today!
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