Mindy Jensen: Welcome to the BiggerPockets Money Podcast, where we interview Cindy and talk about sabbaticals.
Cindy: And yes, it will take more spending more money on these experiences, whether it’s travel or deep sea fishing or whatnot. But it, like, I had never been so happy in life. Having these experiences actually has, it’s almost like investing in yourself and pays way more dividends than if you had just saved that money and didn’t go out and take that travel or explore that interest.
Mindy Jensen: Hello, hello, hello. Hello, my name is Mindy Jensen, and joining me today is my Military Millionaire co-host, David Pere.
David Pere: What’s up, everybody?
Mindy Jensen: David and I are here to make financial independence less scary, less just for somebody else, to introduce you to every money story because we truly believe financial freedom is attainable for everyone, no matter when or where you’re starting.
David Pere: Whether you want to retire early and travel the world, go on to make big-time investments in assets like real estate, or start your own business, we’ll help you reach your financial goals, get money out of the way so that you can launch yourself towards your dreams.
Mindy Jensen: David, I am super excited to bring in Cindy today. She and I met at Camp Mustache earlier this year, and she had a really interesting presentation about sabbaticals. And I thought, you know what, I need to introduce her to my listeners and I need to share with them her story about taking a sabbatical because it changed her life. I know, I’ve known several people who have taken sabbaticals that have also changed their lives. And what a great concept. Take a little mini break, take a long break, and reevaluate what’s going on in your life and see which direction you want to take your life, even if you haven’t reached financial independence yet.
David Pere: Yeah, I definitely think there’s something to be said for that. In fact, I guess if you were to, I guess if I think about it, right, technically I took a mini sabbatical with my trip out of the country last month. I was gone for three and a half weeks, right? I don’t know that I’d really consider that a sabbatical, especially since I work for myself, but it was a lot of fun and much needed. So.
Mindy Jensen: I met Cindy at Camp Mustache this year and was blown away by her presentation about sabbaticals. In 2019, while speaking with a friend who’s an executive coach, she was given the assignment of a career audit to come up with 100 ideas for alternative careers, which led to an aha moment. She’d been aware of the concept of sabbaticals for several years, but this exercise brought it back to the forefront of her mind. Cindy, welcome to the BiggerPockets Money Podcast. I’m so excited to talk to you today.
Cindy: Thanks so much, Mindy. I’m excited to be here.
Mindy Jensen: Let’s talk about this aha moment. What led you to even start talking to your friend about alternative careers?
Cindy: Well, I had been on kind of the corporate rat race for a while since graduating from business school and just working my way up, working from company to company, moving around the country for these jobs. And after, I guess, about eight, nine years, ten years, I just was super burnt out and just ready for a break. Things had been going on at work where I was just burnt out. And when I was talking with my friend who’d been a colleague at a prior company, she suggested that we do a bunch of career coaching exercises. She’d been a friend who decided to be an executive coach, so she insisted on leading me through these exercises. And one of them was the career audit, which turned out to be more of a career life audit, in which I did come up with 100 different ideas for alternative careers. And they definitely spanned the gamut from more of the traditional marketing path I’ve been on, being a chief marketing officer, to opening an Airbnb as an eco-resort, to working with dogs and conservation efforts. So really, the first 20 or so was super easy to come up with. And then as we got through more and more of the ideas, it was really hard to get to 70 to 100, but the concept of this exercise is like design thinking. You come up with 100 ideas on Post-its, then you organize them into different themes, and then you start formulating a plan as to how to explore these ideas. So what really showed me was that I’m much more than just my traditional career as a marketer. I have all these different ideas and interests and hobbies, and why not try to explore some of those ideas? And like you said, Mindy, I did have the concept of sabbaticals for many, many years, just never had the courage to really execute on them. I had even written a plan in 2018. This is the date I’m going to hit. This is when I take the sabbatical. And then, you know, it’s so hard to get over the inertia and the fear. And with this exercise, it made me realize, yes, I have a lot I could do on a sabbatical. And really, I should start thinking more seriously about it and maybe even publicly committing to this idea of a sabbatical so that I’d actually carry it through.
David Pere: I think that’s the power of coming up with 100, right? So I’ve had an executive coach walk through that before, and really with any list, right? It’s very easy to say, let me come up with 10 ideas for ways to generate revenue in my business, or 10 reasons I love my spouse, or 10 reasons I want to lose weight. Those are all super surface level. It’s not till you get past 20, 30, 40 that you really start digging into creative things or generating, like, no matter how ridiculous. And that’s why when they talk about planning your vision or what you want your life to look like, you get into 60, 70, 80, and you’re like, I can’t come up with anything. Okay, I want, I don’t know, a Bugatti, a private jet, and you just start writing crazy things down. And when you finally look at your list, you realize things one through ten were like, I’d like to own a house, you know? Well, that’s not really a vision that’s going to get you going, right? So I like the idea of 100, like the career exercise and things where you have to sit down and write down a list of 100. That really challenges your creativity.
Cindy: Yeah, I think at the beginning it’s, you kind of just throw out ideas that are what society expects of you or what has been the traditional path. So you had to get really creative to really think about what you truly care about. That’s not more evident.
Mindy Jensen: I simultaneously love and hate the 100 list because yeah, it’s super easy for like 17, and then at 97, you’re like, oh, what is another thing that I could do? What is another thing that I could do? And you come up with that and you’re like, oh, I already did that for number 35. Or, you know, it gets really, really hard. Did you get all the way to 100?
Cindy: I did. I was definitely struggling towards the end, but you know what? I don’t like to give up. And so I’m going to keep going until I get there. Definitely some of them, like, oh, that’s a little bit of a stretch when I look at it now. But I think it’s the exercise of getting to those themes that becomes really powerful.
Mindy Jensen: So at Camp Mustache, somebody came up to me a little bit later, like right after your presentation, and asked me about what I do and how could they do this too. And I’m like, well, how would you do it? Write down 100 ideas that you have. I took it and I threw it right back at him right away. I love this idea so much. I said just a moment ago that I love it and hate it. I really love it, but it is really, really hard. How long did it take you to come up with this 100 list?
Cindy: I think technically the exercise is supposed to take like an hour or two. It probably did take me a little bit—an hour?
Mindy Jensen: Oh my goodness. I would think like a week or a month. I can’t think of like 10 right now.
Cindy: Yeah, maybe it’s like one of those things where you’re like, if you overthink it, then you’re just manufacturing answers that aren’t really reflective of who you are.
Mindy Jensen: Oh, that’s a good point.
David Pere: The last time I had one of those lists, it was like three or four days and I don’t think I got to 100.
Mindy Jensen: I think the concept is good. If you don’t get to 100, if you get to 87 or 42, you’re still thinking past the initial, you know, five easy ones. So what was your financial position in 2019 when you were speaking to your friend who said, give me 100 ideas for careers?
Cindy: Yeah, so at that point, I—so I graduated from business school with an MBA, which, as you know, probably MBAs are pretty expensive, especially at these type of schools. And luckily for me, when I wasn’t even introduced to the concept of the FIRE community, I was already practicing a lot of those things, in which I had always lived like a more frugal life, I guess. And I didn’t even know I was doing this, but I kind of geo-arbitraged by taking a role in Northwest Arkansas where the cost of living was quite low and they still paid pretty well. So I was able to pay back my loans pretty quickly—by 2013, I graduated in 2011. So I had, I guess, five, six years of building up savings, which is when in 2018 I started that first written-down plan of a sabbatical. At that point, I had a 70% savings rate, and by 2019, I don’t know exactly how much I had, but I was definitely at a point where I felt financially comfortable. And 2018 was when I first learned about FIRE, and that helped accelerate my investing in index funds, which was a good time to do that. So I think for me, taking a sabbatical wasn’t so much about, do I have the money to take this break? It was more the fears of, what’s going to happen afterwards? Will I ever find another job that I really like? Is this time going to be worthwhile? By the time I decided—that 2019 when I did this exercise, came up with a more serious plan—I said, you know what, I’m going to quit in spring 2020, which as y’all know, great timing with the pandemic. Also the low of the stock market at the time. So that was a little bit disappointing. I was so geared up to do it. I even did things like funded my FSA to do LASIK, knowing that I would get full benefits of leaving my job earlier in the year. And then I had publicly committed to friends and family that I was going to do this. And when the pandemic hit, it was like, well, maybe I should rethink this a little bit, or let me just delay it and see how things go. I think at that point, my stock market portfolio did take a substantial hit. And again, it was more the fear of, well, if I take time off now, what’s going to happen if it’s a sustained bear market? Am I going to find a job? So instead of taking the sabbatical, I had a very frank conversation with my then job about feeling a little bit burnt out. I really would like to take some time. Can I take a sabbatical? And I think I only would have had the confidence to do so because I had been preparing to take time off and had the savings and all of that. And at that point, you’re kind of enjoying the mental benefits of being able to push for what you want without fear of, say, losing your job or any kind of implications. So at that point, I went to my employer. I wasn’t able to get a long three-month sabbatical or anything, but I did get about a month off of work as vacation, which actually ended up being a fantastic way to prototype a sabbatical. So in August of 2020, I took a month off. And let me tell you, that month off—I’ve never felt so alive in that one month in all the prior years of working just long hours, working at various jobs. And what I did with that one month was very intentional. So the first half, I took a solo road trip all the way up to Oregon. And of course, it’s during COVID, so I was doing it solo and meeting friends along the way, and just taking time to camp and hike in nature and mentally recharge. Along the way, I met a friend who was into real estate, and that’s where I got inspired to start looking at real estate in the second half of my month. And I just dove deep those two weeks and started looking at multifamily units in the LA area. And before I knew it, the month was up and I was like, wait, I still have more I want to do. So I did go back to work and really reflected, like, is this—was that break enough? Is there more I wanted to do? How do I tell my employer? When do I do it? And I really wanted to make sure that I left my company in a good spot. So I waited until my product launches had gone through and eventually did leave in fall 2020, October. So at that point, in terms of my financial situation, from March at the low of the stock market to October 2020, my net worth had gone up, I don’t know, like 20, 30%? So I actually felt even more comfortable just leaving my job without necessarily having side gigs or anything to supplement that income. Because I think, you know, seeing that, you just realize if you stay the course, you don’t have that financial fear as much anymore.
Mindy Jensen: So let’s go back. You got 30 days of vacation. Was it paid or unpaid?
Cindy: It was paid.
Mindy Jensen: Oh, that’s nice.
Cindy: So it was like a paid sabbatical for a month.
Mindy Jensen: Paid sabbatical. That’s the best sabbatical.
Cindy: Yeah, it was unexpected. I was asking for a three-month unpaid sabbatical, so.
Mindy Jensen: And they gave you a month paid. Okay, that’s awesome. And then you came back, you finished up your product launch, and you left. How long were you unemployed, sabbaticaling, in October of 2020?
Cindy: So I told myself I would love to take a year off. And as I started the sabbatical, I realized, yes, that actually might be a good timeframe, because the first two months, after just being on the grind for so many years, it took me a long time to just decompress. And there are definitely days of just Netflix, things like that. So I did deal with, well, this feels really different. Am I making the most of my time? Feeling guilty about not doing some stuff. I actually think during that time I went to my first Camp FI, or maybe it was my second Camp FI. But when the new year rolled around, and I think maybe just the way the job market was, surprisingly, I started getting outreach on job opportunities. So during this time, I kind of structured my sabbatical into three buckets, based on the thought I had done prior with the 100 jobs exercise and other things. So really, how do you recharge the soul? For me, that meant creative projects. That was a theme that came up in the 100 jobs. Second is kind of the physical bucket, so outdoor pursuits. And part of that is I do enjoy the outdoors, but also it’s still the pandemic, so more limited to things like deep sea fishing and hiking and camping. And then the third bucket was work, which is the alternative career prototyping. So I went back to that list and, you know, explored things like—like I said, I explored real estate during that month off. I did end up looking at various multifamily properties. I didn’t actually close on those prospects, but it was still a good learning exercise. I also looked at what it would be like to be a content creator. Like I mentioned, I’m in marketing, so a lot of times I do stuff like creating a website and all of that, but more from a strategic level and working with agencies. So I wanted to see what it was like to actually create something myself. So one of the hobbies I got really deep into was deep sea fishing. And so I created a fishing blog website called Fish to FIRE. And it was a way for me to prototype what it would be like to be creative, making a website, writing content, which is quite difficult—so the utmost respect to you all. And so along those lines, I was just going through all of this, and February, March came around and these job outreaches—and I’m like, I’m not exactly ready to go back to a traditional job yet, but this is a way for me to just explore different careers. And there were two job opportunities I ended up interviewing for in the next few months. In the middle of all that, I actually picked up a gig as a consultant unexpectedly, and also got to prototype what it would be like to work for myself, doing marketing consulting with a furniture company, which helped me prototype what interior design and exploring that side of things would be like. So anyways, long story short, I got these job interviews. I ended up getting two offers, surprisingly, to my surprise. And I think part of that is both were fantastic jobs, both felt like dream jobs. But I don’t think I could have interviewed well at those jobs had I not been taking that sabbatical. I was just so mentally worn out. If I was interviewing for those jobs while at my last job, I probably would not have been able to get both offers. So then came this agonizing job decision. The roads were completely opposite, and I ended up taking one and pushed out the job start date to July. And so all in all, my sabbatical lasted nine months, although I felt like it was shorter because these interviews included interview projects, and I was also doing consulting. So I could not have anticipated or predicted the way the sabbatical went, but I think it was the best possible sabbatical I could have ever hoped for.
Mindy Jensen: Well, I think that’s interesting. You can’t predict the way that the sabbatical’s gonna go, you can only roll with the punches that get thrown your way. But you said both of these felt like dream jobs. That’s awesome. Oh, now I have this giant task of choosing this dream job or this dream job. Which one do I want? Like, it’s not, you’ve set up your life in such a way that now you get to choose which amazing job you want instead of being stuck at this horrible job you hate, but you have to continue doing it because you have to put food on the table, because otherwise, how are you going to eat? So that leads me into my next question. How were you funding your life during these 9 months?
Cindy: So because I had been working for quite a while, I did have enough savings built up. And I know I’m very privileged to be in this situation, to be able to quit my job during COVID when so many others were struggling to find a job. So I know this is very, very lucky, but I definitely spent years building up the savings and then seeing how the stock market had changed and then boosted my net worth. I just realized, you know, at a certain point you get to the financial journey of saving and investing that the income that you have from your job no longer is as impactful as the investments you make. So even though in the 9 months I hadn’t actually made much income, save like the little bit I made from the consulting gig, my net worth went up a tremendous amount, maybe another 20, 30%. I don’t recall the exact numbers, but I think it really changed my mindset in terms of, do I be very frugal? Like, I no longer do the 70% savings rate. I now do more like, I don’t know, ranges 30 to 50 or something. And I started realizing I want to invest in these experiences. Like, the sabbatical was also a great way to prototype what early retirement could feel like. And I realized there’s just so much that I want to explore. But I don’t need to wait until my early retirement to do some of these things. I can make time to explore these hobbies. And yes, it will take spending more money on these experiences, whether it’s travel or deep sea fishing or whatnot. But I had never been so happy in life. And I think, you know, the way you do a sabbatical would be different for everyone, right? Your needs are different, but it’s definitely worthwhile to take some time for yourself and to recharge and really think about what would make you happy. So another executive coach I’d taken a workshop from, Marshall Goldsmith, he had said the best thing you could do is to ask yourself every day, did I do my best to be happy today? And so sometimes, at least for me, it was easy to get stuck planning for the future when sometimes in the present, having these experiences actually is almost like investing in yourself and pays way more dividends than if you had just saved that money and didn’t go out and take that travel or explore that interest. So I don’t know if that answers your question. I kind of went around to different topics, but—
David Pere: Well, that kind of leads me into— so one of the things you said, and you just kind of glazed over it at the beginning of your topic about your sabbatical, that I wanted to hone in on real quick that I think is important, is you said it took you a long time to unwind and settle into the long one, right? Like, there were some times of just Netflixing or whatever, but it took you a long time to actually settle into the groove of being off work. And, you know, I recently got back from a 3.5-week trip and we went to Peru and Colombia, me and some friends. And you and I were talking before the show where we’ve both done the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, which is incredibly challenging altitude and hike and very surreal and peaceful. But you don’t realize how burnt out you are until you take that much time disconnected from the world and, you know, phone off or airplane mode and actually legitimately not working. And it is amazing how good it is for the soul to take that kind of time off and how many ideas you have and how creative you can be and how much flow you can get into. I mean, your energy levels just completely change as a person. So I just wanted to— I think you kind of breezed over that, but I think that’s huge. So I would just encourage people that if you have an opportunity to take vacation— there’s this stigma, I think, in the U.S. a lot of times about taking vacation. There’s a joke, you know, in the military, right? We get 30 days of vacation a year. And it’s like a running joke that nobody wants to take it. You have to ask permission, and it’s like, oh, I don’t want to be the guy who takes vacation time because nobody wants to be that guy. And it’s like, take your vacation time, take it, go travel, enjoy, you know? So I would just encourage, if you have the opportunity to travel and get away from work and actually disconnect, do it. It is so good, because experiences are absolutely— just, I agree, I think they’re like the best thing you could possibly put money into.
Mindy Jensen: Let’s talk about getting back to work after a sabbatical. Was it always your plan to return to work afterwards?
Cindy: Yeah, I think I was pretty open-minded as to what kind of role I returned back to, but I wasn’t in my FIRE journey— I wasn’t at a place where I could just early retire or anything. I was more at the midway point. So enough where I felt comfortable taking some time off, but not enough to never go back to work.
Mindy Jensen: Did you have any pushback from family or friends?
Cindy: Yeah, so I think earlier on when I first had that idea in 2015, 2016, I talked to friends about it, or family, and they kind of laughed about it. And there was a point in time where I opted for— I asked for a severance package because my role was— I was in a different part of the country and they wanted me to move to another part. And I decided to just leave the company altogether with a severance package. And I think I was too scared at that time to just take a little bit of time to really reflect and think about and relax and think about what my next step should be. Instead, I rushed into the next job, which ended up taking me to another part of the country where I ended up being pretty unhappy. And I think about that time, like, had I just taken a little bit of time to reflect and not panic to get another job, I might have found a role that was a better fit for me professionally and personally. Now, I do think things all happen for a reason, but that experience, I got a lot of pushback, like, why would you opt for a severance package? Just move with the company, who cares? That is almost— it’s not quite a sabbatical, but a similar kind of topic where you’re voluntarily quitting your job, so to say, but with severance. So by the time I actually took a sabbatical in 2020, I think at that point I built up enough financial cushion. I definitely had chats with my family and they were actually surprisingly, to me, very supportive, because I think you can’t put a price on mental health. And so there was so much fear built in in the years leading up to it that when it actually happened, I didn’t feel stressed from that kind of financial perspective or any of that sort. And I did feel like I had friend and family support. And at that point, there had been a few friends that had taken sabbaticals of their own and just had glowing reviews of their experience.
Mindy Jensen: Did you plan any part of your sabbatical? Did you spend time thinking about, okay, this is what I’m going to accomplish? Or was it just like, let me decompress for a long time and see what happens?
Cindy: Definitely more of a planner. So like I said, in 2018, I had written out an entire Word document of all the buckets I wanted to do, all the interests I wanted to explore. But when I did take the sabbatical in October 2020, though, it wasn’t like, this month I’m going to do this. I think I’ve since learned that, like you said, it’s good to roll with the punches. So things— it’s amazing when you have the mindspace, what themes, what opportunities come up. So, I think it was October when I started. October, November, December was a lot of just decompressing, deep sea fishing, things like that. January, I decided that I wanted to— I always wanted to try ceramics, so I did ceramics intensely every day for a month, and soon realized, you know, I can’t keep doing this, otherwise I won’t accomplish any of the other things I wanted to do in my sabbatical. By the time February rolled around was when those interviews started, and March was when I picked the consulting gig. So it didn’t quite go how I had planned, but again, it was actually all for the best.
Mindy Jensen: Well, I think it’s interesting that you wrote out all the things that you wanted to do. And the reason that I asked this question is, kind of tying into what you said, it could be like a mini retirement. I have found that people who want to retire, and specifically who want to retire early, get to the point of retirement, and then, what? What am I supposed to do now? They don’t plan for what to do afterwards. They make all these plans to get to retirement, but then retirement comes and they’re like, oh, well, now what? And I think, you know what, I shouldn’t say specifically early retirees. I should say all retirees— there’s, you know, what is it, death by retirement, where you retire and then you’re dead 6 months later because you have nothing to do and work was your purpose. And I think with this, not with a sabbatical, you’re not gonna die in 6 months, but with a sabbatical, you’re not gonna get as much out of it if you don’t plan loosely at least what you’re going to do or how you’re going to take advantage of this time off. Even if your plan is just, I’m gonna take my kid to the park every single day, or I’m going to go to the gym every single day. I’m going to do something 6 days a week, or I’m going to take a new class. I mean, ceramics every day for a month sounds kind of fun, actually. I don’t know that I wanna do ceramics every day for a year, but every day for a month could be really cool. Or, I wanna write a book. So sit down and write, you have to write every day if you’re gonna write. I’m going to do this, I’m going to do that. But having a plan is so much better than just, I’m going to take some time off. There’s my plan.
Cindy: I would actually say, yeah, planning for a sabbatical beyond the financial aspect, I think equally important or more important is mentally, right? So I would say I had planned with the prototyping with that 1 month off. And it’s all about living a more rich life, right? So you can start exploring some of those interests while working. What a sabbatical gives you is you no longer have to be at a certain place at a certain time, like 9 hours or more for corporate workers, working at a job that doesn’t fulfill some of those interests and hobbies that you have. So you’re getting more of that time to have that rich life for yourself. And then another thing that just reminded me is, in August, that month I took off, I was very prescriptive, because I had such a limited time to explore all these things. So it felt hectic and really jam-packed, but it made me feel so alive, like I said. And it’s because I was very intentional and I knew I had a small window of time. Whereas when I left in October, it did feel more nebulous and not as, am I being productive enough, right? Which I think can be a little bit of a fallacy too, because sometimes you just need time to sit with yourself. But that is a thing— I think with a sabbatical where you don’t have a specific end date, or, you know, retirement where you don’t have a specific end date, there is a danger where you think you have more and more time. So I agree, I think there is definitely value to having some structure as well, which I ended up getting a paper planner for. And yeah, there are different techniques you could use to try to introduce more process and structure into your life.
Mindy Jensen: What I have found with my husband, Carl, is that he used to be a lot more like your August sabbatical, where he wanted to do all the things in this one short timeframe. So you just do ’em all the time, and this is how you go all the time, which is not fun. And now I’m trying to convince him that you can be more nebulous, and it’s totally okay to just sit with yourself and think. And it is 100% valid to read a book that doesn’t teach you anything. So he picks up Stephen King’s It. I’m like, the one book that scared me to death? No, don’t leave that in the bedroom, face up, with that creepy clown on the front. Yeah, no thank you, sir. But it’s 100% okay to read a book that you enjoy that doesn’t teach you a thing. Valid, 100%, I agree with that. I like a minimal plan, like a loose outline even. Just, hey, today I need to do 3 things, and here’s my list of 1,000, so I need to pick 3 of those things. As opposed to—
Cindy: I would say another thing with sabbaticals is that each sabbatical could be very different. And for me, after taking that August one and then the long one, I was like, this has been so valuable that I see myself taking more in the future. And it doesn’t have to be a certain way. I ended up taking another mini sabbatical for 2 months this past summer, because I ended up changing jobs to the other job that was the dream job. The sabbatical was something that was a gift I kept giving, because I ended up getting two jobs from that sabbatical, and that sabbatical, those last two months in June and July, was very different from either of the previous two, in that— the pandemic had opened up travel again. So this one I focused on the things that I had traditionally thought I would take on as a sabbatical in the past, whereas I was able to travel to Cabo and Iceland and take trips with friends and family. And so I think, yeah, there is no rhyme or reason to what a sabbatical could look like, even for a single person. And I’m just so thankful I had the opportunity to do that travel, because I think, through the sabbatical and living that richer life leading up to it, you just realize at the end of the day it just comes down to people and having the time and spending the time to cultivate and develop that community, whether it’s local or long distance— it just was so refreshing. And so, when I did come to this new job, I just felt ready to tackle it, and it’s been a great experience so far.
Mindy Jensen: That’s awesome. Did you have to explain your sabbatical to your employers, or did they kind of get the concept?
Cindy: Yeah, that’s a good question, because I think one of the fears is, how are you going to explain the gap on your resume? And what I found was there was no questioning of it. In fact, if you did bring up your sabbatical in the interviews, it was like a plus. People either said, oh, I’ve taken sabbaticals before, and got really excited, or there are people who say, I wish I could take a sabbatical, what did you end up doing? And it just actually became more of a talking point to connect with others than necessarily something that you kind of have to hide and try to explain away as a negative. And again, I think mileage may vary. There are probably certain careers that better lend to, or where sabbaticals are more common. I wasn’t a computer engineer or anything, so I did have that fear as a marketer that it’s not as common, that I wouldn’t be able to explain it. But it turned out I was able to— it became more of a positive than a negative.
David Pere: So, what’s next? Do you have a plan in place to try to take some more sabbaticals, or are you at a point, do you think, financially, where you’re going to be able to just walk away soon?
Cindy: So, I’m in a place where I’ve been in a year-long escrow process on a new construction home in LA, which hopefully will close in the next 2 months. But that will definitely slow down my FIRE journey, but that’s intentional. I realized I wanted to set down roots and, you know, I love LA, and it’s a great fit for the kind of life I want to lead and the community I have here. So, but I still think— this is an arbitrary number— I always had wanted to retire at 45, and crunching the numbers, I feel like I could still get there. But, you know, this job I’m at is awesome. It is a tech job and it’s fully remote, and a very different type of culture from other jobs I’ve worked at. And I just feel that, hopefully, things go well and I just continue at this job until early retirement, but we’ll figure it out. And even if I end up wanting to change directions or go to a different job, I don’t really have fears about taking another sabbatical at some point in these next, you know, 10 years or 8 years or so. So, yeah.
David Pere: Absolutely. What side of LA are you building on?
Cindy: South Bay. So it’s in Gardena. It’s more of a gentrifying neighborhood, but I love all the great food that’s around it and its more central location.
David Pere: Yeah, not too shabby. Not too shabby.
Mindy Jensen: So Cindy, do you have any bits, any last pieces of advice for people who are considering a sabbatical?
Cindy: Yeah, I think a sabbatical can be whatever you make out of it, and what you can’t—you don’t know until you jump, I guess. And you have to have faith that things happen for a reason. I think a really great step is to be able to talk to different people who have done sabbaticals to get a sense of what their experiences are like. Each sabbatical can be so different, so again, there’s no one way to do things. For me, a lot of the value came from that mindset shift—that kind of unlocking of experiences now is actually worth more than just squirreling away money and investing it necessarily. I definitely found that I was much more stressed and anxious before taking sabbaticals. It was all about striving and achievement, and now I’m much more able to find that inner peace and that equanimity. Sometimes it’s worth it to go slow to go fast. And the funny thing with anything in life is that once you do it once, it becomes much easier to do it again—strengthening that muscle of resilience and being resourceful and being open-minded to new experiences. New experiences like a sabbatical can pay so many more dividends than you would even expect. So I would definitely suggest everyone explore the concept of a sabbatical. It could be one month like my first one, or nine months, or even two months—it really can be any size and any kind of experience. But it’s just so rewarding to be able to take that time and that mind space to explore something new.
Mindy Jensen: That’s awesome, Cindy. Thank you so much today for coming on and sharing your story. I think this is going to be super helpful for people who are kind of on the fence about taking time off. It seems like it doesn’t really affect you career-wise, which is—yeah, you know, I’m a little older than you, and any gap in your resume a while back would’ve been like the kiss of death. “Oh, can you explain this gap?” “Um, it took me a month to find a job.” “Oh, well, we can’t hire you either then.” It just seemed like anything was such an awful experience. I mean, I remember fudging some numbers on my resume—don’t tell my employer. In the past, I would fudge my numbers because you don’t want to say that you had a month off. So you’d be like, “Oh, from 9 of 2020 to 9 of 2021 is when I worked here,” even though it was really like August, and you didn’t get a new job till October. So it looks like there’s no overlap, but maybe there was a month. I don’t know—is that wrong to admit on a podcast?
Cindy: To add to that—actually—
David Pere: Shame.
Cindy: Not only did I find a better job that was a better fit culturally and interest-wise, but I also got a higher title and a higher salary. Sometimes you can’t do that unless you take that break, that mental break. And this is something I’ve heard from other friends who’ve taken sabbaticals as well—they actually ended up finding better roles where they’re much happier.
Mindy Jensen: Well, we didn’t talk about any downsides. Did you experience any downsides with your sabbatical? I just always thought it was great—I didn’t even think about maybe there being a downside.
Cindy: I mean, the downside is, yes, I would have loved to keep investing in the stock market while it was down. But you know what? I don’t think those experiences I had on sabbatical—they were much, much more worthwhile than the extra money I put in for investing. And I think the first two months of the sabbatical, I did feel a little bit guilty, like, “Am I making the most of it?” It didn’t feel like the August month that I had off. So that’s why it’s so important to start investing in that full life before you even get to the sabbatical, or early retirement, so to say. I think that’s where a lot of the pitfalls would be—more in that mental mindset.
Mindy Jensen: I love it. Cindy, again, thank you so much for your time today. Where can people find more about you?
Cindy: You can find me on—
Mindy Jensen: Are you still on FI to FIRE?
Cindy: I am on FI to FIRE. Yeah, you can find me at fitofire.com.
David Pere: I love that.
Mindy Jensen: What’s the biggest fish you caught?
Cindy: Bluefin tuna in Southern California. Yeah, it’s great to be able to catch your own fish—no commercial bycatch or anything—and it’s just the freshest sushi you could ever have. So it’s fun.
Mindy Jensen: Okay, Cindy, thank you so much, and we’ll talk to you soon.
Cindy: All right, thank you.
Mindy Jensen: All right, David, that was Cindy with her amazing story of a mini sabbatical, a longer sabbatical, and then yet another sabbatical. I love what she had to say near the end of the show. She said once you do it once, it’s easier to do it again. She’s taken a one-month, a nine-month, and a two-month sabbatical. I love that. I love the idea of just taking a little bit of a mini break. Now I gotta go talk to Scott.
David Pere: Good luck with that. Have fun.
Mindy Jensen: So a couple of takeaways that I have from this episode—the 100 list. That is such a great idea. Sit down and write out whatever it is you’re thinking of, your 100 list. If you’re thinking of changing careers, write down 100 different careers that you could do. If you’re thinking about going on a sabbatical, write down 100 things that you want to do. Write out a bucket list—like that movie, The Bucket List. I thought that was really cute. I think that’s a really great idea, to have a list of all the things that you want to do, and you keep adding to it as you cross things off. And as you cross things off and add more things to it—ooh, I forgot about this, I forgot about this—it’s an ever-expanding list of things that you want to do. But I think having these ideas, having this written down, is so valuable and so important, and seeing it in black and white can show you this is possible. That 100 list—holy cannoli—if you’re struggling with something, if you’re at a crossroads, if you’re trying to think, “What should I do next?” Sit down and write out your 100 list and see what you get.
David Pere: Yeah, I think for me, one of the bigger takeaways—and this is something that really is just a big takeaway because I had this epiphany last month personally—is just how little we realize how burnt out we are, and how much you actually need that break, and how long it’s going to take you to settle into that break, and how important it is. So taking those breaks and legitimately taking the break—actually disconnecting from your phone, putting it on airplane mode, going on a hike out in the middle of nowhere, or traveling to another country, or whatever that looks like for you—but actually disconnecting and going off with friends and doing something to experience a new culture or a new place, or just spending time in thought or something, is so important to your well-being. And when you come back, it seems so counterintuitive because you’re like, “Oh man, I’m so busy, there’s no way I can afford to take time off, and I’m gonna get behind, and I’m not gonna be able to do XYZ, and I can’t afford to do da da da da da.” The reality is—I would argue that you may not be able to afford not to, because you’re just going to continue to get burned out, and you just don’t realize how burnt out you are. So I went away, and whatever, and I come back, and it’s like, I have been so productive in the two weeks I’ve been back. I mean, I’ve produced an entire course, I’ve revamped a business plan, I’ve drafted an entire journal planner from start to finish and redrafted it and sent it to a designer and a formatter. It’s been kind of crazy, the amount of stuff that I’ve gotten done in the two weeks. And I think I’ve recorded nine podcasts. It’s been busy. And so I would just encourage you to take those breaks and give yourself time to recharge and experience life, because you don’t realize how much you need it.
Mindy Jensen: Oh, that was fantastic. We’re going to end it right there because that was perfect. We’ve come to the end of this episode of the BiggerPockets Money Podcast. He is David Pere. David, tell them where they can find you.
David Pere: Every social platform, at either Military Millionaire or From Military to Millionaire.
Mindy Jensen: And I am Mindy Jensen, saying grab that brass ring.
