<UPDATED>Breaking the Golden Handcuffs: A Journey to True Happiness with Nic Jones

Brett Trainor (: 00:02

Hey Nick, welcome to the Corporate Escape-y Podcast.

Nic Jones (: 00:05

Thanks very much, Brett. Great to be here.

Brett Trainor (: 00:07

It's absolutely my pleasure and it's good we're going back down under even though you are originally from the UK, right? So we're hitting the globe on this one.

Nic Jones (: 00:15

Yes, born in the UK, moved to Australia in 88, moved back to the UK in 2008 for work, then to San Francisco and then back to Australia in 2017.

Brett Trainor (: 00:32

Awesome and as people are actually seeing this video see I've got the fireplace on in the background here in Chicago and Nick's probably getting ready to go to the beach after we're done hanging out.

Nic Jones (: 00:41

No, I'm in the middle of a shift. So I'm off work at the moment back on at local time, 2 o'clock this afternoon. And yes, you're right. As you probably can see from the background, the sun is shining. We probably have about, I don't know, 28 degrees, which is, I don't know, quickly maybe in the 70s in Fahrenheit over here at the moment.

Brett Trainor (: 01:01

beautiful. We're already missing those days. It hasn't been gone that long, but now we're starting to the hibernation process. anyway, so again, welcome and maybe start, cause I know you're going to be the first guest that we have on the podcast with the post escapey career that you're doing now. So maybe for the guests, share a little bit of what you are doing. You just mentioned your team shifts. So what are you doing?

Nic Jones (: 01:28

Yeah. So I'm a bus driver and thoroughly fulfilled and happy bus driver. I've been doing it now for eight months. In fact, tomorrow is my eighth month anniversary, so to speak. And yeah, it's it's been a corporate career of something in the region of 40 years in media and music.

And now, yes, here I am driving buses.

Brett Trainor (: 02:01

And you're being modest with the corporate career because you definitely had, you know, we all define success differently, but leadership roles across the globe with some, big companies, the C-suite. And originally I had heard you on a different podcast and then read your posts that started this whole thing. Cause you posted on LinkedIn. I'll put it in the show notes, you know, what was it teaching old dog a new trick. Right. and I was just fascinated because, know, that's one thing in my, my journey, the five.

Nic Jones (: 02:24

Yes, old dog needs tricks.

Brett Trainor (: 02:32

past years is still trying to figure out where it's going, what I want to do. And to see that you kind of walked away from the corporate career and then you started a company that shut down or walked away from and then said, you know what, I'm done. Give me the least amount of responsibility that I'm paraphrasing from American duty, job possible and just rediscover what you're doing.

So maybe just give us the quick overview of what you were doing in corporate because I think 99.9 % of our audience is in corporate. So they'll definitely appreciate the journey.

Nic Jones (: 03:06

Sure. So the very quick potted history, as you said, I was born and grew up in in London, went to uni in the UK, got into media, worked in media in the UK in magazines till 1988 when I then decided to go traveling and thought, go and have a year or two in Australia. I was

of the view that, you know, it'd be fun to do it, to travel for a while and then go back to the UK and take up, you know, pick up my career. I came to Australia and never left effectively. So I was in media here in that, that, in that time worked for a large newspaper company here called Fairfax Sydney morning, Herald Australian financial review, discovered this thing called the internet and decided it was the future.

helped set up a new internet company over here called Nine MSN. That was a partnership with the Bill Gates run and Steve Barmer run Microsoft and a local player here, Kerry Packer. Then went and ran Yahoo, which obviously everybody will know of, but managed to run Yahoo in its...

Brett Trainor (: 04:29

Yes.

Nic Jones (: 04:33

in its most tumultuous phase, which was, I think I'm the employee that started, because everybody had options. I was the employee that started with the highest ever strike price, because Yahoo was right at the top. And you were able to start vesting your options a year later. And a year later, my strike price went from 200 US to nine US.

So clearly, clearly I was not able to purchase any of my options because they were worthless. Did that for a while. And then went and worked for Rupert Murdoch and ran his digital businesses in the region for five years. And then basically decided that was time to do my own thing and ended up doing consulting to an advertising agency.

who in their wisdom decided that they wanted me to come and run in Mia for them. So based in London. I moved by this time, my family with three children over to London. figured it would be great for them to find out where, where dad grew up. And again, that the idea of that was for a couple of years and we ended up staying eight and then found my advertising agencies and I maybe didn't quite work so well.

Brett Trainor (: 05:46

Yeah.

Nic Jones (: 05:58

found my dream job, which was the setup of Vivo, music video company. And I set up all of Vivo's international businesses, 17 countries based in London. I'm a music nut. Music is everything to me. And the idea that you could actually work in an industry that you felt so passionate about was just amazing. And I did that for six years.

Brett Trainor (: 06:04

Yeah, yeah.

Nic Jones (: 06:27

And then it was time for the family to come home. I carried on in San Francisco for a while, for 18 months while they sort of moved back home where the headquarters were and became a chief revenue officer. But in the end, that was impossible to manage. So came back to Australia and I then came back to Australia to run a public listed company, a marketing company for two years. And.

then decided to set up my live music business. So recording bands, putting them up on the web, getting people to pay to watch. And that was going swimmingly. We did really well in Australia. We wanted to launch it in the, well, I mean, it was global, but we needed to money to fund it properly in the UK and the US. What I thought was an amazing opportunity with a public, with a private equity company, American One.

Brett Trainor (: 07:15

Yeah.

Nic Jones (: 07:25

who were gonna put all this money in and they never put the money in. And so we went back and forth for about a year. And that's at the point where it really dawned on me and we've sort of briefly talked about this earlier. Purpose was never really anything I thought about in terms of my career. I guess you get defined by what you are as a career. And a couple of times actually in my career, I've been at

people's dues and they've talked about their career. And I've sat there, I've stood there listening to them talk and thought, when I leave work in the end, do I want to be known as an amazing CEO? Or do I actually, is it more important to be known as an amazing father or amazing friend or an amazing husband? What's more important? And that was all, that all kind of...

was brought to a head because in January, while this money was literally the money was supposed to come in on the 12th of January, on the 6th of January, my father passed in London. So I needed to go back to the UK, sort out his affairs and obviously funeral. And it was at that point when it was clear and we started going through this process of chasing the money that the money wasn't going to come. But I started to think about actually, I should be doing something with my life that

Brett Trainor (: 08:30

no.

Nic Jones (: 08:48

is not so focused on my career, but is more focused on the life I want to lead and the way I need. I felt for a long time, I've had no headspace. You work literally seven days a week on your own business and you just get to a point where you feel like there is no time to smell the roses. And, you talk about success. mean, success is a very sort of subjective thing.

Brett Trainor (: 09:15

Right.

Nic Jones (: 09:15

Because I think the most successful person is the happiest person as opposed to the one who's earned the most money. But you get to this point and go, I've worked so hard. When do I actually have the time to start thinking a bit differently about life and about what I do? And as a five year old, I wanted to be a bus driver. used to sit in the bus with my mum in England in double decker buses you could sit.

on the lower deck at the front and the driver was in front of you and you had a glass screen between you can actually see everything he did. And I, that was the seat I always wanted to sit in. And while, and I'm sure we'll come onto this while, while you're going through this transition period for me, there's never, and I'm not this person that can go back, right? That's it. I'm going to do something completely different. I had to go through a number of processes, both mental and I suppose kind of grieving.

Brett Trainor (: 10:05

Yeah.

Nic Jones (: 10:13

and I'm not talking about my dad here, saying, well, I'll take one step. So my first thing was, well, if I'm going to be a bus driver, I'll need a license. So why don't I go and get the license? Because that's not going to, know, license, could be useful one day, even if I don't do bus driving. So each time I took one more step. So, you know, I'll get the license, I got the license.

And then, you know, it looked like the money might come through. And I said to my wife, look, I'm not going to do the bus driving thing. I think the money's going to come through. And she said, no, you keep going because it might not come through it. Of course she was right as she often is. and so then you go, okay, what's the next step? Well, I need to be trained. Well, why don't I do the training? And I'll, and I, you know, and I talked to my board and I said, look, I'm going to do this training to be a bus driver.

Brett Trainor (: 10:50

Sorry.

Nic Jones (: 11:04

But if I don't become a bus driver, I'll have to pay the money back. And they said, look, if our money comes through, we'll pay for your training. So you go and do it. each time I was facilitated to take the next step. And at the end, at the end of the process, you do get to that point where you go, right, the next thing to do is actually do the job. So am I going to do it? And I think all of those little steps, I mean, that, that process took me three months. And at the end of the three months, that's the point.

Brett Trainor (: 11:23

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 11:30

Okay.

Nic Jones (: 11:34

when it was okay, again, I'm gonna do it, but I'll do it for six months. I'll do it for six months. And if it's not right, then in six months, I'll say, look, I tried that and I'll, so all the time in my head, there's this idea of I suppose a safety net where I could always switch and I could go back and do something else. So that's a very, very long answer to you, but hopefully that gives the listeners a bit of a flavor of that process, which we can obviously do in four bit.

Brett Trainor (: 12:02

Yeah, no, that's fantastic. It's exactly right. Cause we've all been through various journeys of it. And as funny as you're talking about the, the origin of the bus driver, because I was the, in my family, was the first one to go to university, right? College. And I had no idea what the business world, I just didn't write. didn't grow up that way. My mom and dad were blue collar workers. And my goal right in high school, I'm like, yeah, I'll be a game warden. Right. And that's in the States. That's where you.

Nic Jones (: 12:29

I know what it is. Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 12:31

patrol the lakes for fishermen. I like, right outdoors all the time. I'm like, God, that would be fantastic. And then just slowly got bit by the corporate bug and started climbing the corporate ladder and chasing all that. And pretty soon, you know, you're 25 years into it you're like, Whoa, where did that go? And what am I doing? And interesting in your journey. I'm guessing though, that you were probably hitting that pivot point earlier and you didn't realize it.

Do you think maybe because you started your own music company, was that the first step of trying to get freedom back?

Nic Jones (: 13:02

Yeah, look, so it's interesting, right? All I mean, in all of that, obviously, things like COVID happened in the, you know, in the more recent past. And one of the things about COVID that was really interesting, it supercharged the internet and the idea of video conferencing. mean, at Vivo back in sort of 2010, we were looking for

Brett Trainor (: 13:09

You're right.

Nic Jones (: 13:30

video conferencing platforms where we could, cause I said, I launched 17 businesses around the world. I wanted to have global conferences like this and every one of them, even the early days, we were, we were one of the very earliest adopters of zoom, but even the early days at Google hangouts, they'd all crash and it wouldn't work. So there was this whole idea that the world was, the world was changing.

Brett Trainor (: 13:52

Yeah.

Nic Jones (: 13:59

And to me, the idea of working from home was a really foreign concept. I yeah, I live in a pretty nice house, you know, and I was thinking, why will these people want to work from home? You know, a lot of, a lot of people that work for me are in their twenties. They live, some of them live in shared accommodation and it's really small. I've at least got, you know, a few rooms I could go with. I've got a dog that I can go and walk and a decent back garden, you know, those kinds of things. So.

Brett Trainor (: 14:19

All right.

Nic Jones (: 14:29

That process of working from home, kind of forced me to start thinking differently about what a work-life balance might be. Because to me, there's that physical, I'm going to work now. And there's also, I'm very good at compartmentalizing things in my head. So there was always that thing, when I worked for Murdoch, I used to have to drive over

two bridges and the second coming home and the second bridge was that mental moment where I just lost work. And when I drove over that second bridge, I was no longer working. Of course, you could get phoned at any time during the night, whatever. But there was that whole idea of I'm leaving work behind. And I quite kind of like that physical separation between work and home. But ultimately, it all starts to sort of mold into one.

Brett Trainor (: 15:14

Yeah.

Nic Jones (: 15:28

So yeah, you're right. The process did start, but I was unaware of it starting. And it kind of creeps up on you, I suppose.

Brett Trainor (: 15:38

Yeah, it's interesting because I had started working from home and again, until I started to go through this process of now five year journey right out of corporate or consulting at that point in time. And my vision or purpose, well, it wasn't even purpose. I shared with you offline, right? It was, I can make more money and do this on my own, I think. Then I'm like, whoa, I got more time back. I really liked this time, which I forgot that even existed within the corporate world sometimes.

then the freedom, and then all of a sudden now purpose. Those three things wouldn't have even been on my radar when I was still in consulting, right? But in hindsight, it made perfect sense because I had, when I looked back and started to reflect on it, you know, our corporate life is, we run around, we build our life around the corporate job, right? Depending on what you're doing, where you're going for you, definitely. Cause it's traveled and global. And now all of a sudden, like, why can't we flip that?

Nic Jones (: 16:13

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 16:35

Right? Why can't I build my life? And I think that's what a lot of Gen Xers, at least we're now at that point, we're like, what are we doing? Right? And the other thing I'll say for me is when I stopped climbing the corporate ladder, stop looking for that next promotion or that next, you know, get to how do I get into the C suite or how do do that? That's when this whole thing started to go re-examine it. What am I doing? Right? Because it's just all of sudden you had that purpose right, wrong or indifferent.

Nic Jones (: 16:36

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 17:05

it's gone and now we're, again, hopefully willing and physical, we've got another 25 years to figure out what we still want to do. So I look at this as a huge opportunity.

Nic Jones (: 17:17

Yeah. And I've never seen that again. I've never seen that split between work and retirement as a cliff. I've always thought of it as a process that you work through. mean, one of the things with bus driving as well was also, so maybe over time I become part time and I'll do it. And, know, I'm, I am a traveler and the Vivo job in particular was crazy, crazy traveling. mean, my family.

had to put up with a lot on the basis that for there was a 18 month period where I did not stay one week in the same country. And we're not and we're not talking like being in London and going to Europe. You know, my three or, you know, in fact, four pivot points were New York, where I needed to be most often, San Francisco, where the head office was London, where I still kind of

harbored a view of a home and Sydney where my family moved to. So, you know, that's a, that's a round, that's around the world trip, right? So for a long time, I was doing the, you know, leave San Francisco on a Thursday night, arrive in Sydney on a Friday night, leave Sydney on a Sunday morning, arrive in San Francisco on a Sunday afternoon. And then during the week be, you know, going all over the place.

Brett Trainor (: 18:25

Yeah.

Nic Jones (: 18:47

But it's interesting that idea of, you know, I guess what the world offers. And as I said, I'm a traveler. So for me, I'm also very conscious that there's only a limited time where your health and indeed your, you know, your body and your mind wants to travel. So I'm very sure that at some juncture in the next however many years I've got,

Brett Trainor (: 19:09

Right.

Nic Jones (: 19:15

there'll be times where my wife and I will go, right, we're going to go away for three months and, you know, go and live, you know, I don't know. I've, I've, I've long harbored this view that there's a go and live in a country of a language I can't speak and just try and make it work for a few months. And I love that idea of the challenge of it, of communicating. And I figured they'll have to speak Spanish because everybody tells me Spanish is one of the easiest languages to learn.

Although I can a little bit of French from years and years ago, but I don't know. But you know, that whole idea of mixing it up and then maybe you come back and you come back and then you work again for six months and then you go travel. I don't know. It's I think it's very important to me anyway. It's very important to view everything as a whole rather than to just say, right, well, I'm retired now because I I see too many people who retire and kind of

Brett Trainor (: 19:59

Yeah.

Nic Jones (: 20:14

fall off the tweak very quickly because they don't have, again, that purpose of what to do.

Brett Trainor (: 20:16

Yeah.

And I think too, the other thing is you you just mentioned go to foreign country, you don't speak the language is challenge yourself. Right. I mean, when I hit the age of 50, when this whole process started for me, I just became, you know, all I want to do is learn, learn, learn, learn everything I'm doing. Started podcasts, learn, take time, stupid stuff and grand scheme of things, but challenge yourself to, I mean, I don't know if I've been this energized and you use the word happy.

in the last three years than probably the last 10. And I had a lot of really good things happen with family, kids, everybody. And I've told this story before. was after the fact, it was in management consulting. And on the surface, everything looked good, right? Good job. They paid me well. The three girls are all doing great. Everybody's doing fine. But after two years of being out, my wife's like, what the hell was the matter with you? Right? It just...

Nic Jones (: 20:52

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 21:14

And at the time I'm like, I don't know, right? But I wasn't happy. Something wasn't, wasn't there. And the more people I talked to in the community and elsewhere, we're all kind of at that point where there's a wave of a lot of us, right? That have a lot of experience in trying to figure out what's next. And even with this, it's been, go ahead.

Nic Jones (: 21:32

Yeah, well, as a little anecdote, we have wonderful neighbors, both sides, but on that side, they're in their 80s and we love them dearly and we're very, very close. And they've been away for a while and they came back and we saw them a couple of weeks ago and we talk over the garden wall and actually my wife during COVID started a Thursday night drinks because she was worried about them.

Brett Trainor (: 21:40

Thank you.

Nic Jones (: 22:01

because their kids live overseas and a long way away. So, you know, check on them. So we used to have when we weren't allowed to, when we weren't allowed to sort of go anywhere for a while, we started having Thursday afternoon drinks. So we put the drinks on the, on the wall between us and we talk and that's gone on forever since. we're, you know, it's a wonderful thing, but anyway, they came back and we were talking to them last week or a couple of weeks ago and,

Brett Trainor (: 22:04

Okay.

Brett Trainor (: 22:20

That was awesome.

Nic Jones (: 22:27

And one of them said, how are the boys? So I have two boys, one lives here, one lives in the Gold Coast and a daughter who lives in Northern New South Wales. And the one that lives here, they said, we spoke to him and we asked him how you both were. And he said, I've never seen dad so happy. Now that's not a 21 year old thing to say at all. But it really hit me when he said that.

Brett Trainor (: 22:46

Alright.

Brett Trainor (: 22:51

No, right.

Nic Jones (: 22:55

when I was told that he'd said that because it's wow, you know, that's a really, well, it's insightful, but it's something that, you know, I would never dreamt that I would have heard, you know? And that goes to this whole idea of not how you perceive yourself, but how the people you love perceive you and see you and who are around you and that I suppose in the vibes you give off.

Brett Trainor (: 23:21

Yeah, no, a hundred percent. Literally just yesterday, my wife's like, I don't know, because sometimes I'm too optimistic for her or too happy. And she's like, I'm like, you know what? I'm choosing. I'm okay with this, right? The cynicism is gone. If you follow my TikTok, you think is this the same guy, but it really is that, but yeah, it annoys her sometimes that I'm this, this happy or just, I'm like, it's okay. So I'm slowly winning her over to come to my side and say, like, let's focus on the positive things that are happening.

the one thing I do have to ask was again, everything's relative, but you know, the, I get a lot from the community or is the hand, the golden handcuffs, right? The money. And here we've got the challenge of benefits and insurance, right? It's more of it's still psychological, but it's baked into our corporate culture. And that's keeping a lot of people unhappy doing things they don't like just to keep the salary and the benefits.

Nic Jones (: 24:00

Yeah. Yeah.

Nic Jones (: 24:17

Yeah. Yeah. So look, money is it's a really important thing to talk about in in this environment, because it is probably the biggest hurdle. I, you know, I look back on my, on my career. And one of the biggest drivers for me, and I guess it's probably, I don't know if it's drummed into us by the society.

that we grew up in, but was, know, you've got to provide. And so for me, there was always this idea of, you must be able to provide for your family. Now, I suffer from a bit of imposter syndrome. So I've always spent my, I've always spent my life at times of my life going, so what happens if this all gets taken away? What am I going to do? What's my plan B plan C plan D, whatever.

Brett Trainor (: 24:51

Yeah.

Nic Jones (: 25:17

And so I've always thought that way. So even in the really, really good times financially, I've always been thinking, well, okay, I could not be, you know, I could not be paid tomorrow and I could lose my job. What would I do and how would I do it? And, know, so I am very conscious of money and providing. although, as of last week, cause my son just finished, my youngest son just finished uni. I, you know, for the first time in

Brett Trainor (: 25:33

Right?

Nic Jones (: 25:47

ridiculously, you know, 30 odd years, I don't have any children in further or in education or further education. So there's, there's the point at which you have to think about when is enough enough. And actually, my wife and I had this conversation many, many years ago, when we were both on careers that were still, you know, we hoped still going like that. When will we know when it's

Brett Trainor (: 26:13

Right.

Nic Jones (: 26:16

when enough is enough. I am not Rupert Murdoch who wants to basically die in the office and I've worked and say I've worked for 80, 70 years or whatever. So the idea being that you then start, you have to organize your life into priorities. And so yes, golden handcuffs mean things like mortgages,

in Australia, particularly school fees, if you don't want to go with the public system. Australia is very big on private education. And all of the things that come with the lifestyle you've built around you. It's a it's a it's a really tough decision and set of decisions to make. But I've always found in those times

actually, it's the fear of the unknown. So you have to start writing things down. You have to start writing things down about what are our outgoings? What are our incomings? What do we actually need to survive on? Could we take a hit of me not working for six months? We had to find that out because through, you know, things like COVID, there was no money coming in for a while. And so you literally have to sit down and go, okay,

What are our reserves and what do we, how do we change our life? What do we stop doing? That's costing us money. What can we spend less money on all of those things? And it's a, you know, it's an ugly thing to talk about, but it's, it's real. And so for me, my wife's a spreadsheet queen. So, you know, you get the spreadsheet and you start writing and, know, if you're going to apply for, I don't know, a bank loan or a housing loan or whatever, banks force you to do this anyway, which is, you know, what are your outgoings? What are your incomeings?

and I'd, I'd really rather not have to think about that, but that's what you do. so, you know, I am number one, incredibly privileged in that I've had a good career where there, you know, I have earned some money and so we're not on the bread line. And I am able to say, I can take a hit on what I earn so I can afford to live a fine life, earning less money than you do as a CEO.

Nic Jones (: 28:39

public listed company. And bus driving, you know, it doesn't pay badly. mean, but clearly it's no comparison to a corporate salary. So you start thinking about what matters. And I think if you're talking about Gen X's, there's also, you know, when you get into your 50s, there's life transitions happening, which are things like kids coming out of school, going into uni, or coming out of

Brett Trainor (: 28:41

All

Brett Trainor (: 28:47

Sure.

Nic Jones (: 29:09

school and going into apprenticeships or whatever or jobs and start to think about so how does the money going out change and how can I affect that? The one thing I'll say over and above and it's a glib thing to say and I did use the word happy earlier that there is nothing that is more rich than feeling happy and on

the basis of the life you can lead, you know, so maybe I need to drive. mean, you know, when I was when I was in the core in the corporate life years ago, I used to get company cars and your seniority is going back in England. Your seniority was based on how good the car was that you drove. The company gave you. So there was this constant. I need a bigger car. I need a better car. You know, and so there's a point at which you might go, well, maybe I don't need

Brett Trainor (: 30:00

Yeah, interesting.

Nic Jones (: 30:07

that car. And I can't believe I'm hearing myself say this, but that's the kind of stuff that you have to think about. So it's about priorities. It's about setting out what matters the most. And it's got to be a, it's got to be a community decision, whoever your community is, where you start to talk about, you know, I mean, we, we literally talk to our boys about, so there might

come a point where we can't put you into private education. And this is what it means. And this is, know, how we'll manage it. But that idea of we talk long and hard, should we talk to them about it? And the truth is, we didn't have to go down that path. And there was a there was a side of me going, no, we don't want to worry them about it. But when we actually thought, No, we are going to have to go down that path, then

Brett Trainor (: 30:59

Right.

Nic Jones (: 31:04

conversation was well we need to tell them we need to give them some time to adapt to that as it turned out that isn't what had to happen but you know those are those are things you just don't hear people talk about because it's kind of maybe it's the Englishness in me but you don't you don't you don't you don't talk about money and you don't talk about those kind of things you know

Brett Trainor (: 31:20

I don't think so.

Brett Trainor (: 31:26

No, you're right. And again, through my journey, we've, kind of, my wife, was fortunate she could stay home with the girls throughout the thing. And so it was one side, knew the paychecks coming in. We knew what we had and probably for the 30 years, our conversations, we knew we were covering, we, we chose private schools for the kids as well. That it would, just didn't have that real deep money conversation until I went out on my left corporate and went on my own.

And the first year was hard because she was really the fear of the unknown was huge, right? There's no paycheck coming in. had no idea what I'm doing for the business. And so now she is, it's completely, it's even worse with her. And so we made the decision probably about a year and a half ago to start doing quarterly business reviews with, but what it's turned into is more of a life review. And I would say over the last, I guess it's now been two years where we talk about, all right, here's what I'm doing with the business. Here's what we have coming in.

Here's what we have for expenses, right? We've got two more daughters. We've got a couple of weddings coming down that we know we've got to look for. But when we started thinking, all right, what are our true expenses? We're in a house that at some point now we can downsize, that our expenses have slowed down quite a bit. And we really now are intentional about thinking, what do we want to do? Where do we need to have the money? And what kind of money do we need to have? And it's just, to your point, it completely changed it.

And the last thing I'll say off of just coming to what you said, because I'm on board, was I started thinking I used to want to optimize just for the cash flow. But now I'm thinking I want to optimize for that happiness. And when I started to think down to me, what is it? It's the wellness, Mental and physical. I want to live for a while, so I've got to take care of that. It is financial, right? Are you able to pay the bills or is that putting stress on you? And then the kind of relationships, are you able to...

to take advantage and if you can focus there, then it just changes the equation away from the money. It's never going away, but I was shocked when actually talking to other GenXers that are happy, right? This is the path that they've gone down. Like, so when I started this whole journey, I thought it was more money, right? We just that, but it seems collectively, maybe it's the age, it's, I don't know what it is, but it's.

Brett Trainor (: 33:47

the priorities are shifting and you had mentioned something in another interview I saw about if the money is that big of an issue and it's only about the money then you maybe need to realign your values. I'm paraphrasing what you said but I mean I think that's...

Brett Trainor (: 34:23

Okay.

Brett Trainor (: 34:42

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 35:23

Yeah, no. I think part of what I've been doing with the community is it's grown when I start first providing some education again, it was just my experience and journey. But now we've got much of others sharing it. It was about, all right, how do you get that job and start your solo business and generate revenue? But what I'm finding is that first step is, know, really, what do you want? Right. What's going to make you happy? And then then it can start the process of going down that path because you're right. It's just

Life's too damn short, right? And I shared that you were kind enough to reschedule because my first granddaughter was born last week. And basically I shut down for a week, right? She came a little bit early, so I had to reshuffle. But I thinking if I was still in consulting, there's no way that I would have been able to do that. And I'm like, wow, what a missed opportunity.

Brett Trainor (: 37:59

Hehehehe

Brett Trainor (: 38:18

Praise.

Brett Trainor (: 38:53

sauce.

Brett Trainor (: 39:21

Right. Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 39:44

No, not at all. You may have been, yeah, no. Especially if you're on the junior end of that asking, just wouldn't have happened. Yeah, you would hope it seems like corporate's pushing the other direction even more control than that, but I guess, yeah. But if you're working for yourself, you're the boss, so you can figure it out. The one last topic I did want to talk to you about, because I know we're flying through time.

And I think it's important one, because I kind of struggled with this, was you didn't tell anybody your post, right? And I said, I'll link to the post. Was it for six months in or that you were, this is what you were doing? Because you were, well, I'll let you just tell the story because I think it's a great lesson.

Brett Trainor (: 41:28

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 42:08

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 42:41

Right.

Brett Trainor (: 43:31

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 43:49

Right.

Brett Trainor (: 44:40

100%.

Brett Trainor (: 45:40

Hahaha

Brett Trainor (: 45:43

Hey, if this bus thing doesn't work out, right, we got you.

Brett Trainor (: 46:23

through that.

Brett Trainor (: 46:53

Sure.

Brett Trainor (: 47:36

I so. think there's quite a few. Because I didn't tell anybody for the first two years after I left corporate and I'm not sure why, but until I owned it and that's when things started to turn. So yeah, it's just good advice. I know I'm sure there's a bunch of folks thinking out there that we didn't even cover any what you're going to do afterwards. We asked bus drivers if we can do these things, but I have not spent enough time on this podcast with the mental side of this.

know, the purpose and again, first to your point, there's folks that just want to make money. I still think you can make more money going solo than some of these corporate and you're going to run into some dead ends. But if you're looking for the bigger picture, you know, that that's the opportunity that's out there. So, and that's why I really wanted to have you on to share your story because I think one, just, it's, it's a, it's a great way. like I said, I think you articulated it very well and the more, like I said, the more perspectives and

opportunities that people see. Again, if we can help one, two, three or four people find some of that happiness, then we're doing our job. So I really appreciate the time.

Brett Trainor (: 49:02

Right?

Brett Trainor (: 50:00

Yeah. No, we really don't. And I'll close out with just to reinforce your example. My wife and I talked about, we wanted to do something in March, right? And like, well, we could do something for a month down in Florida, get into the warm weather. But then we started talking through, wait, can we do that for a month? If my oldest daughter with the baby needs to find a house or do we need to be back? We've got two other daughters that probably won't be able to do it.

is this something that we really want to do? We're in the past, we probably just would have made a decision and done it, but now we're actually talking through it. yeah, it's, when you say it, I'm like, we probably could have this conversation a couple of years ago, even though you weren't here yet, it would have saved us both a little bit of time. But as I say, it's better late than never and we still got plenty of time.

Brett Trainor (: 50:52

Thanks, Nick. Have a great rest of your day. I know you got your afternoon shift. Enjoy that warm weather and we'll check in with you here in a few months. Make sure everything's all right. But we really do appreciate your time.