From Working at 15 to Retiring Her Mother and FIRE in Her 40s

8 years and a hunger can be all it takes to change an entire family's financial future hello hello hello and welcome to the Bigger Pockets money podcast my name is Mindy Jensen and with me today is the fantabulous Amanda wolf Amanda thanks for joining me thanks so much glad to be here Bigger Pockets money is here to make Financial Independence less scary 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 and today's guest is is going to absolutely prove me right which is my favorite kind of guest today we are speaking with delianne the money coach who also happens to be a good friend of mine in real life delianne is so amazing she is killing it in the financial education space but it wasn't so long ago that she was also in a ton of debt and hated her quote unquote dream job and she is here to share her journey towards wealth for herself and her mother and is so incredibly inspiring oh oh what an intro thank you for that and welcome to the Bigger Pockets money podcast I am so excited to talk to you today thank you I am so excited to be here I'm a huge huge fan of the show so this is a very big circle moment for me woohoo well let's jump into it Delan you are a product of hard work mixed with money management I want to hear all about your money story so where does your journey with money begin oh gosh okay so I think you know like a lot of us it starts with what we experience growing up and we make a decision sometimes of am I going to follow the same steps that my parents went through or do I want to go in the completely opposite direction and my parents you know did the best they could with the little that we had we were immigrants from Brazil we came here with very little we came to the US with very little and um they they really emphasized education and having good credit those were like the two money lessons get an education have good credit and you know what I'm I'm grateful for those two things because I did stick to that and it did help me a lot but that was the extent right of money education but somehow I I after my parents divorce and seeing my mother's struggle I knew that I didn't want to end up in that situation I never wanted to be so dependent on somebody that I was left to start all over again and really really struggle and so I became an avid like saver and I became very frugal and honestly like sometimes I say you know frugality comes out of necessity and that's what we're really drove that was like necessity um it wasn't so much like yeah let me like cut cost because it would be nice to do X Y and Z it was because you had no choice like you had to know where every dollar was going so I always saved money was Frugal um and really really focused on my education I was doing everything in my power to get myself in college in law school so that I could support myself and hopefully take care of my family someday because my mom was somebody who was never going to be able to like save money you know retire she was a housekeeper and I think my mom only went through like fifth or sixth grade so it I was like her retirement plan and that's something that's very very common in immigrant Latin families being the eldest daughter of three the pressure was on you know so every decision I made was like is this getting me closer to that goal is this getting me closer to the goal of being able to take care of my family someday taking care of myself um and hopefully you know Landing the dream uh career which at the time was being an attorney so that's kind of like where the journey started did your siblings have the same attitude about money so funny enough it's so funny how like you can grow up in the same household and people come out with like different money beliefs and me and my sister my middle sister we are very very different and she's actually helped me with my money mindset a lot because like I said I was very frugal and my sister somehow through her you know networking and meeting different people in her life she was exposed to millionaires very early on like at 16 17 years old my sister was working for people who were multi-millionaires and so she got a glimpse of what that life was like and she saw that they were entrepreneurs and that they were not you know doing the typical 9-to-5 lifestyle and she like I think she started her business at like 17 or 18 years old so she became an entrepreneur very very young and knew that you know that 9o5 lifestyle was probably not going to be her path so we actually went in the complete opposite directions I went very formal education and and she also uh got her Ms in marketing and everything but she knew entrepreneurship was her goal and so not only does she want to make more money but she also wants to spend a lot of money my sister likes nice things you know she's she likes the Finer Things in life she's introduced me to a lot of amazing uh Hotel brands that I never knew about we've taken fantastic luxurious vacations and it's all because she opened up that world to me it's it's just so funny how like I said we grew up together but we both came out with like two different money philosophies yeah yeah and as somebody who has met your sister I can say that she definitely just exudes like luxury and like all the Finer Things in life and so I love hearing that but I wanted to ask you a question so would you say that the core memory that kind of inspired you to break this cycle was your parents split is that would that be correct definitely so then did you feel like when you were that age when you were really young that like you you were responsible then to take care of the entire family like what was that Dynamic like between your mom and your sisters was your mom just at a place like yeah delianne go delianne go take care of us or how did that feel at that age and what did that look like yeah so I was about 14 maybe just barely 15 when my parents split up and my mom was you know the typical like and I don't want to say typical because obviously I think things have changed so much even in the last 10 15 years but she was basically hands off with money it was my father's job to handle all the f finances she like didn't know what what the credit card bills looked like she didn't know where the you know condominium bill went she didn't know anything and so when my parents split up it was a very it was under very severe circumstances my father became mentally ill he practically had like a I think it was like a nervous breakdown it was basically overnight overnight our family went from being like a normal you know hardworking family but like very normal to completely shattered my mom not knowing where the money was going to come next month to pay the mortgage and I was the oldest you know my sister was about 11 my little sister was uh what four 5 years old um so yeah it was on me then to basically step in as a pseudo parent and help my mom because she literally was not going to be able to make the mortgage she's like I'm not going to be able to pay the condo fee this month and I was working a part-time job at like a Walgreens type place but I was you know helping her pay the mortgage very early on like at 15 16 years old I was giving her whatever money I made so that she could pay the bills and it was a very very tough time for our family very tough I could see the strain I could see the stress she would come home super stressed a lot of anxiety and that was you know obviously now I'm connecting all the dots CU When You're 15 years old you're just like I hate you you know you're the worst um but now like you're a grownup you're like yeah she was under a lot of financial stress that experience was what drove me to be like wow I never ever want to be in that position where I'm so lost about money um and I don't have a backup plan and I don't have a safety net because look at what that caused um our family to go through so what made you choose law school that's a lot of school I am not an attorney although I do have a university of John Grisham degree so I'm practically an attorney uh but law school is the first four years that everybody goes to when you graduate with a 4-year degree and then there's an additional three years which is not free so why was law school what you chose because I hate [Music] math that's the you know that's the honest answer is I am terrified of math even though I took calculus okay I took AP Calculus and it passed um but I was terrified of math and it was literally going to be medical school or law school and I'm like I think there might be math in medical school so I'm going to go to law school but also all joking aside I wanted to be in the public interest space I wanted to help people so I always knew I wanted like a service driven job and I specifically chose I was between uh immigration law and employment law in law school um I knew I wanted to help that community and at the last minute I decided to shy away from immigration it was because it just felt very formulaic because a lot of the laws are like codified and it's it's a tough um industry and I decided I I wanted to do employment law but I only wanted to represent employees I never wanted to be on the side of you know the big companies and the employers I always wanted to be on the side of the employees and I had like a dream firm that I wanted to pursue and I thankfully landed a job there and that's basically where I practiced law like for seven years was with that firm until I moved on to the next gig but yeah I mean law school was three years I'm like I can get in and out in three years I can start working I can start making money I could start helping my family and so I was all about yes I want to help people but I also want to be as efficient as possible so that I can make money and help my family you chose the path of becoming an attorney what was the motivation was it just the six figure salary and a prestigious title well I wish I could say it was you know the salary but the truth is that a lot of attorneys do not make a lot of money out of law school I think there's this stereotype that if you go to law school you're immediately going to come out making six figures but if you want to do public interest like I did um you're definitely not going to be making six figures I mean I was very lucky to land a job that was making about $85,000 out of law school which um in a lot of places in America would be a lot of money but I was living in New York City and I had $150,000 in student loans so that was barely paying you know my my day-to-day living expenses but um yeah I mean I I you know I chose law because I wanted to uh help people I chose the specific law firm that I wanted to work with because they were the best they are the best till this day that that practice employment law and they specifically told me they were not going to hire me out of law school because at that time they did not hire students out of law school they only wanted to hire people who either clerk for federal judges or people who already had job experience and I was like once they said that I was like it's on I'm going to campaign for the next year and make sure that they hire me and I was one of the first ever person I think I was maybe even the first attorney that theyve ever hired at a law school and got them to like break that rule um and after that they started hiring at of law school so it was really cool to to see them change that policy yeah it was it was an amazing experience but it was sad too because within like six or eight months of becoming an attorney I quickly started to realize that I'm like wow this is way different than what I thought it was going to be this is this is not what what law school prepared me for there's just so much more politics there's a lot of you know paper pushing there's a lot of timekeeping it's very adversarial obviously that's not a surprise but it's adversarial from so many different angles and then you're having to like micromanage your client and their psychology and what they're going through so there's a lot there that law school did not prepare you for at that moment I was like oh this is why becoming an attorney is you know so much work and so stressful and why so many people hate it because it's not necessarily the law and the work it's all the other stuff that distracts you away from the work yeah well and especially knowing that it's not like you necessarily had a big community of people who you could lean on in in like preparation for law school and kind of like knew what you were signing up for it's like when you're younger there's doctor lawyer police officer nurse you know it's it's just kind of these these stereotypical jobs if you will and so you're like yep that one sounds like it's going to make a lot of money let's go do it so um before you even got to the point where you realize like whoa this isn't what I thought what other hurdles did you have to overcome just like in the beginning of that career it sounds like you made that First Leap by just getting hired in a place where they didn't normally hire people out of school but what other types of hurdles did you did have to overcome I didn't have a mentor i' never you know had anybody who necessarily like opened doors for me like hey I'm going to make a phone call and like try to help you out and try to get you a mentor and try to um make sure that you have the support that you need and the firm tried to do that at different points um but you know even at the beginning of my career one thing that I struggled with was writing U because they were like oh you write like a law student I'm like well how else would I write I'm coming out of law school right and they're like you need to sound like a lawyer and I'm like I thought that law school did that and they're like no you're writing like you're writing something for your professor you need to write like you're writing for a judge I was scared the first few years of my career because the criticism was constantly about my writing but after the third year I was able to somehow it just clicked and I got a writing coach and I worked really hard on my writing and from then on I just started getting so much praise about my writing that they actually had me mentoring other uh newer attorneys on their writing and their any issues that they were having at the firm because I was one of the quote unquote people who were was able to turn it around right which at the time I was so proud of I was like oh yeah I turned it around and I proved them wrong but now I looking back I'm like yeah you guys like threw me in the deep end with no support and no nothing no resources and I had to go out and find them and do this on my own um so it just goes to like now I can look back and see like how much I was being gas lit but um yeah I had to basically just do that by myself yeah which it seems like you are one of those people obviously who can just like go and figure things out which is I I feel like such an underrated skill set um and I it kind of brings me to the next question which is so you go you go to this Law Firm you're making your $85,000 which is like not as much as you were thinking you were probably going to make I'm assuming from the beginning right well I mean to me I I felt like I won the lottery because $85,000 I was making $28,000 a year before law school so to me I was like I'm rich until the bills started coming in and then I'm like never mind like more money than you've ever had but also wait this is still not enough yeah so okay so then my my question is like what drove you to that like fire that Financial Independence retire early what drove you to that fire way of thinking when you were making um this salary because at this point you're you just said it was barely paying for my dayto day what made you be like yeah I'm going to retire early oh gosh that didn't come till many many years later so here I am at 6 eight months in deciding okay I don't like this job as much as I thought I was going to like it um and then I proceeded to do it for 14 years oh well as one does yes yeah uh because I I I stayed at the firm for seven years as a litigator and then I transition to another position where I was like an attorney editor so I was basically creating resources for other attorneys um it's a big big product now but so seven years as as an attorney 7 years as an attorney editor and I was you know making close to 200 I was making yeah I think I was making way over $200,000 at some point towards the end so I'm like okay I'm making $200,000 this is it you did it right you crossed the $100,000 line you cross the $200,000 line and I'm looking around I'm like oh I still can't buy a house couldn't couldn't buy a house in New York getting out bid and this is like 2015 2016 20 probably even sooner couldn't couldn't buy a place and I'm getting frustrated because um I'm just kind of putting money in a savings account and I'm like is this it is this what I'm supposed to be doing because this doesn't feel like enough everybody's telling me you're supposed to like buy and and build wealth and yeah prepare for you know your your future but I just felt like things were kind of stagnant and I'm I'm making this supposed dream salary and and things aren't moving so that's when things started clicking that I'm like okay I need to look at my finances more holistically so then I started looking at my student loans I'm like yeah you're you know $150,000 I think I had borrowed about 995 it had balloon to 150 12 years later cuz I was planning to pay those loans for like 20 25 years I didn't care I was not in a rush to send Sally May any checks but when I started learning about paying off debt and then this is literally just going on the internet webs right looking for ways to pay off debt faster and then of course if you fall down that rabbit hole you're eventually going to bump into the financial Independence people because that's just one step away and so when I am in the debt free pool I'm like yeah this is kind of interesting but whatever like you pay off debt and then what that doesn't solve the initial problem and then I'm like I bump into the financial Independence people oh now I'm excited right now it makes sense to want to pay off all of student loans now it makes sense to reprioritize uh some of my goals now it makes sense to like start learning about this really boring investing stuff and go look at my 401k and like why I should care and I don't have to wait till I'm 65 to to retire when all of that started clicking when I learned what a brokerage account was which I didn't even know I just literally knew about my 401k and I barely understood that that's when my whole world opened up and that's when the plan started formulating in my mind and that was around 2018 wow so that was really not that long ago that was what six seven years ago that you discovered the concept of financial Independence the concept that you don't have to work until you're 65 what were some of the first steps you took once you understood what was involved so I had $100,000 in a high yield savings account at the time which if you remember 2018 they were paying like 1% so I was just hoarding money in a savings account cuz I didn't know what else to do and I was trying to buy property cuz everybody's like you got to buy property that's the way and then when I realized no no no we're going to do this other thing we're going to focus our money on the stock market I took I took that money I left a you know a three-month emergency fund in the account I took $50,000 and I sent it to my student loans and the rest I threw it in a Vanguard Brokerage account that was the first few dollars that I ever invested uh by myself outside of a 401k was that I think it was about 30 $35,000 um in a Vanguard Brokerage account and that was in 2019 about four months before the pandemic and the stock market crashed so when people are like I'm so scared to invest because what if the stock market crashes I'm like I did that I did exactly what you're scared of I put money when the market was at an all-time high and it crashed four months later and guess what that money has 3x and 4x since then so don't think about that wait so I I have a really quick question cuz I'm obsessed with that I can't believe first of all that you went from not investing to dumping $35,000 into something because anybody who has talked to somebody who's new to investing like that's the scariest part they're like can I just do like $10 to start like I just want to see what it feels like like what made you brave enough I'm going to use that word what made you brave enough to like do that first step to take that first step and buy that first stock I became compulsive this idea took hold of me and I think everybody who's in the space understands that when you first see a compound interest calculator and you start seeing those numbers and the thing is I didn't hear it from Just One Source I went to multiple sources I was devouring books I was devouring podcasts I was talking you know I was finding people talking about it online once I started seeing the pattern and I'm like oh this isn't like a a fad this isn't like you know just somebody doing some get-rich quick thing I'm like this is this is the way right right you have it's going to take time it's going to take patience um I saw all the pros and cons and I was like okay I'm in it I'm going to do this you know I'm going to invest this much per year I'm going to try to retire by like 45 47 maybe 50 at the latest I was just so happy to have found something that gave me an out out of that career before way before 65 there was no other option for me I'm like this is your exit strategy right and so for me it's like I just once I I understood everything of how it worked I spent lots of time reading researching understanding everything then I was like okay it's time to execute and there hasn't been one moment of hesitation since I've started that journey I mean 2021 I invested $400,000 whoa you don't dump $400,000 into the mark oh by the way also alltime highs again I'm really good at Market timing guys but you don't do that unless you are like I'm in this like committed to this plan and I am not like a gambler by any means I don't even own crypto I am not into fads I'm very risk averse but once I am educated about something and I'm like this is this is going to be it I don't see any I don't see any difference between doing that and like putting all of your savings into a house to be honest I to me it's potato potato pick pick whichever one you want to do okay going back to that initial $35,000 investment that you did in the stock market 4 months before it crashed it crashed hard I don't know if people remember I'm a huge Market nerd and I remember it crashed on March 13th and it didn't just like you know drop a little bit over the course of like two or three weeks it plummeted how did you feel F first of all were you checking the stock market every day or frequently enough that this that you would notice this and how did it feel when you see the number like you had 35 now it's 30 now it's 25 now it's like 12 how did that feel so funny enough I felt prepared because again I had read so much about like stock market crashes and the 4% Rule and how it like bakes all that in and that I was investing for the next you know 15 20 years like this is not money that I was going to pull out anytime soon funny enough the overlap with this time I started my business January 2020 so here I am sharing my journey about my prog because I started probably like 6 months before just personally hey guys I'm going to start posting about paying off my student loans if you're interested in following along and the more I posted about that the more people got interested in my journey so I was like wow I think there's like this money coaching thing might be a a real thing people might actually be need help with this and so while I am learning myself and like well I want say I'm like experiencing my first market crash right my first big market crash that I am really feeling because obviously I lived through the 2008 and my 401k um also lived uh you know felt that um not not a lot because at that point I wasn't investing that much but anyway um I am not only you know experiencing myself for the first time but I'm also having to talk people through it because at that point I'm getting bombarded with messages like everybody in the finance space like oh my God what do we do do I sell everything do I cash out my 41 okay and I'm telling people to double down I'm like no you should be like buying more and so I am trying to do everything in my power to take every dollar that I can to like invest but at that same time I'm also paying off my student loans so I'm like oh man what do I do and so I'm you know I'm going through that struggle of like how much money do I send to my student loans and how much do I send to my brokerage account and I am like that's what I'm battling I'm like how much money can I throw at this account so instead of running away I was running towards the fire you know um and I think that all those that time preparing and learning about how the stock market works and learning its history is the only thing that kept me from panicking it's literally the only thing yes yes yes yes because it is so I cannot imagine being in your shoes Okay I I am going to start investing in the stock market here's $35,000 and look poof Now it's 12 so I I can't imagine being in that position it was hard for me and I've been in since God was a boy so I have been through multiple downturns sorry sorry I've never heard that that is so funny it's been a minute and I've been through multiple downturns and I don't love it but I have faith that the stock market will eventually go back up so to see such a drastic drop now we did have a a rebound and I think it was back to similar Levels by like June or July or August of that year it was it was one of the shortest um crashes in history or something yes yes and it was like that I can imagine being on the oh now it's 15 now it's 25 now I'm back to my 35 now it's more like that could be very exciting but the the initial drop like I can feel like when you're on a roller coaster I can feel my stomach going up just by like doing that oh my goodness I cannot say enough good things about your mental state and it comes back to you know knowing that the stock market does have crashes and I think for somebody who has been investing since you know 2013 where we hit the bottom and then we started going back up again or whatever the bottom was you start going back up again and you're like oh I'm such a genius you're really not you're just lucky exactly like I've been investing since 2011 that's when I started investing in my 401k but I'm telling you I did not look at that 401k for years like I just forgot about it the money was coming out of my checks and I didn't I didn't even understand what it was I thought a 401k was like a super savings account for a long time I didn't not understand that a 401k meant stock market and that is still one of the most common things that I answer to this day people are like oh when you say invest do you mean 401K I'm like yes you're in 41k is invested in the stock market and I never ever judge any kind of question that I get because I've been there I didn't know that either so um I didn't even look at my 401k and when I started looking at it when I became financially awakened um that's when I was like oh there's money in here oh oh this is like grown a lot so I had put in over a 12year period about $94,000 and it had grown to like over $300,000 I'm like oh this is real money so again that also reinforced me and that helped me to cope during that 2020 period because I was like yeah I remember everybody talking about how offer the 401ks were doing uh from 2008 to like 2013 I'm like it's happened before it was a lot worse then it's it's going to it's going to be okay now and I don't know just something in me just knew that like the economy was going to be strong enough to endure and I was right delianne we were talking about you leaving your job but that in theory is super easy to talk about the actual going through with it can be really nerve-wracking and kind of scary so how and when were you able to finally leave this like six figure salary yeah so um that was also a big big surprise out of nowhere I did not see that coming because I started my business in January 2020 and my sister's a business coach and I turned to her and I was like hey I think I found the thing that I've been looking for all these years like um that will finally get me out of law um I really want to pursue this U money coaching I want to like help people pay off their debt and I want to help them invest and she's like let's go and she started coaching me from the beginning and she asked me you know how much do you want to make per year and and I'm like I don't know if I if I if I made like1 $15,000 I'd be so excited I've never in my life earned money outside of a paycheck I couldn't imagine people paying me for like you know coaching advice I I never I've never been an entrepreneur ever I told my sister for many years I am a worker B I will never be an entrepreneur that is not who I am God I was so wrong I I if I could go back I'd be like like you were so wrong so yeah that first year I easily cleared like $1 $150,000 by the next year I was at a I was you know 1 one and A5 million so by March of 2021 I was exceeding my salary at work by multiples in two months I was making what I made an entire year as an attorney and so it did not make sense to stay at that job when I had this business that clearly was just exploding and um and I was working two jobs you know I'm working my full job and I'm running my business at night and on the weekends and I was burning the candle at both ends but I was so so scared of quitting my job because again I was like what if this is a fluke what if it like poofs and disappears the next day I don't know like I just had so much fear that it would just disappear and it's so funny because here we are almost 5 years later and I'm still I'm still here so by so basically I started the business January 2020 by March 2021 I had put in my notice in April 1st was my last uh day working a 9 to5 and when you I think the thing that's like really hard to wrap your head around is when you said in in two months I made the same as my entire salary as an attorney the year before that is like insanity first of all um the second is I want to ask like how that felt like was that because the work you were doing I'm assuming as a financial coach is probably much more rewarding than what you were doing as attorney though the type of law you were practicing I think was probably aiming to give you that feeling that you had with the the coaching right because the type of law that you were doing was really to kind of like give back to the people but you sounds like you didn't get to do that quite as much right so how did that like kind of all tie together is where I was going with that yeah I mean that's exactly why I picked employment law right in fact I even got bullied a little bit in law school um by my some of my my classmates who were going after like those big corporate jobs and they were going to get paid you know $150,000 at our law school and I would say um oh no I want to do public interest and they'd be like haha have fun being poor you know and they would like literally like make fun of me and laugh in my face um but the jok's on them because they all got their offers res sended because we all graduated in 2008 and I still had my job offer um so I am very grateful that my firm um was actually thriving during the recession because hello everybody was getting fired left and right and they all needed representation so we were helping help out a lot of people uh negotiate Severance packages and deal you know during this really really difficult time and I did get to work on some incredible pro bono cases that I would pitch to the partners and I would have to convince them to take it and they're like yeah we're running a business here you know I'm like I get it you know it's not a charity it's not a it's not a legal aid but that's like what I wanted to do was that kind of work um but I also needed the pay because I'm like I have a ton of student loans and I need to help my family I can't work at legal aid like I you know it's just that's not an option so it it was frustrating because I wasn't able to like really be doing the kind of work that I wanted to do and um it was like you said I wasn't feeling fulfilled I was doing a lot of bureaucratic stuff there was a lot of politics so when I got to swipe all that away and and run my business the way I wanted to run it and help the people the way I wanted to help them and have like that one-on-one you know interaction with with with my students all the time oh my God I just felt so full and I just would would wake up every day and I'm like I can't believe this is my life and I can't believe I created this business out of thin air when I tortured myself through law school and in those 14 years but I don't regret that because that really did prepare me like it it helped me so much like I don't think that I would have been able to do what I did as quickly without the experience that I had as an attorney so I don't discount all of that so you exude confidence did you ever have moments of impostor syndrome when you were considering going out on your own when you were growing your business or even like right at the moment of giving notice yeah not when I was giving notice because let me tell you there are two great days when you work it's the day you get the job and it's the day you quit everything else in between is whatever the day you get to walk into an off oh my God if you have if nobody's ever quit a job if if you're listening to this and like you've never quit a job I I highly recommend it it is so empowering it is so intoxicating especially if you've been treated like crap and you just walk in you're like I quit um it's amazing so I was so happy to tell my boss and she was like well where are you going what are you doing and I'm like I don't know I'm going to figure it out like I don't you know I don't have to tell them anything I didn't have to explain where I was going or what I was doing and uh and I didn't and I never told anybody at work that I was creating a business uh during my free time and you don't have to you know you don't have to unless you're like violating some kind of non-compete you really you don't have to disclose that to your employer and I didn't um and I'm glad I didn't so I was so so happy to to give the notice I was feeling very financially confident because I was hoarding money like crazy you know I was paying off my student loans and I was saving my money because I'm like God forbid this business evaporates the next day I want to make sure that I have my safety net but yes of course there was definitely fear that am I making a big mistake I'm like throwing away massive career that I spent so much time and so much money on but I have been playing it safe for so long in my life so so long and whenever anybody asks me like what would you do if you could go back 20 years I would tell myself take more chances take more chances like be more gutsy it's okay to fail you know I was so scared to fail that I just played it too safe too long way too long I could have accomplished what I did here many years ago I believe that now but you know everything happens for a reason um but yeah I just I think I got to a point where I was like enough enough of being careful enough of being scared it's time to like try something new if you really want to build this dream life that you say you want to build you're going to have to take some chances and this is your opportunity and I and I got very very lucky with the timing insanely lucky with the timing because wow the the the timing worked out great everybody all of a sudden became obsessed with the stock market overnight that's all everybody wanted to talk about and I was like holy crap I can't believe I built a whole business over the subject that that everybody's talking about this is insane I did not see that coming I I think the the part where you just said that if you want to build your dream life you're going to have to take chances I felt like we were just sitting one-on-one FaceTiming Delian and that you were saying that to just me and I'm wondering how many others out there are going to feel like that too because it does take a lot of Bravery to take those uncomfortable steps um but I wanted to ask you another question as it relates to like entrepreneurship and W2 jobs because you went the entrepreneur route but that's not necessarily like the route everybody wants to go so do you feel like W2 earners have the same chances as entrepreneurs to lead their life towards Financial Freedom and you know why or why not what are your thoughts on that absolutely in fact that is the path that most millionaires take is they are boring I don't want to call people boring but you know what I mean like they're they have like regular everyday N9 to five jobs and investing in their 401ks and they are 401K Millionaires and they're just you know uh squirreling away their money for for their 20 30 40 years and they and they do it and they did it you know so that is the path that most people take I feel like the path that I took is the very unusual route the route that a lot of people want to take but they're not able to accomplish it you know I mean I think it's something like 95% of small businesses um go go belly up you know every year like they are not successful they don't even reach $100,000 so I never go out there and say hey I did it this way so you have to do it this way too because I know how hard it is to be a successful entrepreneur it is extremely hard and I don't downplay that ever my initial plan for financial Independence had nothing to do with my business I had I I'm telling you I didn't even have a business in mind when I built that plan it was I was like the plan was to pay off the loans and then take the difference and just start pouring that into the brokerage account I calculated that all of my financial Independence numbers based on that my salary doing that for the next seven to eight years that was the plan then the business came along and just poured gasoline on the whole thing and and expedited it but I swear that was a surprise that was not part of the initial plan a very happy surprise but you know not part of the plan okay so I'm going to ask you kind of an obvious question do you consider yourself financially free yes do you consider yourself retired no not not fully retired I say that I'm semi-retired because I work about 10 at the most 15 hours a week so I feel like as long as you're still exchanging time for money you're working you're not fully retired but I you know I am retired from like the 9 to-5 Lifestyle I am a retired attorney I would not put myself in the same category as somebody who's working 40 50 60 hours a week so I feel like I'm kind of like in that limbo state which honestly I could kind of hang out here for a while there's no rush now because before I had this very set goal of we're retiring by 45 and that means quitting law that means stopping working completely now that I've created this other you know business I just feel like oh wow there's a lot more flexibility now I'm not working 40 hours a week if I want to kind of hang out here and work 10 hours a week till I'm 50 we'll see how I feel I've given myself the luxur of having that option and deciding when I get there I don't have to you know make all of these hard and fast black and white decisions that I felt like I always had to do in my with my previous career so I've given myself a lot of Financial Freedom I feel like and I and I and I have saved honestly enough that if I wanted to stop right here right now I I could probably cover my expenses for the rest of my life so you are first of all just freaking goals for anybody I would probably say but I want ask what has Financial Freedom bought you apart from peace of mind which I can just probably has no no price tag right but what has what has Financial Freedom bought you yeah and like you said it's peace of mind but it's also being able to extend that to the the people that I love in my life specifically my mom I've wanted to retire her for so long when I started the business she also had a business so it's funny because it was both my mom me and my sister all entrepreneurial women um and my mom had a pet a pet supply store that she was working at 7 days a week in Brazil I had to like and my mom's 61 I had to like twist her arm to take a weekend off I'm like come on Mom you don't have to work like Monday through Sunday why don't you work Monday through Friday I had to like twist her arm and so slowly I started getting her to take days off and I was like okay well how about we like you know just sell the business you don't have to work anymore and so that took time though and many many conversations over time to to be able to get her to that point but the fact that um um I was even able to offer that to her and I had to reassure her many many times over and over again because my mom was like I don't want to be a burden I don't want to you know distract you from your life I know you have your goals and you have things you want to get done um I I you don't have to do this my mother never asked for any of this it was always me offering the fact that I was able to do that and that she was able to fully retire this year she sold her store and now she oh my God she calls me every day she's so happy she's like oh my God I spent day doing like my crochet or like my gardening and like she goes to church and she does all she spends her she's busier than I am okay the woman has a busier schedule than I do and she is so happy and I just see like how much her um you know her energy has changed since she quit that is the biggest gift honestly if I never get to retire I will I will still be so so happy knowing that I got to do that for her let me not start crying but I am just so so blessed that I was able to do that for her and um and that she gets to live like her you know my mom's young 61 is hella young I'm like yes I want you to be like enjoy these years when you're when you're healthy and we can travel together and spend time together I don't want you working until you're 70 years old and um and then when we finally go do something you're like struggling with your health so I'm just so thrilled that I was able to do that for her so delianne let's wrap up this episode by talking about some of the key lessons that you've learned on your journey to financial Independence and some of the advice you wish you would have had in the beginning yeah I think I just like I mentioned before the taking more risks and taking more risks doesn't mean gambling right you can take measured risks you can take calculated risks and that's like part of being an investor that's part of being financially Savvy that's part of like job hopping whatever it is that you're doing if you're moving to a different state if you're moving to a different country like I did I all these things take planning but that doesn't mean that they don't include risk but invite some more risk into your life just make sure that you're like prepared for whichever way it may swing but I feel like yeah sometimes not all of us but a lot of us do play it safe especially women um I feel like we play it way too safe so I say if you're going to take a risk on something take a risk on yourself like what what what else do you know better than that than yourself um and who knows you know you might surprise yourself I know I did an this was so much fun talking to you today and we will share deanne's contact information in our show notes if you want to connect with her you can connect with us at biggerpockets.com and you can tap our community by posting in the forums which are located at biggerpockets.com forums where you can ask your questions share your goals and successes all right delianne thank you thank you thank you so much for your time today this was so much fun and we'll talk to you soon thank you all right Amanda that was Delian the money coach and holy cats thank you so much for introducing us and suggesting that she come on the show that was a fantastic episode I absolutely loved her mentality about the stock market and if you my dear listener are leery about investing go educate yourself about how the stock market works I believe everybody that I know believes that the stock market will go up it might be going down right now but it will go back up and I just loved the way that she was able to overcome such a shocking drop when she first started investing there is nothing more empowering than feeling educated and feeling like you know what's going on and being able to semi the unexpected so I completely agree with you mindi and you know another another piece that I really liked um is around you know at the end when she said to take risks and to take a risk on yourself because you know yourself best that really hit home for me because I've just never heard it phrased like that and I'm like yes you know we know that you should take risks and get outside of your comfort zone but you know yourself best so why not take a risk on you and I thought that was just such a beautiful way to to encourage you to do the uncomfortable thing and to go out and to take that next step to do whatever that thing is that you've been putting off and I like how she said take risks not gambles it's it's not the same thing it can feel like the same thing but it's not the same thing they're they're calculated risks so don't just like throw it all on you know black at this the roulette wheel but think about what you're doing think about how you can succeed and then pursue that absolutely take the calculated risk take the calculated risk yeah not a gamble all right Amanda this was so much fun again thank you for introducing us to delianne that wraps up this episode of the Bigger Pockets money podcast she is Amanda wolf and I am Mindy Jensen saying F tick Bigger Pockets money was created by Mindy Jensen and Scott trench produced by haar L do editing by Exodus media copywriting by Nate wiro and lastly a big thank you to the Bigger Pockets team for making this show possible [Music]

Channel: BiggerPockets Money

Views: 7,201

Keywords: financial freedom, FIRE, FIRE movement, financial independence, financial independence retire early, retiring your parents, how to retire your parents, retire your parents, how to retire my parents, retire my parents, quitting your job, quit your job, student debt, student loans, debt free, how to be debt free, pay off student loans, starting a business, entrepreneur, early retirement, retire early, investing, biggerpockets, biggerpockets money, biggerpockets money podcast

Id: 4YxhJAkEAIM

Length: 46min 4sec (2764 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 07 2024