I’ve experienced something pretty intense this April which has been a good reminder of the value of knowing where to focus your energy. Furthermore, this unexpected event is a good example of the power of the freedom we acquire all along the journey towards reaching financial independence. 

There’s so much value in taking control of your finances and even more in practicing & applying strategies to support the mindset shift needed to be able to utilize your wealth to create the flexibility needed to live a life true to your values. Now that things have settled, I feel better about sharing a glimpse into the last few months in my life with all of you and let you know my plans for Modest Millionaires for the next few months. 

When Life Changes in an Instant

As some of you read in a newsletter I sent out mid-April, my dad suffered a stroke while vacationing with my mom in Florida. In the days following that, my brother and I headed down there to be by my parents’ side while my dad recovered. 

Long story short, I chose to stay in Florida for the weeks my dad would be in an intensive rehabilitation facility to assist with his care and then be able to split the 20h drive back with my mom. 

For context, he is mostly deaf and reads lips. Plus, with French being his first language, it was super helpful to have someone there at all times for accessibility reasons and to help translate during the therapy sessions. It also allowed for my mom to rest while she took care of managing the insurance related calls & attempts at organizing services back home for our return.

I’m so happy to let you all know that he is recovering amazingly well thanks to the successful thrombectomy performed quickly following his stroke and the fact that he was quite strong and healthy prior to the incident. We are all so grateful for the luck my dad had in his misfortune and I am so thankful for the flexibility to be by his side through this. Events like these also tend to put into focus the things that truly matter in life and lead to asking ourselves if we are living in a way that allows us to prioritize these.

Reassessing & Adjusting

Returning to the home routine took a bit of adjustment and plenty of rest. Having had to put my business on hold for weeks in this unexpected way certainly initially led to feeling some stress. That being said, I’m no stranger to recognizing when my thoughts turn to more of a scarcity mindset & I’m equipped with tools & strategies to work through these when needed.

As such, these last few weeks I’ve done some work to review my current financial circumstances and projections. Asking myself what my priorities & options are at this time was my starting point in order to identify the impact of my choices on my financial objectives & security for the longer term.

I know that in this time, despite having had to pause my business for some weeks, my desire to slow it down as planned in order to spend summer with my kids remains important to me. They are 8 and 7 now. Soon enough they’ll be teens and this precious season of life where they still enjoy spending as much time with me as possible will be behind us.

Furthermore, with the long waiting lists for any rehabilitation services for my dad in our region, I want to prioritize continuing exercises with him through these crucial first months of recovering from his stroke. The therapists at the amazing rehab center where we stayed generously equipped me with the knowledge & tools that I need to continue assisting my dad in his recovery.

What’s more, this life event has been a good reminder of how important taking care of our health truly is. Time for exercise and eating well therefore is top of mind for me. I’d like to make even more space for this in my life.

This all leaves me with more limited time to be dedicated to my business. Evidently this will lead to a number of months with lower income than expected. Yet, knowing where I want to focus my energy right now is very helpful to determine the timeline of those lower income months and then project out their impact on my other goals. 

The Option that Allows me to Focus on What Matters

Having looked at various options, I feel good about withdrawing more of my savings than planned, perhaps going above the “semi-retired” label, to account for any difference between my income and spending to cover for the flexibility I need over the next few months. I’ll continue working with my current clients and only onboarded a limited number of people before the summer break as I’ve chosen to take some weeks completely off this summer & to dedicate no more than 5 hours to client sessions & any related planning & prep on the weeks I will be working. 

I’m lucky that I run a business that I love and when I do have time to work on it, I feel good and it’s something I consider to be energy-giving. As such, I know that I’ll be happy to get back to creating more content, running events & taking on speaking engagements when the time is right. My confidence in my ability to generate more revenue in the future, in a way that fits my life, is something that contributes to feeling good about this option in this season of my life.

So for now, my Modest Millionaires events will be on hold until September. My newsletters and social media posts will be less frequent but I’ll do my best to keep showing up & share quick updates with all of you. The blog will remain pretty silent, as it has been this past year while I focused on more live events such as the Modest Millionaires Lunches & the Modest Millionaires Evenings. As such, I encourage you to make sure you are subscribed to my newsletter for more frequent-ish updates.

Conclusion

Afterall, building up my wealth was always about having options to use my freedom to live the life I want. It remains important for me to do so without compromising my longer term financial security and goal of reaching FI sometime in my forties. I believe that my current trajectory will lead me there and it’s nice to feel less of a rush to get there which allows me to focus my energy on what matters the most to me.

From this short update from me, I hope you’ll take away that pursuing FI is so very worth it because it is such a powerful tool to deal with life’s unexpected events. It’s also important to dedicate some time and effort in your journey to learn about using that freedom as needed to focus your energy on what matters most to you. This often required working through your scarcity mindset, reflecting on the options available to you and the ability to project out what these might mean for your finances in your future.

Finally, I always love to hear from all of you and I’ve been especially touched by your kind messages through this challenging moment. Thank you so much and please feel free to continue writing to me, even in these months where it might take me a few weeks to respond.