“You should write your obituary and then try to figure out how to live up to it. It’s not that complicated,” Mr. Warren Buffett said at the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting in 2023.
I was dealt a health scare in the last 6 months. It began with me collapsing in front of my family at home a mere 4 days after giving birth to my second child with my blood oxygen saturation at 88-90% (basically, that is really bad). My husband rushed me to the nearest ER, where I spent one night in the ICU and then two more nights in a regular hospital room. I’d written at that time how it changed my outlook on early retirement, at least when it came to healthcare.
After ruling out pulmonary embolism, ultimately the diagnosis was a minor, chronic but manageable condition, and with a bunch of pills my symptoms were controlled and I went home. The pulmonologist in charge of my care meticulously had follow ups with me (and had his office ensure they were scheduled when I forgot) over the next five months. He was like that annoying thorn in my side, hauling my butt back to the office when I swore up and down to him there was nothing wrong with me.
In May I was given a scary phrase. “your numbers don’t add up, I want to rule out pulmonary arterial hypertension. It’s so rare, I’m sure you don’t have it” [PAH is diagnosed in ~500-1,000 people a year in the U.S. and affects primarily women ages 30-60]
Of course I went and googled it. Everything read so scary. It seems to be an irreversible, hard to detect disease, that once your heart starts its decline, gives you maybe 2 – 3 years left to live, maybe 5. As much as I tried to convince myself that I did not have it, the nagging feeling remained.
If I had 5 years left on this earth what did I want to be doing?
I would want to spend every waking moment with people I loved. I’ve set up myself, I’ve set things up for my kids if I died early. It’s time to stop giving my energy to just another job where I was not changing the world. Don’t get me wrong – part of the reason I worked well past the point where I already achieved early retirement (FI/RE at age 31) is because I enjoyed working. And I don’t hate corporate jobs – a stable 9-5 corporate job is actually how most of my coaching clients are becoming multi-millionaires themselves in their 40s and 50s and that’s why I never went full-time entrepreneur.
However… I asked myself, what is the point to having millions of dollars when it can’t necessarily buy me what I wanted the most… Time? Would I spend my last 5 years wearing the best fashion and experiencing all the luxuries the world had to offer? Actually no, because of my religious values I knew that I wasn’t going to miss out on the most beautiful destination of all, heaven. So what is left? Leaving a positive mark on this world with what precious years I have left.
Thankfully in July after waiting weeks to get my numbers examined by an expert team at UCLA it was determined that I did not have this disease. By then I’d gone back to work for a day and knew I did not have it in me – for now – to continue giving the best of my hours to a corporate. I didn’t need the money. I was (personally) not saving lives though I did work for the largest healthcare company in the U.S.
I wanted to be selfish, stop working so hard for once in my life. For the vast majority of my working life I’d always had a main job and a side hustle. I wanted to just enjoy the chaos of being a mother. I wanted my children to know me. To know that their parents will always love them. That they are so wanted (they were IVF babies after all).
And to all of you. I have so much more to teach, and I need all the time I can get to change people’s lives through personal finances. Money does matter. Having money and wealth can give you a better life, take away anxiety, give you space to grow as a person, opportunities to make life interesting and fun, power to make decisions without others needlessly influencing you. To improve your finances, it often takes good mental health. You could make all the money in the world, but if your base mental health is not addressed, it also becomes very hard for you to take the abundant steps you need to save money, negotiate for more income, and invest your savings and take those steps in faith that the risk would work out.
I never say never, so I’d say the uncorporate life is going to be a 2-year experiment for now. I am spending my days working on Save My Cents, Inc. on a 6-hr/day basis, and then the rest is focused on my children. (a typical day might look like this)
I am really excited to see what God has in store for me going forward. I hope to not set unrealistic expectations, and I am stepping out in faith too that things would work out. Thank you to every person who has been a part of my journey to date. Onward, and let’s live life according to my obituary!
Want to learn more about how early retirement is possible? I teach the ins and outs of saving a retirement in the Save My Retirement Masterclass.
