January 22, 2025 • 53 mins
When most folks hear the word “sabbatical”, their mind probably goes to a professor with a tweed jacket, who has earned tenure at a prestigious university, who is going to use that time to write a book. Or maybe your values are more Judeo-Christian based and so you think of a period of rest after 7 years. And while that might be accurate for some folks, our guest today would say that sabbaticals don’t have to be that serious or formal. But on the other hand, they’re not just an extended vacation where you’re sipping pina coladas on the beach! We’re joined by investment advisor Cady North who is the author of “The Art of the Sabbatical” and she’s going to share why taking a sabbatical might be more of a reality for everyone listening. She shares why work breaks are more necessary in our modern economy, what a sabbatical is and isn’t, how to approach the idea with a spouse or partner, gathering the social support around you ahead of the decision, parlaying the benefits when you return to your job, a simple formula for being able to take a sabbatical every 5 years, and much more today!
Want more How To Money in your life? Here are some additional ways to get ahead with your personal finances:
-
Knowing your ‘money gear’ is a crucial part of your personal finance journey. Start here.
-
Sign up for the weekly HTM newsletter. It’s fun, free, & practical.
-
Join a thriving community of fellow money in the HTM Facebook group.
-
Find the best credit card for you with our new credit card tool!
-
Massively reduce your cell phone bill each month by switching to a discount provider like Mint Mobile.
During this episode we enjoyed a Ticker Shock by Other Half Brewing! And please help us to spread the word by letting friends and family know about How to Money! Hit the share button, subscribe if you’re not already a regular listener, and give us a quick review in Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Help us to change the conversation around personal finance and get more people doing smart things with their money!
Best friends out!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to had to Money.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
I'm Joel and I am Matt.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
And today we're talking the Art of the sabbatical with
Katie North.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
So, when most folks hear the word sabbatical, I think
their mind probably goes to, like a professor who's earned
tenure at a prestigious university, who's going to use that
time to write a really interesting book. Or maybe your
values are more Judeo Christian based, and so maybe you
think of a period of rest after seven years. You
(00:46):
think of that levitical prescription. And while that might be
accurate for some folks, I think our guest today would
say that sabbaticals don't have to be that serious or
that formal. But on the other hand, they're also not
just an extended vacation where you're sipping pincolatas on the beach.
We are joined by CFP and investment advisor Katie North.
(01:09):
She is the author of the Art of the Sabbatical,
and she's going to share why taking a sabbatical, why
it might be more of a reality for everyone who's
listening today, not just for the elite class. Katie, thank
you so much for taking the time to speak with us.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Today.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
Yeah, thanks for having me, Katie.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
The first question we ask everyone who comes on the
show is what do you like to spend money on?
And Matt and I we're drinking a nice craft beer here.
That's kind of something we like to splur John, but hey,
it's okay because we're still saving and investing for the future.
Do you have something like that in your life.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
I love a good spa day.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
I prioritize having a monthly massage for sure, and so
that's definitely something that is important to me.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I feel like, Joel, you have experimented with the idea
of maybe joining like one of the membership sort of clubs,
have you or is that something though?
Speaker 1 (01:59):
I do like to get message and I think in
an ideal world, I would do what Katie does and
I'd go once at least once a month, but I
have not made that as regular as I'd like to.
Is this somebody that comes to your house, Kate, your house, Katie,
or is this somewhere that you go, Okay.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Yeah, no, she comes to my house. It's it's very nice.
She's excellent, does the really nice deep tissue.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
It's perfect.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Are you going sixty minutes or ninety minutes. I feel
like you gotta go ninety am I wrong.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
Ninety minutes when you're doing the deep tess, I gotta
do it.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Get if you're getting all, you're making it happen anyway,
just go full ninety.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
I'm not gonna lie. I feel I feel relaxed just
listening to you talk about those.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
I will say, for the cheap person out there, there
are places that specialize in in feet. And there's a
place that my wife and I like to go to.
We don't go very often, but they do feet and
then they'll finish on like the head, neck, and shoulders,
and I swear for like an hour, you pay thirty
bucks or something like that. It's it's minimally expensive. I
(02:54):
don't know if they exist everywhere, but we have him
in our town at least.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Let's get Let's pivot to sabbaticals, Katie, Can you, like
I guess, basically define a sabbatical, like what is it?
And why are you so keen on them that you
wrote a book about them?
Speaker 4 (03:10):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (03:10):
So I'm a sabbatical advocate by accident. I took a
sabbatical back in twenty fifteen, and I did not know
then how much of a transformative experience it was going
to be for me. I actually hold it up as
one of the most pivotal and meaningful times in my life,
and it really gave me the courage and the confidence
(03:30):
to launch my financial planning business, which is now almost
ten years old. I think of a sabbatical, it doesn't
have to be you know, a specific amount of time,
or you do a specific thing like travel the world.
It's really just an intentional break from work. And most
of the time, I would say your first sabbatical is
often about burnout recovery. That was certainly my mo and
(03:54):
what I needed it was burnout recovery time. But you know,
there are a lot of peop people out there who
are doing sabbaticals with some sort of frequency in their lives,
like every few years or you know, I've talked to
a lot of people who are offering up kind of
like living their life more like a sabbatical, and so
they're not necessarily having to take direct time off from work,
(04:16):
but they're incorporating reset and recharge time into their days
and weeks so that they're not you know, ultimately burning
themself out to a point where they need to take
an extended.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
Break from work.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
So there's a lot of ways that this can look,
and you know, everyone's kind of unique and how they
approach it.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
So talk to us about how your first sabbatical came
about and why do you credit that time with essentially
the fruition of the business.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
That you run.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Yeah, So at the time of my life, I was
finishing up my MBA program. I was doing that part
time while also working full time, and my job at
the time had me going back and forth between DC
and New York, and.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
So it was a lot of travel, it was a
lot of.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Always on energy, and I think towards the end of
my MBA I started realizing, you know, the path that
might be laid out for me at my current job
was not There wasn't like a career ladder to grow
on my company called a rock wall, and so they
they sort of didn't feel like there was a lot
of support in terms of what they were going to
(05:21):
offer me after I finished this big big to do,
like getting another degree, sort of a thing you'd.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Like free solo Alex Hanold that job.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Yeah, Yeah, and so you know, I was faced with
it's like I had to move to New York or
nothing like that, was that that was the only opportunity
that existed for me, and so I just started looking
at that and also feeling just the overwhelm of, you
know what the culmination of all this meant, and felt
really burned out. I mean, I you know, I think
(05:51):
I was. I was getting sick quite often. I was
pretty just sort of mad and upset a lot, like
little things would sort of set me off, and I
knew that really the only way to stop that spinning
in my head was just to.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
Stop it all and take a break.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
And I actually made the decision to do this pretty
much on a whim. Like I walked in one morning
and I was really upset about something that had happened
the day before, and I said, you know what, I
just I cannot do this anymore.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
I just can't. And so I put in my notice.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
And this happens at a lot of corporate jobs, where
they sort of when you decide to leave, they sort
of treat it like.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
They make you feel like you're getting fired.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
So it's like I basically put in my notice and
within an hour, you know, HR was doing their exit
interview with me. They didn't want to have me stay
on for two weeks because when you work for a
global news organization like I was, they don't want people
to like publish bogus headlines on the way out and
things like that. So I knew that going in, but
it's still was sort of like a gut punch, you know,
(06:51):
like I'm the one doing this and you guys are
making me feel like I'm the one getting fired. But
you know, that's sort of an aside. I think, you know,
some people may not have that exit experience, just depending
on where they are working.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
But yeah, so I sat that day.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
I sat in the park with a friend and we
just sort of daydreamed about, like, you know, what I
could do, And I didn't have a plan. I literally
just dropped everything and stopped without much of a plan
at all. And so that was the start of kind
of my reset.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Okay, So one of the things that you said a
little bit ago, you mentioned too how some folks incorporate
more of like a rhythm of daily or even sort
of weekly rests or times of restoration. Talk about that,
like what about just actually working less instead of taking
this massive extended time off, Like what if someone was
(07:43):
able to shift from working fifty five hours a week
down to thirty hours a week, like could that have
a similar impact or do you think that folks need
this extended, hardcore total absence of work.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
In their lives, You know, I think it depends on
the person.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
I think for me, if I had just found another job,
maybe one that didn't require as many hours, I don't
think I would have learned the lessons I needed to
learn about who I am when I'm not working, and
about how I was using busyness to sort of fuel
like self esteem. Honestly, in me, I would you know,
business and achievement were sort of fueling self esteem for me,
(08:21):
and I don't that was the unhealthy part for me
that if I had just kept working or pivoted, I
don't think I would have learned those lessons.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
But not everybody.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Maybe there's a lot of people out there who maybe
don't need to learn those lessons. Hopefully, and you know,
certainly spending some time just reevaluating where work is in
your life and the priority that you place in your
life is a good way to get some more balance back,
and perhaps you can do it without having to take
the full time off like I did.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
I took eight nine months off.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Wow, Yeah, that's a long time. Do you think that
sabbaticals that you talked about your work culture and I mean,
do you think they're more necessary in twenty twenty five
than they were let's say, decades ago because of the
nature of work and maybe the invasiveness. I mean, I
think about even laws in Australia right to tamp down
(09:14):
on employers being able to reach employees after hours. And
sometimes it does feel like, you know, what, how many
hours am I actually working in a week? It's hard
to even come up with a number because it feels
like work is all encompassing. I'm not saying that like personally,
but I think a lot of people feel that way.
So do you think it's I don't know, sabbaticals are
(09:35):
more necessary these days because of the invasive nature of work?
Speaker 4 (09:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (09:38):
I mean I think a couple of things are happening right,
Like we've moved almost to a fully knowledge based workforce.
Like we do knowledge based work, we're not making widgets
and producing items where it's thought work and it takes
a lot out of us. It's about creativity, it's about
management of people, it's about thought leadership and writing, and
I think COVID ninet team helped crystallize what's most important
(10:02):
for people.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
And you know, working sixty plus hours.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
For a company that might go through downsizing and lay
us off next year is not it, especially when you
know you might be able to solve problems at work
in your dreams literally because you take the time and
rest and your brain.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
Says, oh, I've got the solution.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
But you don't get credit for that when you're not
sitting at your desk with your green light on, you know,
on your teams.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
Or on your zoom right.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
And so I think more and more of us now,
just in these times, are exploring alternative work arrangements, not
just physical location and the flexibility of where we work,
but how we utilize time off and where you know,
where we're working, and how on we have to be
while we're working, depending on the type of role that
(10:50):
we have. And this flexibility and this freedom is almost
being held up as more valuable than you know, even
the salary or the title or.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
You know, how many people you manage.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
This flexibility is kind of like the new importance that
we're seeing in work, and yeah, it's I think we're
all going to need a lot more time off in
the future, just based on the nature of how work
is and this whole idea of having like metrics at work,
like key performance indicators. Oftentimes they are fully based on
(11:23):
what once was widget making, you know, like making cars
on a line at Ford. You know, we created all
these efficiency devices for managing employees, and it's it's hard
to apply that to the knowledge based economy, but yet
companies are trying to. And that tends to help us
feel like we're a lot less human and there's no
(11:43):
room for the creativity, which can't often be done on
quite the same timeline that companies want.
Speaker 4 (11:48):
It to be done on.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
All right, So tell me what makes a sabbatical impactful,
like you talked about for you, I guess your initial
or your first experience with it was to recover from burnout.
But what are some of the other benefits that folks
are able to receive, like from taking a sabbatical, from
taking some time off, And I guess, how can folks
(12:10):
do that efficiently? Like how can folks get the most
bang for their buck as they're trying to, you know,
reap the rewards and the benefits from that sabbatical.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
Yeah, I mean I think.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
You know, sabbaticals aren't just some glorifly glitz and glam break.
You know, there's a lot that you can do or
maybe more importantly not it's.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Not just spaw days where you're getting your back rund.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Yeah, well, on a work break, you know, I think
resting and recharging is the primary goal and the primary focus.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
You know, a lot of people tend.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
To, especially if it's their first sabbatical, they maybe they
would have a tendency to try to busy your way
through the work break. You know, if you have several
weeks off in a row, you might think, well, there's
all these things, these projects, these the stuff around the
house that I haven't been able to do because I've
been working so much. Maybe I should just do X,
Y and Z and this and that and the other.
(13:01):
And that can be a dangerous route because it starts
to feel a lot more like work when you've got
this long to do list while on sabbatical. And so
you know, I'm often advocating for people to do less
while on their work break, but you know, the main.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
Goal is still helpful.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
It's still helpful to have like a main purpose or
a goal while you're on break. And I've certainly spoke
with and coached a lot of people who've done lots
of awesome things while on their work break, you know,
finishing up a dissertation, taking stock of what they want
in their career, maybe helping out an ailing family member,
finding ways to practice what eventual retirement.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
Would actually look like can be a really valuable way
to spend time. Other people cross train.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Or volunteer so they might learn new skills that they've
always wanted to learn, do something kind of creative, or
volunteer in a way that is meaningful or impactful for them.
And so there's just lots of things other than the normal,
like I'm going to take a sabbatical and travel the world, old.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
Kind of approach that you might see on social media.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Well, and with the traveling the world approach, you're talking
about reducing your income, increasing your expenses.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
So it's the whole other side of things that we'll, yeah,
we'll probably get to you later on episode. Might be
harder to have a longer sabbatical if you're trying to
jet set around the world. What if you have a partner,
you're married, you have kids, how do you think about
I'm just trying to like mentally think through if I
go home tonight and at dinner, I'm like, honey, take
it a sabbatical. And how that conversation goes down and
(14:32):
she's like, wait, do you want me to keep going
to work?
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Like how's this? How's this going to function? How would
you approach that conversation? And I don't know, should husband
and wife or you know, married couple, should they say
let's let's overlap, let's both take time off together, or
should we do it separately?
Speaker 4 (14:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (14:49):
I mean I wrote a whole chapter on this in
my book How to Support a Spouse on a Sabbatical,
because my spouse and I also looked at that and
kind of navigate did it He did not take a
sabbatical when I took mine, and then later he took
a sabbatical and I did not, And that worked for us,
it was just fine. But for other people you may
want to try to figure out a way to coordinate it,
(15:11):
especially if you've got kids and you want to travel
with your kids and make sure that you know everybody
can enjoy themselves and certainly everybody's going to be a
little bit different. But I think the prime directive here
is to really open up the communication not just on
the oh, what are we going to do front or
who's going to do what front, but also just in
(15:32):
the sort of money anxiety front, because you're bound to
in a couple, there's bound to be one person who's
sort of the money anxious person versus the person who's like, yeah,
we'll figure it out, you know, and it's going to
be more important, even more important, I think, while on
sabbatical to get on the same page and do frequent
money check ins so you can as you see money
(15:53):
dwindling intentionally, because that's the purpose for the money is
to spend it on, you know, giving yourself a work break.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
As you see that money dwindling.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
It doesn't create this undo anxiety and pressure, because the
worst thing that can happen is for the spouse who
is continuing to work to put undue pressure on the
person who's on sabbatical, either to get another job, to
get off their button, do X y Z, or you know,
to take them away from the journey that they are
(16:24):
on themselves.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
Right sure, and it's and it's so tempting, right.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
I Mean, when my husband went on work break, he
was also burned out and literally, you know, stuff at
being languishing around the house, little projects and things, and I,
you know, I felt like I wanted him to do
some of that stuff, and so I was really trying
to get him to do it.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
And he basically told me, he's like, you know what,
this is too much pressure for me.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
And I was like, you know what, actually, thanks for
being honest about it, and I'm gonna let go of
this a little bit and let go of the honeydew
stuff and let you discover in your own way what
this is going to look like for you. But you know,
it's like that those conversations happen every day among couples,
and that this navigation it becomes even more complicated when
(17:09):
one continues to work and the other doesn't.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
What what was the sabbatical like for your husband with
any eureka moments or what did he walk away from
that experience with?
Speaker 3 (17:18):
You know, his big thing was he knew he thought
like this time off is just going to be so
luxurious and recharging, but he actually found that he needed
more kind of interaction with people and than he was
he maybe thought because he's an introvert. And so his
big discovery was like, you know, I don't know if
I'm ever going to fully retire retire, I may always
(17:40):
want to be engaged in some form or fashion with
work or mentorship or teaching, and so he you know,
that's kind of his big been his big focus post sabbaticals,
figuring out how he can incorporate more of that into
his work life. He's a you know, computer science person
of soft or developer, so there's the production of software
(18:04):
that is his primary, you know focus. But there's a
lot now that he's been in his career while it's
like this mentorship piece has bubbled up as an important
thing for him.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
That's pretty cool. Yeah, And I guess it depends on
the couple as to whether or not you coordinate those
sabbaticals to where and depending on what your goals are, right,
like you said, it's hard to I don't know, maybe
it's not too hard to go on some world some
world travel by yourself. Depends on the couple. But I
could also see where coordinating that so that you are
able to take that time off together, how there's a
(18:33):
benefit there. But then on the opposite end of the
spectrum to be able to alternate if you are maybe
a little more money anxious and you're a little concerned
about having a flow of money coming in. I think
that could make a whole lot of sense as well.
But you kind of mentioning your husband and sort of
what he found he needed from when it comes to
(18:54):
just other people talk about how important it is to
gather support. You talk about that in your book, because
not everyone in your social circle is going to understand
when you tell them, hey, I'm looking to take some
time off. There's a difference between maybe your friends at
work versus someone who is going to be more supportive
I guess of something like a sabbatical.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
Can you talk Yeah, I mean I think there's all
kinds of constituencies you almost have to think about.
Speaker 4 (19:15):
When you make an announcements like this.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
You know, there's your coworkers, there's your family, like your
extended family as well as your immediate family and your friends, right,
and it's going to be really surprising who is supportive
and who's not. I mean, I know for me, you know,
I had some really good friends that they sort of
raise their eyebrows at me, like are you sure you're
going to do this? And it was sort of gut wrenching,
(19:40):
like what, I don't understand why you're not supporting me here?
Speaker 4 (19:43):
Right?
Speaker 3 (19:44):
And then I had other folks tell me stories of
going on break and one person in particular who was
going to take care of her kids for a little while,
and she immediately felt like she got judged, you know,
for that decision. And so there's a lot of negativity
on the idea of taking time off because a lot
(20:05):
of times it's still associated with something wrong, like there's
something wrong, so therefore you have to take time off,
therefore you know something, there's something shameful about this.
Speaker 4 (20:15):
I spoke to a CEO.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Of a nonprofit this week who took a sabbatical over
the summer, and she was ashamed to tell her board
what the plan was. And this was an employee like
a sponsored sabbatical from the company, but she was still
ashamed to make an announcement because of this sort of
deep seated pressure or fear, like what.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
Are people think I'm just going to be slacking? Like
what's the deal here?
Speaker 3 (20:39):
So you know, I think in order to combat this,
first of all, you got to know this is, this
is what you're up against. But two is to kind
of push through some of those fears and be courageous
to start talking maybe more publicly about it. Consider making
a post and just kind of getting out in front
of it, explaining what it is that you're going to
do and why you're going to do it. And I
(21:00):
think over time a lot of that the course of
those posts will will help kind of raise awareness that
this is a valid way to not just like get
back more time and energy in your life, but to
create new growth and pivot and maybe even change and
wealth in your life in a way that you wouldn't
have had the opportunity if you just kept working. We're
(21:22):
still pushing back against decades and generations of work, work,
work until essentially you die or get sick, right, And
so you know there's a lot there, but I think, right, yeah, yeah,
this puritanical view, right, But I think it's important to
find people or lean on people who you are finding
(21:42):
that are supportive. And nowadays there are there are more
groups than ever.
Speaker 4 (21:47):
You know, there's.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Facebook support groups for people taking sabbaticals. There's more and
more podcasts I think that are talking about this sort
of thing.
Speaker 4 (21:55):
So there are ways to get ideas.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
And feel like you're you're not just alone in the
world doing something wild and crazy and avant garde, and
so it is important to seek some of that stuff
out and find maybe more like minded people because you
are going to get some raised eyebrows no matter what,
and that it's going to be a surprise at who
those people are.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
I would say, yeah, I believe it. There's going to
be some hard conversations you're going to have to be
ready for, and I think you're going to have to
be convinced of the value of taking that sabbatical in
advance so that you can have those conversations without I
guess feeling super super judged. We've got more questions we
want to get to with you, Katie, including like can
everyone actually take a sabbatical and maybe like some of
(22:39):
the financial realities behind that. It feels like we're the
safer retirement and save for sabbatical. How are we going
to do both? We'll talk about that right after this.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
We are back from the break again speaking with Katie North.
And right before the break, Katie you mentioned like that
Sea EO and she was afraid to bring it up
to the board and this was a policy, like you mentioned,
that was already in place. It seems like there are
more employers out there who are willing to talk about
sabbaticals these days. So you know, folks, they don't even
(23:15):
have to quit their jobs in order to pull this off.
Can you maybe share some different examples of different companies
out there and some of the programs that they're offering.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
Yeah, so it is a benefit for sure.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
The Society for Human Resource Management, which is a global
HR organization, did a study and they found that there
was like more than four hundred companies that just are
in their kind of world of reference that are offering
some form of sabbatical program, whether paid or unpaid. And
believe it or not, I've talked to people who did
not know their own employer had this as a benefit.
(23:47):
And so your first line if this is something that
you're interested in doing, is to go into your HR
manuals and examine whether this is an existing program or
not at your organization, and if it is, you know,
start to talk with not just HR, but your boss
and your boss's boss probably to come up with a
scenario and solution for you know, who's going to take
(24:09):
over your work while you're gone, and how it's all
going to work out. The most successful companies that have
this program in place are the ones who create like
a multi level communication plan that is both internal and
external client facing. They do a big job of, like
PR style promoting it. And it's a benefit to the
(24:32):
company too, because it becomes like a nice place to work,
like this benefit exists and it's a cool thing that's
being offered, and so you know, they can get miles
out of that from a PR perspective too, if everybody's
communicating in advance. And then there's also this idea of
like creating a return to work kind of routine for
(24:55):
the people who've taken sabbaticals and what it's like to
return to work and realize, well, somebody else did my
job while I was gone.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
Now what like what does that mean? Like I'm worthless?
Speaker 3 (25:05):
And so there's that kind of phenomenon that also happens,
and so it's really important to kind of have a
return to work transition as well set up. And what
that might look like is simply, you know, just sharing
a little bit about what the sabbatical was, like, what
it meant for the employee and maybe what they learned
or what they they still want to do or what
(25:27):
they want to maybe transition off their plate even post sabbatical,
and what new things they may want to take on.
It's a unique stress testing opportunity for organizations, no question.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
If there's no policy on the books, like you've come
through the HR manual and there's no sort of yeah, hey,
here's the you know, sabbatical reality. If you've been here
a certain number of years, you get this many weeks
off of paid leave or half pay or something like that.
Is it still something you can ask for? Is have
you seen people successfully negotiate with their employer to say, listen,
this is I feel like this is in the cards
(25:59):
for me. I needed to happen. I would quit otherwise.
Should I just ask? Yeah, see what happens?
Speaker 4 (26:04):
Absolutely ask, you know.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
Just I've had several people that I've talked to, some
of their stories are featured in the book, that they
just had the courage to ask. And one person was
given a year off unpaid to work on a creative project,
traveling around the globe and kind of doing a documentary
and their employer was like, yep, you know, return in
a year, your job will be here. And it was
(26:30):
a total surprise to her because she thought for sure,
like they wouldn't go for it at all, And so
you could also pitch it kind of like a pilot program, like, hey,
let me be the guinea pig. I want to you know,
this is an important benefit. Here's all the reasons and
the research behind it. Let me be the guinea pig.
Let's figure this out and develop you know, the policies
(26:51):
and procedures using me, you know, as the.
Speaker 4 (26:53):
Test case for it.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
And in those cases, I think it's also really important
to get it in writing, make sure everybody's on the
same page, whether you'd have to do something when you return,
like stay for a certain number of years or something
like that. Are you know, laying out those those policies.
I think it's really important and kind of getting everybody
on the same page.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
That makes sense. Yeah, So these are kind of like
I guess, external hurdles with your company that you have
to overcome. And earlier too, you were talking about the
cultural stigma of folks, you know, not working and maybe
what that says about them. There's a lot of folks
as well who are dealing with sort of like that,
like a personal cultural stigma, right, and like we're talking
about that identity aspect of finding sort of our purpose
(27:39):
within our work, and it like it's often the first
question we ask new folks when we meet them, you know, like, hey,
what is it that you do?
Speaker 4 (27:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (27:45):
And so how like how do folks deal with that?
Speaker 3 (27:48):
Right?
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Especially I'm thinking about like those early weeks of taking
a sabbatical where maybe are even questioning yourself. You're like
what I I oh, no, like I've totally screwed up.
You find yourself bored, you don't know what to do,
You've been binge watched a few too many shows. Maybe
how do folks kind of fight that battle?
Speaker 4 (28:05):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (28:05):
Yeah, I mean there are some common phenomenon with this
sort of ebb and flow, and certainly the boredom does
set in for everyone, even if you're on a world
traveling expedition at some point, and that's okay. The boredom
means that there's some change on the horizon and that
you're going to be figuring things out.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
So it's actually a good sign.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
So we should try to be bored.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
Yeah, to get to that point.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
I mean literally, yeah, get to that point, and it's
a it's a good teacher, you know, in terms of
how you how you like relate to stress and what
that means, right, and what does boredom look like for you?
Speaker 4 (28:40):
And and all of that. It's a it's a really
great teacher.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
And boredom is so hard to come by in our
culture these days.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Like I'd rather constant distractions, everything that's out there to
entertain us.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Yeah, you can like become the world's best at candy
crush instead of having to be bored yes, yes.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
And the other thing is like, once you create a plan,
finances are all often like the least of your concerns.
I mean, I certainly see that with my financial planning practice, right,
I'm a financial advisor.
Speaker 4 (29:06):
I help people with their budgets, with their investments, all
of that.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Obviously we talk about money all day, but when it
comes to sabbaticals, you know, I find that the money
kind of takes a back seat a lot of times.
And then there's clients often are agonizing more over the
who am I? Who am if I'm not working? What
am I going to do next? What does this mean
for me? Like how do I communicate it to people?
And so there are all these other you know, personal
(29:32):
aspects and journeys that you've got to go on. And
so one of the most important things while you're on
a work break is to actually do some of this
self reflection. And for me, like writing and journaling is
really important for other people and may just be you know,
talking with friends or with trusted a counselor in your
life or something like that, but doing some self reflection
(29:53):
is one of the most powerful gifts that you can
give yourself while on a work break. And all the
answers are there, You're going to find that the answer
has just come flowing out of you. It's just a
matter of unlocking them and allowing your brain to sort
of do the work. And you can't force it, right,
It just it will happen naturally.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
When you say that money's not typically like the number
one subject that people are approaching is that because it's
a self selecting group of folks who are already working
with a financial planner and they're already being thoughtful about
their money. Because I'm just trying to think of maybe
listeners to how to money who are kind of new
to personal finance, right, maybe they're like, I'm just trying
to like get rid of the debt from the holidays
(30:33):
and I and save up an emergency fund, and so
like the idea of self funding a sabbatical while I'm
trying to pay off the debt and start to save
for retirement sounds intense. So in your estimation, is this
just a reality for upper middle class folks who have
been on the career ladder for a while, or is
this really something that most folks. It's accessible to most folks.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
I mean, I don't think there's like a black or
white answer on that.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
I mean, certainly the people I work with are self selecting,
and that you know, I work with women in their
thirties and forties who've kind of been established in their career.
You know, they do have free cash flow, they're not
probably not in debt, right, and so the number of
people that I've worked with one on one that's going
to be their story is that you know, they're not
They are concerned about the money, and they use money
(31:19):
as like a well I can't do this because but
really when we dig into it, what I'm finding is
that it's a lot of these other personal things that
are going on. However, your question about whether this is
accessible for most folks, I do think it is. And
the reason I say that is because anyone can prioritize anything.
It's just about a matter of having a plan, right.
(31:40):
And you know, I did some simple math on this
just to give people an idea of how just how
accessible it is and how frequently you could do it.
And the main reason why is because when you're on sabbatical,
you don't have to cover your full income right that
you earn.
Speaker 4 (31:55):
You only have to cover your expenses.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
And so if you can get to a point where
you're being very mindful of your expenses and you're able
to cut things down, right, if you're saving five percent
of your take home pay, you could fund a three
month sabbatical every five years just by saving five percent
of your take home pay. If you ratchet that up,
of course, right, you could do it much faster. You
(32:19):
could take longer sabbaticals. You know, there's all sorts of
ways to figure this out, but it's like it's a
matter of prioritizing that. And if you've got multiple goals, right,
how do you figure out what comes first, will come second,
or how you do manage to do all three or
sort of share share the wealth among the goals, so
to speak.
Speaker 4 (32:39):
So with intention and with a plan, certainly creating.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
A system and a you know, a savings goal for
this is very accessible no matter what your income level is.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
I love that. What are some of the different creative
financial choices you've seen folks make. So obviously folks are
saving up and they're looking to set that set aside
that fund, right like, they want to have that runway
to be able to take that sabbatical. And there are
all sorts of ways you can increase your income cut
different expenses in your life. But once folks are on sabbaticals,
I'm curious what are some of the just more out
(33:12):
there decisions that folks have made to either extend that
or as a way to decrease their expenses.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
Yeah, yeah, I mean even the getting started piece, you know,
a tax refund, a gift, a small inheritance, or like
a company bonus of some kind can be a great
way to sort of jump start savings or something like this,
like some surprise money. But while you're on sabbatical, you know,
the we talked a little bit about, you know, the
travel around the world thing, but there are many countries
(33:38):
that are far less expensive to live in than the
United States, and so that's actually kind of a cool
flex is to find one of those countries, and you know,
it takes some cash to get there, but once you're there,
you know you could have a very very reasonable kind
of standard of living without the cost, you know, a
quarter of the cost of the United States. And so
(34:00):
so I've seen people get really creative on that front.
I've seen people also apply to fellowships abroad or teach
English abroad and as a way to have some income
stream while they're traveling, and that can get that can
be really interesting and a really unique experience as well.
And then you know, depending on what your living situation
(34:20):
is here back here in the States, you know, a
lot of people fund some of this through like renting
out their current place, you know, either short term tenants
or long term tenants and finding a way to have
an income stream while you're gone. And so so that
can be really good. Another another cool and unique way
that I've seen people fund a work break, and it's not,
(34:42):
as I don't know, glitzy, but it's like, if you
really are dealing with burnout and this is a mental health.
Speaker 4 (34:50):
Concern for you, you.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
Know, you can likely apply and get a partially paid
time off using the Family Medical Leave Act f MLA,
and so you know mental health challenges. Burnout is a
is a recognized mental health challenge. You know, you just
have to go through your channels, get your doctor's notes
and make sure HR is informed. And if you work
(35:12):
for a company of a certain size, they're required to
hold your job for three months and they're not.
Speaker 4 (35:17):
Required to pay you during that time.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
But most companies of that size offer have a short
term disability insurance that's paid up and so you could
get maybe sixty percent of your salary while you take
the time off to you know, do some therapy, get healthier,
kind of change your change of thought processes around work,
and maybe recover from the burnout some.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Yeah, that's helpful to know. I love the idea of
running out your place, moving to Thailand. You could sabbaticle
for like eight years. I think if you take that round,
you move somewhere cheaper and you're making some money on
your place. What would you say? And it sounds like
this is like maybe the line of questioning or discussion
that you take with some of your clients. Someone who
has the financial means, but they feel kind of paralyzed
(36:00):
by the idea of taking a sabbatical, and especially if
they are, they have a job and they think, especially
if it means leaving that job, how am I ever
going to find a job that's comparable, that's equivalent, that's
going to pay the same amount, especially at this stage
in my career. Think of all of those looming questions
that this engender is to try and take six months
(36:23):
plus off or something like that. And it doesn't have
to be six months. But what would you say to
that person who thinks there's no way I'm going to
be competitive in the workforce after taking this.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Much time off.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Well, that's an old way of thinking, right that suddenly
you've lost your knowledge, your skills, your expertise, all the
experiences you've had in your career. You don't lose any
of that. You don't lose a drop of it while
you take a work break. In fact, a lot of
this get strengthened because you have time away from work
to reflect and think, like, Okay, what is important to
(36:55):
me in my.
Speaker 4 (36:56):
Day to day job, What skills do I appreciate? What
do I want to build on?
Speaker 3 (37:00):
And you come back bringing your best self to that role,
and it's probably a much better fit. You know, and
so how can you not take a break if it
will unlock this new energy and this sort of newfound
runway for you to go and just have a lot
of energy around your purpose and what you're doing.
Speaker 4 (37:21):
I think the old way of thinking.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
Is, oh, I'm out of the workforce, I'm missing out
on this and missing out on that, and now suddenly
I'm not relevant and I'm not up to date. That's
a very old way of thinking, and it's just not true.
It's just not true.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Nice all right, Katie, We've got more to get to,
just a few more questions, and specifically we want to
make sure to touch on retirement and how sabbaticals can
act as a sort of as like a test drive.
We'll get to that more right after this.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Our we're back. We're still talking with Katie North. We're
talking about sabbaticals and the radical impact that taking a
sabbatical can have on your life.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
We missed out on name in this episode, radical sabbatical.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Don't Yeah. I thought of it in trusting. I had
to consciously hold off because I knew you would judge it, Matt. Katie,
are there other financial considerations that need to be made
before taking a sabbatical. I'm thinking of Let's say someone
wants to buy a home and they don't have income
for the time being. That could, you know, dramatically reduce
their ability to buy a home unless they've got cash
on hand. So what are maybe some of those other
(38:28):
things that you want people to at least think about
before they start that sabbatical.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
Yeah, I mean, I think there's a few things you
can't do financially, either while on sabbatical or immediately after.
One thing is if you're leaving your job, you know,
at will, and you're quitting to take some time off
to do self paid time off from work, You're not
gonna be able to get unemployment.
Speaker 4 (38:51):
Because it's your choice, right.
Speaker 3 (38:52):
It's different if you were terminated and that or you
receive some kind of severance package and you know, getting
unemployment was on the table.
Speaker 4 (39:02):
So that's one thing.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
You're not going to be able to finance or refinance
a mortgage because the mortgage companies are looking at recent
pay stubs and unless you have enough income within your
family through other means, another another your spouse working, or
something like that, financing or refinancing a mortgage is probably
off the table. Refinancing student debt for the same reason.
(39:25):
If you're somebody struggling with student debt and you're trying
to get a lower interest rate, you're probably not gonna
be able to refinance until after you go back to work.
Renting a new place is also kind of tough because
landlords often want to see recent pay stubs. There may
be some ways to finagle that, depending on how formal
your landlord.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Is, but in general, I'd be like, yeah, you're you've
been finding yourself.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
All right, Yeah, yeah, I mean you could show like
the amount of money you have in savings or something
like that as a substantution. But you will be able
to do some things that are kind of surprising, Like
you probably will be able to get a new credit card.
And I'm not advocating for going into credit card debt
to go to take a sabbatical, but you know, you
(40:10):
may be able to qualify for like a low or
no interest deal for a short period of time. And
because the credit card companies are sort of looking at
last year's income, not you know, not asking for current
pay stubs.
Speaker 4 (40:24):
Car Loan, same thing.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
Car companies tend to just look at last year's income
versus current pay stubs.
Speaker 4 (40:30):
So if needing a.
Speaker 3 (40:31):
New car is part of, you know, whatever your sabbatical
plan looks like that, that may be okay as far
as financial kind of decisions and things like that.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
Might might even help doing some ROTH conversions right while
you're on your sabbatical.
Speaker 3 (40:45):
Potentially exactly when you're in a lower tax bracket. There's
a lot of kind of financial things you should examine
like that, like whether you should do some ROTH conversions.
There may be a whole slew of tax benefits and
deductions that kind of open up to you when you
have lower income, and that includes like healthcare subsidies even, right,
(41:07):
So there's a lot of things along those lines to
sort of examine. You may want to google like tax
credits and deductions and look at the income thresholds and
see what might come up that you might qualify for.
And I've definitely seen a lot of people able to
save a lot more money for things just based on
(41:28):
kind of their tax situation.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
You briefly mentioned severance packages, and I think you know,
we talked to somebody a while back, Matt on the
show who talked about negotiating a severance package and kind
of highlighted that it's open to more people than they
would typically think. But if this is something that's a
goal of yours to take time off and you're like,
I don't see myself coming back to this job, is
(41:51):
there a way to maybe finagles like months and months
worth of pay as you walk out the door. Because
it's a win win situation for the employer and for you.
Speaker 4 (42:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (42:03):
I mean, I wouldn't necessarily tell your employer like you
were going to leave anyway, because they might. A lot
of times the severance packages will say like, you know,
it has to be it has to be like a
joint decision by the you know, by the manager and
things like that. But you know, I even had a
client this week she was considering taking a sabbatical starting
(42:26):
at the end of February, and she got a notice
this week saying that they're going to do a reduction
in force and they're taking volunteers. Yes, true, and so
you know that happens a lot at various times a
year in the corporate space. And so it's like, well, shoot,
she's going to jump on that, and now she's going
to have twelve weeks paid, whereas before she was just
(42:47):
going to do it herself and and you know, live
off for savings for a period of time, and so
it's a it's sort of like a lucky draw.
Speaker 4 (42:55):
When that kind of thing happens.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
Normally it would be considered pretty terrible to have to
go through a reduction in force, But if it's something
you're planning to do anyway, making sure you're on the
first round of cuts or getting your name forward first
would be a good move.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
It's kind of like volunteering to the airline, like yeah, no, no,
bump me back to the later flight because I want
the eight hundred dollars in credits or whatever.
Speaker 4 (43:16):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (43:18):
But you know, you don't necessarily have to give them
your original plans, like I was going to leave anywhere.
I just kind of keep that part close to your
vest and just focus on following their guidelines for the
reduction and force and.
Speaker 4 (43:33):
Or pitching it.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
Like you could take the approach of pitching it if
they haven't announced a full reduction in force and say, look,
I know budgets are getting tight. I just wanted to
see if there's any room on the horizon or wiggle
room here where you know, maybe I could kind of
put my name out there and you guys would pay
me a severance to leave or something like that.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
Yeah, we don't have to share everything that we think
to our bossss. Yeah, but I want to highlight here
is something that essentially what you're saying here is that
a lot of times these sabbaticals they are something that
we do more proactively and as something that we plan
or that's something that we work towards. But you're highlighting
the fact that they can also be a way for
folks to kind of like a judo move of taking
(44:13):
this sort of negative thing that would normally be seen
as a negative, whether it's a health emergency or whether
it's the company downsizing, and for you to take that
opportunity to say, you know what, instead of just launching
right back into the job search, let's use this unplanned,
sort of forced time off as a sabbatical. You write
about that well in your book. But earlier we were
(44:35):
talking about some of the benefits of sabbaticals, how you
use that time to take stock, to maybe volunteer, but
you also mentioned how you can use it to sort
of practice retirement, and in your book you detail how
pausing your contributions to retirement accounts during a sabbatical. How
it has a smaller impact on your nest egg than
folks might think. But can you explain how folks can
(44:58):
use a sabbatical as sort of like that test drive
for retirement.
Speaker 3 (45:02):
Yeah, I mean it's really interesting working in my line
of work. You know that you can work with someone
for years on their savings plan and then just how
difficult it is for someone to sort of switch gears
and decide to start living off of their income is
a major sea change in identity, right, But a sabbatical
is a unique position because it's a safe way to
(45:23):
sort of practice this from an identity perspective as well
as a financial perspective of this concept of eventual retirement.
And it's like, okay, well who am I when I'm
not working? How do I want to spend my time?
Those are two big questions that you can answer as
sort of like a safe sandbox where it's like time limited,
You're going to go back to work at some point,
and so it's a safe way to explore some of this.
Speaker 4 (45:46):
And then the living off savings.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
Piece is also a really good teacher because it's like
it kind of conditions you to understand, like, my money
is my wealth and it represents an income stream and
when even temporarily I'm living off my wealth, this is
how eventual retirement is.
Speaker 4 (46:03):
Going to work.
Speaker 3 (46:04):
And it gets me kind of used to that concept
and that idea, and so it can be really beneficial
from that perspective too. And I think the sabbatical is
nice because anytime you take a break, or even if
you're off for multiple months, you could take each month
and do something different and explore or different sabbaticals that
you may take during your career. You could explore different
(46:25):
avenues that eventually might lead you to how you want
to spend some of or all of your time in retirement.
Speaker 1 (46:32):
Yeah, Katie, this has been a great conversation full of
like so much good information and food for thought for
people out there. I mean, and this really is. It's
radical in so many ways, kind of the suggestion in
a culture that so revolves around work that hey, I
don't know, maybe you should give it up for a
season to kind of see what lights you up and
(46:53):
maybe it'll actually, I don't know, produce significant personal dividends
because you actually took the time to make it happen.
Thank you so much for joining us working our listeners
find out more about you and more about your book,
The Artist Sabbaticle.
Speaker 3 (47:07):
Katie Noorth dot com and that's c A d Y
n O r thh dot com.
Speaker 4 (47:12):
The book is available on Amazon and anywhere you buy books.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
That's right. We forgot to mention early on that Katie
does not have the traditional Katie spelling. Yeah, you got
to get that D in there. Yeah, Katie, thank you
so much for talking with us today.
Speaker 4 (47:24):
Thanks so much.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
All right, Matt, that's a great confo. Yeah makes me
one walk kind of here right now, go take a break.
Speaker 2 (47:32):
Uh, we're closer to doing that than I think maybe
our listeners, maybe even more than we even realized.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
Jo Yeah, who knows. Yeah, I mean, And that's the
reality too, is is work is super fun, but there's man.
Life has so much to offer, and thinking centering your
life around work, I think is a mistake, and I
think that's at the heart of what Katie's getting at.
But what was your big takeaway from this combo?
Speaker 2 (47:54):
I think my big takeaway is going to be when
she writes about this really well too, but when she
talks about giving yourself enough time to take a long
enough sabbatical to actually be bored, to get to the
point to where you're sort of forced to do some
of that introspection right where maybe phone life, yes, I
mean literally to sit there and to not feel. And
this isn't just from an entertainment standpoint in candy crush,
(48:16):
like you mentioned, but also there are other things that
you typically want to do, right like oftentimes folks are
going to use this time to spend some time with
family or man, I haven't seen my college roommates, you know, Okay,
so we're going to also go do that. And if
it's too short of a sabbatical, I think you can
just fill your time with a bunch of to doos.
In her case with her husband, it was a lot
of house project to dos and he's like, who whoa, whoa, whoa,
(48:38):
let's pump the brakes. This isn't uh, this feels a
little counterproductive for me to be going on the sabbatical.
But I think, like she said, those answers are there
there within us as individuals, and it just takes some
time to unlock those answers to do the work and
to maybe even do some journaling where we're able to
let some of those ideas flow from our brains. I
(48:59):
think that that is advice that our culture needs more
than ever.
Speaker 1 (49:03):
Yeah, I think my big thing away was when Katie said,
you can prioritize anything. It's a matter of having a plan.
And I think it's true. I think we just prioritize
a lot of other things in this life. And and
so what we do is true. We prioritize working more
because it means we can fund a more lavish lifestyle,
means we can spend more. And granted I'm not trying
to like shame everyone.
Speaker 2 (49:22):
Out there, but and that's typically what happens.
Speaker 1 (49:24):
The truth does everything costs more, and exit the grocery
store costs more. That's a reality of life. But it's
also true that we fund like a Nintendo switch is
a choice, right, like whatever.
Speaker 2 (49:33):
That's what I was gonna say, like new cars or
nicer vacations. It's not that it's not that folks are
prioritizing work. It's that they've prioritized these other things, and
so because of that, they are forced to work in
order to fund these things as opposed to buying some
other time. And that's what isabatical. Is like she literally
hizing that.
Speaker 1 (49:50):
She laid it down a numbers where I thought was
so helpful. She said, five percent of your take home
pay gives you three months of a sabbatical every five years.
Every five years. When you think about it, like now,
a three month break, it's not that radical, that's so cool.
It's not that hard to pull off. I mean, I'm
not saying it's like easy, but it's simple. And so
if this is something that resonates with you and you're like, man,
I would love the idea, the ability to take a
(50:14):
few months off and to really kind of do some
soul searching and figure out what's next. And the truth
is it can actually be more productive to your bottom
line ultimately. I think taking that time off and maybe
it means making a pivot into something that you hadn't
considered before, or maybe it's like a dormant dream that
you kind of bring back up to the surface and
it could lead to a higher paying career down the road.
It might not, but more than anything, I think it's
(50:36):
going to be personally fulfilling in a way that you know,
continuing to put in the hours at work never you know,
nose to the grindstone, not picking up your nose for
forty years in a way that that can never produce
for you.
Speaker 2 (50:49):
So I love it, man, It's so true. And these
aspects of taking a sabbatical, the I don't know more
of the why do I want to do this, like
finding the identity pieces as opposed to the nuts and bolts,
and how do I actually financially make this happen. It's
pretty straightforward, but the I think the harder work is
everything else that goes with taking That's the batical to me.
Speaker 1 (51:10):
It's been kind of this slow burned because I guess
I just grew up in a family culture where work
was lauded and not wrongly I think in some ways
sure work is a good thing, but so much so
where I had a hard time thinking, well, why would
anybody want to work less than forty five hours a
week or whatever? And so it came to you need
to take that break in order to see what it
(51:30):
is that you are that you might have drawn. It's
been a slow change for me enough to where I'm like,
I don't know, the sabbatical sounds pretty awesome.
Speaker 2 (51:37):
Now, all right, man, let's get back to the beer
that you and I enjoyed did you pick this one up?
Because it's kind of got a financial theme to this idea.
It's called ticker Shock, also because I knew it would
be delicious. But yeah, well, this is a beer by
Other Half, and anytime I see a beer by one
of our favorite breweries up out of New York, I
know it's going to be so good. But this is
ticker Shock, which is a double dry hopped Imperial IPA
(51:59):
not sticker. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (52:01):
Do you think the dollar sign is supposed to be
the S four sticker shock?
Speaker 4 (52:04):
Maybe?
Speaker 1 (52:04):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (52:05):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
That was my assumption, says ticker Shock. Yeah, but the beer,
I'm quite literal d The beer was fantastic. This was
like a hoppy orange juice, incredibly citrusy, overwhelming, delicious hop
notes Other Half doing what they do best with the spear.
Speaker 2 (52:20):
Yep, got the hazy action going on, with a little
bit of like sweetness, almost like a berry sweetness. And
on the label it says something about strawberry or strawberry wine,
which I can totally pick up on that sort of
I don't know, there's like an edge that you get
with strawberries specifically, and it just makes it super yummy,
So glad I got to share this one on the
episode on the podcast.
Speaker 1 (52:42):
Did you get thesaurus for that one?
Speaker 2 (52:43):
Super yummy? But that's gonna be it for this episode.
Folks can find our show notes up on the website
at howdimoney dot com. No doubt, all right, Matt, Until
next time, Best friends out, Best friends out.
Speaker 4 (53:00):
The the n speak
Welcome to had to Money.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
I'm Joel and I am Matt.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
And today we're talking the Art of the sabbatical with
Katie North.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
So, when most folks hear the word sabbatical, I think
their mind probably goes to, like a professor who's earned
tenure at a prestigious university, who's going to use that
time to write a really interesting book. Or maybe your
values are more Judeo Christian based, and so maybe you
think of a period of rest after seven years. You
(00:46):
think of that levitical prescription. And while that might be
accurate for some folks, I think our guest today would
say that sabbaticals don't have to be that serious or
that formal. But on the other hand, they're also not
just an extended vacation where you're sipping pincolatas on the beach.
We are joined by CFP and investment advisor Katie North.
(01:09):
She is the author of the Art of the Sabbatical,
and she's going to share why taking a sabbatical, why
it might be more of a reality for everyone who's
listening today, not just for the elite class. Katie, thank
you so much for taking the time to speak with us.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Today.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
Yeah, thanks for having me, Katie.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
The first question we ask everyone who comes on the
show is what do you like to spend money on?
And Matt and I we're drinking a nice craft beer here.
That's kind of something we like to splur John, but hey,
it's okay because we're still saving and investing for the future.
Do you have something like that in your life.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
I love a good spa day.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
I prioritize having a monthly massage for sure, and so
that's definitely something that is important to me.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I feel like, Joel, you have experimented with the idea
of maybe joining like one of the membership sort of clubs,
have you or is that something though?
Speaker 1 (01:59):
I do like to get message and I think in
an ideal world, I would do what Katie does and
I'd go once at least once a month, but I
have not made that as regular as I'd like to.
Is this somebody that comes to your house, Kate, your house, Katie,
or is this somewhere that you go, Okay.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Yeah, no, she comes to my house. It's it's very nice.
She's excellent, does the really nice deep tissue.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
It's perfect.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Are you going sixty minutes or ninety minutes. I feel
like you gotta go ninety am I wrong.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
Ninety minutes when you're doing the deep tess, I gotta
do it.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Get if you're getting all, you're making it happen anyway,
just go full ninety.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
I'm not gonna lie. I feel I feel relaxed just
listening to you talk about those.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
I will say, for the cheap person out there, there
are places that specialize in in feet. And there's a
place that my wife and I like to go to.
We don't go very often, but they do feet and
then they'll finish on like the head, neck, and shoulders,
and I swear for like an hour, you pay thirty
bucks or something like that. It's it's minimally expensive. I
(02:54):
don't know if they exist everywhere, but we have him
in our town at least.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Let's get Let's pivot to sabbaticals, Katie, Can you, like
I guess, basically define a sabbatical, like what is it?
And why are you so keen on them that you
wrote a book about them?
Speaker 4 (03:10):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (03:10):
So I'm a sabbatical advocate by accident. I took a
sabbatical back in twenty fifteen, and I did not know
then how much of a transformative experience it was going
to be for me. I actually hold it up as
one of the most pivotal and meaningful times in my life,
and it really gave me the courage and the confidence
(03:30):
to launch my financial planning business, which is now almost
ten years old. I think of a sabbatical, it doesn't
have to be you know, a specific amount of time,
or you do a specific thing like travel the world.
It's really just an intentional break from work. And most
of the time, I would say your first sabbatical is
often about burnout recovery. That was certainly my mo and
(03:54):
what I needed it was burnout recovery time. But you know,
there are a lot of peop people out there who
are doing sabbaticals with some sort of frequency in their lives,
like every few years or you know, I've talked to
a lot of people who are offering up kind of
like living their life more like a sabbatical, and so
they're not necessarily having to take direct time off from work,
(04:16):
but they're incorporating reset and recharge time into their days
and weeks so that they're not you know, ultimately burning
themself out to a point where they need to take
an extended.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
Break from work.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
So there's a lot of ways that this can look,
and you know, everyone's kind of unique and how they
approach it.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
So talk to us about how your first sabbatical came
about and why do you credit that time with essentially
the fruition of the business.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
That you run.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Yeah, So at the time of my life, I was
finishing up my MBA program. I was doing that part
time while also working full time, and my job at
the time had me going back and forth between DC
and New York, and.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
So it was a lot of travel, it was a
lot of.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Always on energy, and I think towards the end of
my MBA I started realizing, you know, the path that
might be laid out for me at my current job
was not There wasn't like a career ladder to grow
on my company called a rock wall, and so they
they sort of didn't feel like there was a lot
of support in terms of what they were going to
(05:21):
offer me after I finished this big big to do,
like getting another degree, sort of a thing you'd.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Like free solo Alex Hanold that job.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Yeah, Yeah, and so you know, I was faced with
it's like I had to move to New York or
nothing like that, was that that was the only opportunity
that existed for me, and so I just started looking
at that and also feeling just the overwhelm of, you
know what the culmination of all this meant, and felt
really burned out. I mean, I you know, I think
(05:51):
I was. I was getting sick quite often. I was
pretty just sort of mad and upset a lot, like
little things would sort of set me off, and I
knew that really the only way to stop that spinning
in my head was just to.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
Stop it all and take a break.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
And I actually made the decision to do this pretty
much on a whim. Like I walked in one morning
and I was really upset about something that had happened
the day before, and I said, you know what, I
just I cannot do this anymore.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
I just can't. And so I put in my notice.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
And this happens at a lot of corporate jobs, where
they sort of when you decide to leave, they sort
of treat it like.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
They make you feel like you're getting fired.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
So it's like I basically put in my notice and
within an hour, you know, HR was doing their exit
interview with me. They didn't want to have me stay
on for two weeks because when you work for a
global news organization like I was, they don't want people
to like publish bogus headlines on the way out and
things like that. So I knew that going in, but
it's still was sort of like a gut punch, you know,
(06:51):
like I'm the one doing this and you guys are
making me feel like I'm the one getting fired. But
you know, that's sort of an aside. I think, you know,
some people may not have that exit experience, just depending
on where they are working.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
But yeah, so I sat that day.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
I sat in the park with a friend and we
just sort of daydreamed about, like, you know, what I
could do, And I didn't have a plan. I literally
just dropped everything and stopped without much of a plan
at all. And so that was the start of kind
of my reset.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Okay, So one of the things that you said a
little bit ago, you mentioned too how some folks incorporate
more of like a rhythm of daily or even sort
of weekly rests or times of restoration. Talk about that,
like what about just actually working less instead of taking
this massive extended time off, Like what if someone was
(07:43):
able to shift from working fifty five hours a week
down to thirty hours a week, like could that have
a similar impact or do you think that folks need
this extended, hardcore total absence of work.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
In their lives, You know, I think it depends on
the person.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
I think for me, if I had just found another job,
maybe one that didn't require as many hours, I don't
think I would have learned the lessons I needed to
learn about who I am when I'm not working, and
about how I was using busyness to sort of fuel
like self esteem. Honestly, in me, I would you know,
business and achievement were sort of fueling self esteem for me,
(08:21):
and I don't that was the unhealthy part for me
that if I had just kept working or pivoted, I
don't think I would have learned those lessons.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
But not everybody.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Maybe there's a lot of people out there who maybe
don't need to learn those lessons. Hopefully, and you know,
certainly spending some time just reevaluating where work is in
your life and the priority that you place in your
life is a good way to get some more balance back,
and perhaps you can do it without having to take
the full time off like I did.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
I took eight nine months off.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Wow, Yeah, that's a long time. Do you think that
sabbaticals that you talked about your work culture and I mean,
do you think they're more necessary in twenty twenty five
than they were let's say, decades ago because of the
nature of work and maybe the invasiveness. I mean, I
think about even laws in Australia right to tamp down
(09:14):
on employers being able to reach employees after hours. And
sometimes it does feel like, you know, what, how many
hours am I actually working in a week? It's hard
to even come up with a number because it feels
like work is all encompassing. I'm not saying that like personally,
but I think a lot of people feel that way.
So do you think it's I don't know, sabbaticals are
(09:35):
more necessary these days because of the invasive nature of work?
Speaker 4 (09:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (09:38):
I mean I think a couple of things are happening right,
Like we've moved almost to a fully knowledge based workforce.
Like we do knowledge based work, we're not making widgets
and producing items where it's thought work and it takes
a lot out of us. It's about creativity, it's about
management of people, it's about thought leadership and writing, and
I think COVID ninet team helped crystallize what's most important
(10:02):
for people.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
And you know, working sixty plus hours.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
For a company that might go through downsizing and lay
us off next year is not it, especially when you
know you might be able to solve problems at work
in your dreams literally because you take the time and
rest and your brain.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
Says, oh, I've got the solution.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
But you don't get credit for that when you're not
sitting at your desk with your green light on, you know,
on your teams.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
Or on your zoom right.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
And so I think more and more of us now,
just in these times, are exploring alternative work arrangements, not
just physical location and the flexibility of where we work,
but how we utilize time off and where you know,
where we're working, and how on we have to be
while we're working, depending on the type of role that
(10:50):
we have. And this flexibility and this freedom is almost
being held up as more valuable than you know, even
the salary or the title or.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
You know, how many people you manage.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
This flexibility is kind of like the new importance that
we're seeing in work, and yeah, it's I think we're
all going to need a lot more time off in
the future, just based on the nature of how work
is and this whole idea of having like metrics at work,
like key performance indicators. Oftentimes they are fully based on
(11:23):
what once was widget making, you know, like making cars
on a line at Ford. You know, we created all
these efficiency devices for managing employees, and it's it's hard
to apply that to the knowledge based economy, but yet
companies are trying to. And that tends to help us
feel like we're a lot less human and there's no
(11:43):
room for the creativity, which can't often be done on
quite the same timeline that companies want.
Speaker 4 (11:48):
It to be done on.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
All right, So tell me what makes a sabbatical impactful,
like you talked about for you, I guess your initial
or your first experience with it was to recover from burnout.
But what are some of the other benefits that folks
are able to receive, like from taking a sabbatical, from
taking some time off, And I guess, how can folks
(12:10):
do that efficiently? Like how can folks get the most
bang for their buck as they're trying to, you know,
reap the rewards and the benefits from that sabbatical.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
Yeah, I mean I think.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
You know, sabbaticals aren't just some glorifly glitz and glam break.
You know, there's a lot that you can do or
maybe more importantly not it's.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Not just spaw days where you're getting your back rund.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Yeah, well, on a work break, you know, I think
resting and recharging is the primary goal and the primary focus.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
You know, a lot of people tend.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
To, especially if it's their first sabbatical, they maybe they
would have a tendency to try to busy your way
through the work break. You know, if you have several
weeks off in a row, you might think, well, there's
all these things, these projects, these the stuff around the
house that I haven't been able to do because I've
been working so much. Maybe I should just do X,
Y and Z and this and that and the other.
(13:01):
And that can be a dangerous route because it starts
to feel a lot more like work when you've got
this long to do list while on sabbatical. And so
you know, I'm often advocating for people to do less
while on their work break, but you know, the main.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
Goal is still helpful.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
It's still helpful to have like a main purpose or
a goal while you're on break. And I've certainly spoke
with and coached a lot of people who've done lots
of awesome things while on their work break, you know,
finishing up a dissertation, taking stock of what they want
in their career, maybe helping out an ailing family member,
finding ways to practice what eventual retirement.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
Would actually look like can be a really valuable way
to spend time. Other people cross train.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Or volunteer so they might learn new skills that they've
always wanted to learn, do something kind of creative, or
volunteer in a way that is meaningful or impactful for them.
And so there's just lots of things other than the normal,
like I'm going to take a sabbatical and travel the world, old.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
Kind of approach that you might see on social media.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Well, and with the traveling the world approach, you're talking
about reducing your income, increasing your expenses.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
So it's the whole other side of things that we'll, yeah,
we'll probably get to you later on episode. Might be
harder to have a longer sabbatical if you're trying to
jet set around the world. What if you have a partner,
you're married, you have kids, how do you think about
I'm just trying to like mentally think through if I
go home tonight and at dinner, I'm like, honey, take
it a sabbatical. And how that conversation goes down and
(14:32):
she's like, wait, do you want me to keep going
to work?
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Like how's this? How's this going to function? How would
you approach that conversation? And I don't know, should husband
and wife or you know, married couple, should they say
let's let's overlap, let's both take time off together, or
should we do it separately?
Speaker 4 (14:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (14:49):
I mean I wrote a whole chapter on this in
my book How to Support a Spouse on a Sabbatical,
because my spouse and I also looked at that and
kind of navigate did it He did not take a
sabbatical when I took mine, and then later he took
a sabbatical and I did not, And that worked for us,
it was just fine. But for other people you may
want to try to figure out a way to coordinate it,
(15:11):
especially if you've got kids and you want to travel
with your kids and make sure that you know everybody
can enjoy themselves and certainly everybody's going to be a
little bit different. But I think the prime directive here
is to really open up the communication not just on
the oh, what are we going to do front or
who's going to do what front, but also just in
(15:32):
the sort of money anxiety front, because you're bound to
in a couple, there's bound to be one person who's
sort of the money anxious person versus the person who's like, yeah,
we'll figure it out, you know, and it's going to
be more important, even more important, I think, while on
sabbatical to get on the same page and do frequent
money check ins so you can as you see money
(15:53):
dwindling intentionally, because that's the purpose for the money is
to spend it on, you know, giving yourself a work break.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
As you see that money dwindling.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
It doesn't create this undo anxiety and pressure, because the
worst thing that can happen is for the spouse who
is continuing to work to put undue pressure on the
person who's on sabbatical, either to get another job, to
get off their button, do X y Z, or you know,
to take them away from the journey that they are
(16:24):
on themselves.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
Right sure, and it's and it's so tempting, right.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
I Mean, when my husband went on work break, he
was also burned out and literally, you know, stuff at
being languishing around the house, little projects and things, and I,
you know, I felt like I wanted him to do
some of that stuff, and so I was really trying
to get him to do it.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
And he basically told me, he's like, you know what,
this is too much pressure for me.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
And I was like, you know what, actually, thanks for
being honest about it, and I'm gonna let go of
this a little bit and let go of the honeydew
stuff and let you discover in your own way what
this is going to look like for you. But you know,
it's like that those conversations happen every day among couples,
and that this navigation it becomes even more complicated when
(17:09):
one continues to work and the other doesn't.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
What what was the sabbatical like for your husband with
any eureka moments or what did he walk away from
that experience with?
Speaker 3 (17:18):
You know, his big thing was he knew he thought
like this time off is just going to be so
luxurious and recharging, but he actually found that he needed
more kind of interaction with people and than he was
he maybe thought because he's an introvert. And so his
big discovery was like, you know, I don't know if
I'm ever going to fully retire retire, I may always
(17:40):
want to be engaged in some form or fashion with
work or mentorship or teaching, and so he you know,
that's kind of his big been his big focus post sabbaticals,
figuring out how he can incorporate more of that into
his work life. He's a you know, computer science person
of soft or developer, so there's the production of software
(18:04):
that is his primary, you know focus. But there's a
lot now that he's been in his career while it's
like this mentorship piece has bubbled up as an important
thing for him.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
That's pretty cool. Yeah, And I guess it depends on
the couple as to whether or not you coordinate those
sabbaticals to where and depending on what your goals are, right,
like you said, it's hard to I don't know, maybe
it's not too hard to go on some world some
world travel by yourself. Depends on the couple. But I
could also see where coordinating that so that you are
able to take that time off together, how there's a
(18:33):
benefit there. But then on the opposite end of the
spectrum to be able to alternate if you are maybe
a little more money anxious and you're a little concerned
about having a flow of money coming in. I think
that could make a whole lot of sense as well.
But you kind of mentioning your husband and sort of
what he found he needed from when it comes to
(18:54):
just other people talk about how important it is to
gather support. You talk about that in your book, because
not everyone in your social circle is going to understand
when you tell them, hey, I'm looking to take some
time off. There's a difference between maybe your friends at
work versus someone who is going to be more supportive
I guess of something like a sabbatical.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
Can you talk Yeah, I mean I think there's all
kinds of constituencies you almost have to think about.
Speaker 4 (19:15):
When you make an announcements like this.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
You know, there's your coworkers, there's your family, like your
extended family as well as your immediate family and your friends, right,
and it's going to be really surprising who is supportive
and who's not. I mean, I know for me, you know,
I had some really good friends that they sort of
raise their eyebrows at me, like are you sure you're
going to do this? And it was sort of gut wrenching,
(19:40):
like what, I don't understand why you're not supporting me here?
Speaker 4 (19:43):
Right?
Speaker 3 (19:44):
And then I had other folks tell me stories of
going on break and one person in particular who was
going to take care of her kids for a little while,
and she immediately felt like she got judged, you know,
for that decision. And so there's a lot of negativity
on the idea of taking time off because a lot
(20:05):
of times it's still associated with something wrong, like there's
something wrong, so therefore you have to take time off,
therefore you know something, there's something shameful about this.
Speaker 4 (20:15):
I spoke to a CEO.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Of a nonprofit this week who took a sabbatical over
the summer, and she was ashamed to tell her board
what the plan was. And this was an employee like
a sponsored sabbatical from the company, but she was still
ashamed to make an announcement because of this sort of
deep seated pressure or fear, like what.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
Are people think I'm just going to be slacking? Like
what's the deal here?
Speaker 3 (20:39):
So you know, I think in order to combat this,
first of all, you got to know this is, this
is what you're up against. But two is to kind
of push through some of those fears and be courageous
to start talking maybe more publicly about it. Consider making
a post and just kind of getting out in front
of it, explaining what it is that you're going to
do and why you're going to do it. And I
(21:00):
think over time a lot of that the course of
those posts will will help kind of raise awareness that
this is a valid way to not just like get
back more time and energy in your life, but to
create new growth and pivot and maybe even change and
wealth in your life in a way that you wouldn't
have had the opportunity if you just kept working. We're
(21:22):
still pushing back against decades and generations of work, work,
work until essentially you die or get sick, right, And
so you know there's a lot there, but I think, right, yeah, yeah,
this puritanical view, right, But I think it's important to
find people or lean on people who you are finding
(21:42):
that are supportive. And nowadays there are there are more
groups than ever.
Speaker 4 (21:47):
You know, there's.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Facebook support groups for people taking sabbaticals. There's more and
more podcasts I think that are talking about this sort
of thing.
Speaker 4 (21:55):
So there are ways to get ideas.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
And feel like you're you're not just alone in the
world doing something wild and crazy and avant garde, and
so it is important to seek some of that stuff
out and find maybe more like minded people because you
are going to get some raised eyebrows no matter what,
and that it's going to be a surprise at who
those people are.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
I would say, yeah, I believe it. There's going to
be some hard conversations you're going to have to be
ready for, and I think you're going to have to
be convinced of the value of taking that sabbatical in
advance so that you can have those conversations without I
guess feeling super super judged. We've got more questions we
want to get to with you, Katie, including like can
everyone actually take a sabbatical and maybe like some of
(22:39):
the financial realities behind that. It feels like we're the
safer retirement and save for sabbatical. How are we going
to do both? We'll talk about that right after this.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
We are back from the break again speaking with Katie North.
And right before the break, Katie you mentioned like that
Sea EO and she was afraid to bring it up
to the board and this was a policy, like you mentioned,
that was already in place. It seems like there are
more employers out there who are willing to talk about
sabbaticals these days. So you know, folks, they don't even
(23:15):
have to quit their jobs in order to pull this off.
Can you maybe share some different examples of different companies
out there and some of the programs that they're offering.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
Yeah, so it is a benefit for sure.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
The Society for Human Resource Management, which is a global
HR organization, did a study and they found that there
was like more than four hundred companies that just are
in their kind of world of reference that are offering
some form of sabbatical program, whether paid or unpaid. And
believe it or not, I've talked to people who did
not know their own employer had this as a benefit.
(23:47):
And so your first line if this is something that
you're interested in doing, is to go into your HR
manuals and examine whether this is an existing program or
not at your organization, and if it is, you know,
start to talk with not just HR, but your boss
and your boss's boss probably to come up with a
scenario and solution for you know, who's going to take
(24:09):
over your work while you're gone, and how it's all
going to work out. The most successful companies that have
this program in place are the ones who create like
a multi level communication plan that is both internal and
external client facing. They do a big job of, like
PR style promoting it. And it's a benefit to the
(24:32):
company too, because it becomes like a nice place to work,
like this benefit exists and it's a cool thing that's
being offered, and so you know, they can get miles
out of that from a PR perspective too, if everybody's
communicating in advance. And then there's also this idea of
like creating a return to work kind of routine for
(24:55):
the people who've taken sabbaticals and what it's like to
return to work and realize, well, somebody else did my
job while I was gone.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
Now what like what does that mean? Like I'm worthless?
Speaker 3 (25:05):
And so there's that kind of phenomenon that also happens,
and so it's really important to kind of have a
return to work transition as well set up. And what
that might look like is simply, you know, just sharing
a little bit about what the sabbatical was, like, what
it meant for the employee and maybe what they learned
or what they they still want to do or what
(25:27):
they want to maybe transition off their plate even post sabbatical,
and what new things they may want to take on.
It's a unique stress testing opportunity for organizations, no question.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
If there's no policy on the books, like you've come
through the HR manual and there's no sort of yeah, hey,
here's the you know, sabbatical reality. If you've been here
a certain number of years, you get this many weeks
off of paid leave or half pay or something like that.
Is it still something you can ask for? Is have
you seen people successfully negotiate with their employer to say, listen,
this is I feel like this is in the cards
(25:59):
for me. I needed to happen. I would quit otherwise.
Should I just ask? Yeah, see what happens?
Speaker 4 (26:04):
Absolutely ask, you know.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
Just I've had several people that I've talked to, some
of their stories are featured in the book, that they
just had the courage to ask. And one person was
given a year off unpaid to work on a creative project,
traveling around the globe and kind of doing a documentary
and their employer was like, yep, you know, return in
a year, your job will be here. And it was
(26:30):
a total surprise to her because she thought for sure,
like they wouldn't go for it at all, And so
you could also pitch it kind of like a pilot program, like, hey,
let me be the guinea pig. I want to you know,
this is an important benefit. Here's all the reasons and
the research behind it. Let me be the guinea pig.
Let's figure this out and develop you know, the policies
(26:51):
and procedures using me, you know, as the.
Speaker 4 (26:53):
Test case for it.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
And in those cases, I think it's also really important
to get it in writing, make sure everybody's on the
same page, whether you'd have to do something when you return,
like stay for a certain number of years or something
like that. Are you know, laying out those those policies.
I think it's really important and kind of getting everybody
on the same page.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
That makes sense. Yeah, So these are kind of like
I guess, external hurdles with your company that you have
to overcome. And earlier too, you were talking about the
cultural stigma of folks, you know, not working and maybe
what that says about them. There's a lot of folks
as well who are dealing with sort of like that,
like a personal cultural stigma, right, and like we're talking
about that identity aspect of finding sort of our purpose
(27:39):
within our work, and it like it's often the first
question we ask new folks when we meet them, you know, like, hey,
what is it that you do?
Speaker 4 (27:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (27:45):
And so how like how do folks deal with that?
Speaker 3 (27:48):
Right?
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Especially I'm thinking about like those early weeks of taking
a sabbatical where maybe are even questioning yourself. You're like
what I I oh, no, like I've totally screwed up.
You find yourself bored, you don't know what to do,
You've been binge watched a few too many shows. Maybe
how do folks kind of fight that battle?
Speaker 4 (28:05):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (28:05):
Yeah, I mean there are some common phenomenon with this
sort of ebb and flow, and certainly the boredom does
set in for everyone, even if you're on a world
traveling expedition at some point, and that's okay. The boredom
means that there's some change on the horizon and that
you're going to be figuring things out.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
So it's actually a good sign.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
So we should try to be bored.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
Yeah, to get to that point.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
I mean literally, yeah, get to that point, and it's
a it's a good teacher, you know, in terms of
how you how you like relate to stress and what
that means, right, and what does boredom look like for you?
Speaker 4 (28:40):
And and all of that. It's a it's a really
great teacher.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
And boredom is so hard to come by in our
culture these days.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Like I'd rather constant distractions, everything that's out there to
entertain us.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Yeah, you can like become the world's best at candy
crush instead of having to be bored yes, yes.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
And the other thing is like, once you create a plan,
finances are all often like the least of your concerns.
I mean, I certainly see that with my financial planning practice, right,
I'm a financial advisor.
Speaker 4 (29:06):
I help people with their budgets, with their investments, all
of that.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Obviously we talk about money all day, but when it
comes to sabbaticals, you know, I find that the money
kind of takes a back seat a lot of times.
And then there's clients often are agonizing more over the
who am I? Who am if I'm not working? What
am I going to do next? What does this mean
for me? Like how do I communicate it to people?
And so there are all these other you know, personal
(29:32):
aspects and journeys that you've got to go on. And
so one of the most important things while you're on
a work break is to actually do some of this
self reflection. And for me, like writing and journaling is
really important for other people and may just be you know,
talking with friends or with trusted a counselor in your
life or something like that, but doing some self reflection
(29:53):
is one of the most powerful gifts that you can
give yourself while on a work break. And all the
answers are there, You're going to find that the answer
has just come flowing out of you. It's just a
matter of unlocking them and allowing your brain to sort
of do the work. And you can't force it, right,
It just it will happen naturally.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
When you say that money's not typically like the number
one subject that people are approaching is that because it's
a self selecting group of folks who are already working
with a financial planner and they're already being thoughtful about
their money. Because I'm just trying to think of maybe
listeners to how to money who are kind of new
to personal finance, right, maybe they're like, I'm just trying
to like get rid of the debt from the holidays
(30:33):
and I and save up an emergency fund, and so
like the idea of self funding a sabbatical while I'm
trying to pay off the debt and start to save
for retirement sounds intense. So in your estimation, is this
just a reality for upper middle class folks who have
been on the career ladder for a while, or is
this really something that most folks. It's accessible to most folks.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
I mean, I don't think there's like a black or
white answer on that.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
I mean, certainly the people I work with are self selecting,
and that you know, I work with women in their
thirties and forties who've kind of been established in their career.
You know, they do have free cash flow, they're not
probably not in debt, right, and so the number of
people that I've worked with one on one that's going
to be their story is that you know, they're not
They are concerned about the money, and they use money
(31:19):
as like a well I can't do this because but
really when we dig into it, what I'm finding is
that it's a lot of these other personal things that
are going on. However, your question about whether this is
accessible for most folks, I do think it is. And
the reason I say that is because anyone can prioritize anything.
It's just about a matter of having a plan, right.
(31:40):
And you know, I did some simple math on this
just to give people an idea of how just how
accessible it is and how frequently you could do it.
And the main reason why is because when you're on sabbatical,
you don't have to cover your full income right that
you earn.
Speaker 4 (31:55):
You only have to cover your expenses.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
And so if you can get to a point where
you're being very mindful of your expenses and you're able
to cut things down, right, if you're saving five percent
of your take home pay, you could fund a three
month sabbatical every five years just by saving five percent
of your take home pay. If you ratchet that up,
of course, right, you could do it much faster. You
(32:19):
could take longer sabbaticals. You know, there's all sorts of
ways to figure this out, but it's like it's a
matter of prioritizing that. And if you've got multiple goals, right,
how do you figure out what comes first, will come second,
or how you do manage to do all three or
sort of share share the wealth among the goals, so
to speak.
Speaker 4 (32:39):
So with intention and with a plan, certainly creating.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
A system and a you know, a savings goal for
this is very accessible no matter what your income level is.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
I love that. What are some of the different creative
financial choices you've seen folks make. So obviously folks are
saving up and they're looking to set that set aside
that fund, right like, they want to have that runway
to be able to take that sabbatical. And there are
all sorts of ways you can increase your income cut
different expenses in your life. But once folks are on sabbaticals,
I'm curious what are some of the just more out
(33:12):
there decisions that folks have made to either extend that
or as a way to decrease their expenses.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
Yeah, yeah, I mean even the getting started piece, you know,
a tax refund, a gift, a small inheritance, or like
a company bonus of some kind can be a great
way to sort of jump start savings or something like this,
like some surprise money. But while you're on sabbatical, you know,
the we talked a little bit about, you know, the
travel around the world thing, but there are many countries
(33:38):
that are far less expensive to live in than the
United States, and so that's actually kind of a cool
flex is to find one of those countries, and you know,
it takes some cash to get there, but once you're there,
you know you could have a very very reasonable kind
of standard of living without the cost, you know, a
quarter of the cost of the United States. And so
(34:00):
so I've seen people get really creative on that front.
I've seen people also apply to fellowships abroad or teach
English abroad and as a way to have some income
stream while they're traveling, and that can get that can
be really interesting and a really unique experience as well.
And then you know, depending on what your living situation
(34:20):
is here back here in the States, you know, a
lot of people fund some of this through like renting
out their current place, you know, either short term tenants
or long term tenants and finding a way to have
an income stream while you're gone. And so so that
can be really good. Another another cool and unique way
that I've seen people fund a work break, and it's not,
(34:42):
as I don't know, glitzy, but it's like, if you
really are dealing with burnout and this is a mental health.
Speaker 4 (34:50):
Concern for you, you.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
Know, you can likely apply and get a partially paid
time off using the Family Medical Leave Act f MLA,
and so you know mental health challenges. Burnout is a
is a recognized mental health challenge. You know, you just
have to go through your channels, get your doctor's notes
and make sure HR is informed. And if you work
(35:12):
for a company of a certain size, they're required to
hold your job for three months and they're not.
Speaker 4 (35:17):
Required to pay you during that time.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
But most companies of that size offer have a short
term disability insurance that's paid up and so you could
get maybe sixty percent of your salary while you take
the time off to you know, do some therapy, get healthier,
kind of change your change of thought processes around work,
and maybe recover from the burnout some.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Yeah, that's helpful to know. I love the idea of
running out your place, moving to Thailand. You could sabbaticle
for like eight years. I think if you take that round,
you move somewhere cheaper and you're making some money on
your place. What would you say? And it sounds like
this is like maybe the line of questioning or discussion
that you take with some of your clients. Someone who
has the financial means, but they feel kind of paralyzed
(36:00):
by the idea of taking a sabbatical, and especially if
they are, they have a job and they think, especially
if it means leaving that job, how am I ever
going to find a job that's comparable, that's equivalent, that's
going to pay the same amount, especially at this stage
in my career. Think of all of those looming questions
that this engender is to try and take six months
(36:23):
plus off or something like that. And it doesn't have
to be six months. But what would you say to
that person who thinks there's no way I'm going to
be competitive in the workforce after taking this.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Much time off.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Well, that's an old way of thinking, right that suddenly
you've lost your knowledge, your skills, your expertise, all the
experiences you've had in your career. You don't lose any
of that. You don't lose a drop of it while
you take a work break. In fact, a lot of
this get strengthened because you have time away from work
to reflect and think, like, Okay, what is important to
(36:55):
me in my.
Speaker 4 (36:56):
Day to day job, What skills do I appreciate? What
do I want to build on?
Speaker 3 (37:00):
And you come back bringing your best self to that role,
and it's probably a much better fit. You know, and
so how can you not take a break if it
will unlock this new energy and this sort of newfound
runway for you to go and just have a lot
of energy around your purpose and what you're doing.
Speaker 4 (37:21):
I think the old way of thinking.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
Is, oh, I'm out of the workforce, I'm missing out
on this and missing out on that, and now suddenly
I'm not relevant and I'm not up to date. That's
a very old way of thinking, and it's just not true.
It's just not true.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Nice all right, Katie, We've got more to get to,
just a few more questions, and specifically we want to
make sure to touch on retirement and how sabbaticals can
act as a sort of as like a test drive.
We'll get to that more right after this.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Our we're back. We're still talking with Katie North. We're
talking about sabbaticals and the radical impact that taking a
sabbatical can have on your life.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
We missed out on name in this episode, radical sabbatical.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Don't Yeah. I thought of it in trusting. I had
to consciously hold off because I knew you would judge it, Matt. Katie,
are there other financial considerations that need to be made
before taking a sabbatical. I'm thinking of Let's say someone
wants to buy a home and they don't have income
for the time being. That could, you know, dramatically reduce
their ability to buy a home unless they've got cash
on hand. So what are maybe some of those other
(38:28):
things that you want people to at least think about
before they start that sabbatical.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
Yeah, I mean, I think there's a few things you
can't do financially, either while on sabbatical or immediately after.
One thing is if you're leaving your job, you know,
at will, and you're quitting to take some time off
to do self paid time off from work, You're not
gonna be able to get unemployment.
Speaker 4 (38:51):
Because it's your choice, right.
Speaker 3 (38:52):
It's different if you were terminated and that or you
receive some kind of severance package and you know, getting
unemployment was on the table.
Speaker 4 (39:02):
So that's one thing.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
You're not going to be able to finance or refinance
a mortgage because the mortgage companies are looking at recent
pay stubs and unless you have enough income within your
family through other means, another another your spouse working, or
something like that, financing or refinancing a mortgage is probably
off the table. Refinancing student debt for the same reason.
(39:25):
If you're somebody struggling with student debt and you're trying
to get a lower interest rate, you're probably not gonna
be able to refinance until after you go back to work.
Renting a new place is also kind of tough because
landlords often want to see recent pay stubs. There may
be some ways to finagle that, depending on how formal
your landlord.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Is, but in general, I'd be like, yeah, you're you've
been finding yourself.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
All right, Yeah, yeah, I mean you could show like
the amount of money you have in savings or something
like that as a substantution. But you will be able
to do some things that are kind of surprising, Like
you probably will be able to get a new credit card.
And I'm not advocating for going into credit card debt
to go to take a sabbatical, but you know, you
(40:10):
may be able to qualify for like a low or
no interest deal for a short period of time. And
because the credit card companies are sort of looking at
last year's income, not you know, not asking for current
pay stubs.
Speaker 4 (40:24):
Car Loan, same thing.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
Car companies tend to just look at last year's income
versus current pay stubs.
Speaker 4 (40:30):
So if needing a.
Speaker 3 (40:31):
New car is part of, you know, whatever your sabbatical
plan looks like that, that may be okay as far
as financial kind of decisions and things like that.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
Might might even help doing some ROTH conversions right while
you're on your sabbatical.
Speaker 3 (40:45):
Potentially exactly when you're in a lower tax bracket. There's
a lot of kind of financial things you should examine
like that, like whether you should do some ROTH conversions.
There may be a whole slew of tax benefits and
deductions that kind of open up to you when you
have lower income, and that includes like healthcare subsidies even, right,
(41:07):
So there's a lot of things along those lines to
sort of examine. You may want to google like tax
credits and deductions and look at the income thresholds and
see what might come up that you might qualify for.
And I've definitely seen a lot of people able to
save a lot more money for things just based on
(41:28):
kind of their tax situation.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
You briefly mentioned severance packages, and I think you know,
we talked to somebody a while back, Matt on the
show who talked about negotiating a severance package and kind
of highlighted that it's open to more people than they
would typically think. But if this is something that's a
goal of yours to take time off and you're like,
I don't see myself coming back to this job, is
(41:51):
there a way to maybe finagles like months and months
worth of pay as you walk out the door. Because
it's a win win situation for the employer and for you.
Speaker 4 (42:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (42:03):
I mean, I wouldn't necessarily tell your employer like you
were going to leave anyway, because they might. A lot
of times the severance packages will say like, you know,
it has to be it has to be like a
joint decision by the you know, by the manager and
things like that. But you know, I even had a
client this week she was considering taking a sabbatical starting
(42:26):
at the end of February, and she got a notice
this week saying that they're going to do a reduction
in force and they're taking volunteers. Yes, true, and so
you know that happens a lot at various times a
year in the corporate space. And so it's like, well, shoot,
she's going to jump on that, and now she's going
to have twelve weeks paid, whereas before she was just
(42:47):
going to do it herself and and you know, live
off for savings for a period of time, and so
it's a it's sort of like a lucky draw.
Speaker 4 (42:55):
When that kind of thing happens.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
Normally it would be considered pretty terrible to have to
go through a reduction in force, But if it's something
you're planning to do anyway, making sure you're on the
first round of cuts or getting your name forward first
would be a good move.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
It's kind of like volunteering to the airline, like yeah, no, no,
bump me back to the later flight because I want
the eight hundred dollars in credits or whatever.
Speaker 4 (43:16):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (43:18):
But you know, you don't necessarily have to give them
your original plans, like I was going to leave anywhere.
I just kind of keep that part close to your
vest and just focus on following their guidelines for the
reduction and force and.
Speaker 4 (43:33):
Or pitching it.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
Like you could take the approach of pitching it if
they haven't announced a full reduction in force and say, look,
I know budgets are getting tight. I just wanted to
see if there's any room on the horizon or wiggle
room here where you know, maybe I could kind of
put my name out there and you guys would pay
me a severance to leave or something like that.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
Yeah, we don't have to share everything that we think
to our bossss. Yeah, but I want to highlight here
is something that essentially what you're saying here is that
a lot of times these sabbaticals they are something that
we do more proactively and as something that we plan
or that's something that we work towards. But you're highlighting
the fact that they can also be a way for
folks to kind of like a judo move of taking
(44:13):
this sort of negative thing that would normally be seen
as a negative, whether it's a health emergency or whether
it's the company downsizing, and for you to take that
opportunity to say, you know what, instead of just launching
right back into the job search, let's use this unplanned,
sort of forced time off as a sabbatical. You write
about that well in your book. But earlier we were
(44:35):
talking about some of the benefits of sabbaticals, how you
use that time to take stock, to maybe volunteer, but
you also mentioned how you can use it to sort
of practice retirement, and in your book you detail how
pausing your contributions to retirement accounts during a sabbatical. How
it has a smaller impact on your nest egg than
folks might think. But can you explain how folks can
(44:58):
use a sabbatical as sort of like that test drive
for retirement.
Speaker 3 (45:02):
Yeah, I mean it's really interesting working in my line
of work. You know that you can work with someone
for years on their savings plan and then just how
difficult it is for someone to sort of switch gears
and decide to start living off of their income is
a major sea change in identity, right, But a sabbatical
is a unique position because it's a safe way to
(45:23):
sort of practice this from an identity perspective as well
as a financial perspective of this concept of eventual retirement.
And it's like, okay, well who am I when I'm
not working? How do I want to spend my time?
Those are two big questions that you can answer as
sort of like a safe sandbox where it's like time limited,
You're going to go back to work at some point,
and so it's a safe way to explore some of this.
Speaker 4 (45:46):
And then the living off savings.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
Piece is also a really good teacher because it's like
it kind of conditions you to understand, like, my money
is my wealth and it represents an income stream and
when even temporarily I'm living off my wealth, this is
how eventual retirement is.
Speaker 4 (46:03):
Going to work.
Speaker 3 (46:04):
And it gets me kind of used to that concept
and that idea, and so it can be really beneficial
from that perspective too. And I think the sabbatical is
nice because anytime you take a break, or even if
you're off for multiple months, you could take each month
and do something different and explore or different sabbaticals that
you may take during your career. You could explore different
(46:25):
avenues that eventually might lead you to how you want
to spend some of or all of your time in retirement.
Speaker 1 (46:32):
Yeah, Katie, this has been a great conversation full of
like so much good information and food for thought for
people out there. I mean, and this really is. It's
radical in so many ways, kind of the suggestion in
a culture that so revolves around work that hey, I
don't know, maybe you should give it up for a
season to kind of see what lights you up and
(46:53):
maybe it'll actually, I don't know, produce significant personal dividends
because you actually took the time to make it happen.
Thank you so much for joining us working our listeners
find out more about you and more about your book,
The Artist Sabbaticle.
Speaker 3 (47:07):
Katie Noorth dot com and that's c A d Y
n O r thh dot com.
Speaker 4 (47:12):
The book is available on Amazon and anywhere you buy books.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
That's right. We forgot to mention early on that Katie
does not have the traditional Katie spelling. Yeah, you got
to get that D in there. Yeah, Katie, thank you
so much for talking with us today.
Speaker 4 (47:24):
Thanks so much.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
All right, Matt, that's a great confo. Yeah makes me
one walk kind of here right now, go take a break.
Speaker 2 (47:32):
Uh, we're closer to doing that than I think maybe
our listeners, maybe even more than we even realized.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
Jo Yeah, who knows. Yeah, I mean, And that's the
reality too, is is work is super fun, but there's man.
Life has so much to offer, and thinking centering your
life around work, I think is a mistake, and I
think that's at the heart of what Katie's getting at.
But what was your big takeaway from this combo?
Speaker 2 (47:54):
I think my big takeaway is going to be when
she writes about this really well too, but when she
talks about giving yourself enough time to take a long
enough sabbatical to actually be bored, to get to the
point to where you're sort of forced to do some
of that introspection right where maybe phone life, yes, I
mean literally to sit there and to not feel. And
this isn't just from an entertainment standpoint in candy crush,
(48:16):
like you mentioned, but also there are other things that
you typically want to do, right like oftentimes folks are
going to use this time to spend some time with
family or man, I haven't seen my college roommates, you know, Okay,
so we're going to also go do that. And if
it's too short of a sabbatical, I think you can
just fill your time with a bunch of to doos.
In her case with her husband, it was a lot
of house project to dos and he's like, who whoa, whoa, whoa,
(48:38):
let's pump the brakes. This isn't uh, this feels a
little counterproductive for me to be going on the sabbatical.
But I think, like she said, those answers are there
there within us as individuals, and it just takes some
time to unlock those answers to do the work and
to maybe even do some journaling where we're able to
let some of those ideas flow from our brains. I
(48:59):
think that that is advice that our culture needs more
than ever.
Speaker 1 (49:03):
Yeah, I think my big thing away was when Katie said,
you can prioritize anything. It's a matter of having a plan.
And I think it's true. I think we just prioritize
a lot of other things in this life. And and
so what we do is true. We prioritize working more
because it means we can fund a more lavish lifestyle,
means we can spend more. And granted I'm not trying
to like shame everyone.
Speaker 2 (49:22):
Out there, but and that's typically what happens.
Speaker 1 (49:24):
The truth does everything costs more, and exit the grocery
store costs more. That's a reality of life. But it's
also true that we fund like a Nintendo switch is
a choice, right, like whatever.
Speaker 2 (49:33):
That's what I was gonna say, like new cars or
nicer vacations. It's not that it's not that folks are
prioritizing work. It's that they've prioritized these other things, and
so because of that, they are forced to work in
order to fund these things as opposed to buying some
other time. And that's what isabatical. Is like she literally
hizing that.
Speaker 1 (49:50):
She laid it down a numbers where I thought was
so helpful. She said, five percent of your take home
pay gives you three months of a sabbatical every five years.
Every five years. When you think about it, like now,
a three month break, it's not that radical, that's so cool.
It's not that hard to pull off. I mean, I'm
not saying it's like easy, but it's simple. And so
if this is something that resonates with you and you're like, man,
I would love the idea, the ability to take a
(50:14):
few months off and to really kind of do some
soul searching and figure out what's next. And the truth
is it can actually be more productive to your bottom
line ultimately. I think taking that time off and maybe
it means making a pivot into something that you hadn't
considered before, or maybe it's like a dormant dream that
you kind of bring back up to the surface and
it could lead to a higher paying career down the road.
It might not, but more than anything, I think it's
(50:36):
going to be personally fulfilling in a way that you know,
continuing to put in the hours at work never you know,
nose to the grindstone, not picking up your nose for
forty years in a way that that can never produce
for you.
Speaker 2 (50:49):
So I love it, man, It's so true. And these
aspects of taking a sabbatical, the I don't know more
of the why do I want to do this, like
finding the identity pieces as opposed to the nuts and bolts,
and how do I actually financially make this happen. It's
pretty straightforward, but the I think the harder work is
everything else that goes with taking That's the batical to me.
Speaker 1 (51:10):
It's been kind of this slow burned because I guess
I just grew up in a family culture where work
was lauded and not wrongly I think in some ways
sure work is a good thing, but so much so
where I had a hard time thinking, well, why would
anybody want to work less than forty five hours a
week or whatever? And so it came to you need
to take that break in order to see what it
(51:30):
is that you are that you might have drawn. It's
been a slow change for me enough to where I'm like,
I don't know, the sabbatical sounds pretty awesome.
Speaker 2 (51:37):
Now, all right, man, let's get back to the beer
that you and I enjoyed did you pick this one up?
Because it's kind of got a financial theme to this idea.
It's called ticker Shock, also because I knew it would
be delicious. But yeah, well, this is a beer by
Other Half, and anytime I see a beer by one
of our favorite breweries up out of New York, I
know it's going to be so good. But this is
ticker Shock, which is a double dry hopped Imperial IPA
(51:59):
not sticker. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (52:01):
Do you think the dollar sign is supposed to be
the S four sticker shock?
Speaker 4 (52:04):
Maybe?
Speaker 1 (52:04):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (52:05):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
That was my assumption, says ticker Shock. Yeah, but the beer,
I'm quite literal d The beer was fantastic. This was
like a hoppy orange juice, incredibly citrusy, overwhelming, delicious hop
notes Other Half doing what they do best with the spear.
Speaker 2 (52:20):
Yep, got the hazy action going on, with a little
bit of like sweetness, almost like a berry sweetness. And
on the label it says something about strawberry or strawberry wine,
which I can totally pick up on that sort of
I don't know, there's like an edge that you get
with strawberries specifically, and it just makes it super yummy,
So glad I got to share this one on the
episode on the podcast.
Speaker 1 (52:42):
Did you get thesaurus for that one?
Speaker 2 (52:43):
Super yummy? But that's gonna be it for this episode.
Folks can find our show notes up on the website
at howdimoney dot com. No doubt, all right, Matt, Until
next time, Best friends out, Best friends out.
Speaker 4 (53:00):
The the n speak
Hosts And Creators
Joel Larsgaard
Matthew Altmix
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.