work-life balance Archives - Page 2 of 8

December 4, 2023December 3, 2023

Tyler Karow: The Tiny Future of Affordable Housing

I’m a little unsure of the best way to frame this introduction. In some ways, this is a story of embracing climbing for all the right reasons. Pursuit of technical mastery and love for the outdoors over the gamification of grades and emphasis on physical training. On the other hand, this is also the story of early adulthood in the modern era. The narrative to pursue something like climbing full-time is strong in the outdoor world. But most I encounter eventually find that climbing alone leaves us yearning for meaning and purpose. My guest today, Tyler Karow, spent nearly three years on the road pursuing climbing. Today he balances considerable climbing achievements with a secondary passion for building and a desire to be a part of the solution to America’s affordable housing crisis.

Karow is a 29-year-old climber known for his big wall accomplishments in Yosemite, Patagonia, and around the globe. His resume includes a ground-up free ascent of Golden Gate (5.13a) on El Cap, and Yosemite’s Triple Crown in under 24 hours, only the eighth time this feat has been achieved. Notably, Karow climbed the Triple while working a full-time (plus) job. He holds a B.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Southern California and is a licensed civil engineer and general contractor. With this background in engineering and construction, he envisions a career helping to build prefabricated tiny home communities. This emerging approach to construction helps to reduce the cost of new housing and more efficiently add supply to a stressed housing market.

This episode is an Oreo of sorts, with a focused discussion of Tyler’s climbing achievements and work/life balance in the beginning and end. The middle of this discussion takes a deep dive into the affordable housing crisis, the complex nature of new construction, and Tyler’s vision for the future of American affordable housing.

November 20, 2023November 18, 2023

The Social Dilemma of Extended Travel (Jeff, A Way to FI)

In October I published a mini episode on my thought processes on the pros and cons of extended travel abroad. Many of you left comments or emailed me your thoughts, and I’m so thankful for your input. You’ve all given me plenty to consider. One of the most insightful emails came from Jeff of awaytofi.com, a previous guest on this podcast (Episode 44). Jeff has been living abroad for over fifteen months with his wife, Rose, and as such is well-versed in discussing the impacts of extended travel, particularly on our social lives. This week’s episode is an in-depth exploration of extended travel, especially as it relates to our human need for a sense of place and community. Travel takes us away from our tribe, so how do we create new ones? Do we even need to? You can probably expect more content like this with upcoming guests and articles.

October 23, 2023October 22, 2023

James McHaffie: From Bold Climbing to Novel Writing

James McHaffie needs no introduction, at least in the United Kingdom. His approach to bold onsight climbing, particularly free solos, is unparalleled. He’s repeated the hardest sport climb in Wales, Big Bang (9a), sent Britain’s hardest sea cliff, Dave MacLeod’s The Longhope Direct (E10 7a), and made the first ascent of The Meltdown, a 9a slab in the slate quarries of his home in North Wales. And now he’s written a book. But unlike many books released by elite climbers, this is not an autobiographical account of hard climbs in the face of relative adversity. Caff, as he prefers to be called, has written a fictional account of Eleri, a young woman amongst the slate quarries of North Wales who in the aftermath of a family suicide takes aim at British politicians who pushed for austerity and the conditions that led to such suffering.

This conversation was such a gift. I can see even through all that rage that James is brimming with humanity, a trait sometimes in short supply. I hope you’ll enjoy this one as much as I did.

September 25, 2023September 24, 2023

Dr. Jim Dahle of the White Coat Investor on Building the Ideal Life

Jim Dahle is the founder of the White Coat Investor, a widely consumed personal finance and investing blog and podcast specifically designed for physicians and other high-income careers. What Jim created in 2011 as a simple blog has grown into a multi-media empire that now employs fifteen people and hosts content from a range of columnists.

Jim has cut back from his full-time (plus) emergency physician career and White Coat Investor responsibilities to focus on what makes life worth living, and that’s where I wanted to pick up this conversation. Jim is a climber, husband, and father of four. Today we discuss how he’s managed to step away, at least slightly, from his hard-charging career and blogging days to what he’s now describing as his ideal life.

August 14, 2023January 19, 2024

QA11: Laying It Out in Simple Terms

We’re back to the digital mailbag to answer your questions!

For this week:

How has my lifestyle evolved since achieving financial independence and how do I spend my time?
Updated thoughts on money and markets
Are we putting too much faith in institutions like Vanguard?
Can and should life insurance policies be used for retirement savings?
Tax avoidance versus accepting higher tax rates
What is a Simple IRA and how does it differ from a 401(k)? Can I still do Roth conversions?
Savings rates are great! Should I pay less on my loans to maximize my savings?
Big picture: Where do I start on getting my financial life together?
Outreach and presentations
So much more!

July 31, 2023July 30, 2023

The One Time to Be Average with Dave Rosen

Dave Rosen is a climber and ophthalmologist in his final year of residency. And Dave grew up like so many of us: broadly exposed to the importance of money and taught a thing or two about saving, but investing was a foreign concept and his lack of knowledge was a source of shame.

While Dave skimmed over it, he’s no slouch as a climber. He has bagged a pile of double-digit boulder problems up to V12, sent 5.13c, and developed numerous boulder problems, particularly in the South Mountain area near Phoenix where he and his wife lived for medical school for four years. He is hard-working, analytical, and pragmatic in his career and life approach.

In this conversation, we discuss how Dave found climbing from the world of canyoneering, his early exposure to money and how that has markedly changed in recent years, the constant pull of greener grass, working backward from an ideal lifestyle, and the ethical and moral dilemmas of early retirement.

June 12, 2023June 13, 2023

Mike Piper: Down To The Essence Of Smart Money Management

Mike Piper is a CPA and the creator of the Oblivious Investor blog, where he teaches a philosophy of simple and low-maintenance investing.

Mike’s simple philosophy distills down to three primary principles:

Diversify your portfolio
Minimize costs (commissions, fees, mutual fund expenses, taxes)
Ignore the noise.

Mike began his career as a CPA before realizing he could support himself by writing books. Surprisingly, he left his secure job during the 2008 financial crisis. He has gone on to publish seventeen books and is widely considered an expert in social security, tax, and a number of other personal finance topics. His work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Morningstar, to name a few.

May 29, 2023May 28, 2023

Six Important Reasons to Reconsider Early Retirement

Today on episode 65 I’m revisiting a post published almost exactly two years ago. At the time of writing, I’d been away from my corporate job for eighteen months. I spent six months of that time living in a tiny A-frame camper with my wife and dog before resettling in the St. George, Utah area.

I was climbing a lot and working on this website, but I can now comfortably admit that I was in a bit of a low spot in terms of overall life satisfaction. The issue was one of expectations. In other words, I expected too much about a life without my career and I took for granted elements of my work life that enhanced life satisfaction. I was feeling stale with this project—I wouldn’t start the podcast until late summer—and despite having all the time in the world to dedicate to the craft of climbing, I was slowly coming to the realization that I’d used climbing as an attempt to fill a void that was not yet clearly defined or outlined.

Two years later, I’ve spent considerable time addressing each of the areas discussed in this post, to varying degrees of success. Stay tuned in the coming weeks and months for other changes still ongoing.

May 22, 2023May 21, 2023

Jeff and Priti Wright: You Might Need a Sabbatical

Today on episode 64 I’m excited to welcome Priti and Jeff Wright, two accomplished young professional alpinists from Seattle, WA. In 2020, Priti, a software developer, and Jeff, a mechanical engineer at Boeing, embarked on a year-long sabbatical to travel across the globe and climb alpine objectives in Patagonia, France, and Pakistan, finishing by the beach in Hawaii.

The trip was wildly successful, even amid the raging pandemic, including ascents of the Cerro Torre, the six classic North Faces of the Alps in a single season (including the Eiger North Face in winter), culminating in the first ascent of K6 Central and the third ascent of K6 West—both 7000+-meter peaks—in the Karakoram Range of Pakistan.

In contrast to early retirement, Priti and Jeff make the compelling case for a traditional career peppered with sabbaticals. This episode is filled with lifestyle and career philosophy, planning concepts, detailed financial considerations, and just a damn good time. And they are even planning their next sabbatical in 2024, which will look drastically different than their trip in 2020. You won’t want to miss this one.

April 24, 2023April 23, 2023

Heather Larsen: Risk And Reward In Outdoor Careers

Today on episode 61 I’m pleased to welcome Heather Larsen, pro slackliner and climber and lover of southern Utah’s desert heat. What is probably less known about Heather is that, following humble beginnings, she graduated at the height of the Great Recession with a double major in finance and economics.

In the intervening years, she struggled greatly to find work in her field, even competing for bank teller jobs with 20-year finance veterans. Out west she found work in seasonal park service positions, growing more and more fond of the outdoors, eventually discovering climbing and slacklining.

Heather could have easily fallen into a mindset of defeat. But with persistence, she was eventually able to secure a career in financial reporting, enabling her preferred lifestyle balance of elite outdoor adventure and self-made financial security.