Welcome to The Reframe!
Here's what you can expect.
I want to help you build a life you love.
Are you smart, capable, hard-working, diligent? Have you been hard-wired for deferred gratification and nose-to-the-grindstone task management since your pre-K days? And now, at 25… 35… 45… are you kind of exhausted?
Have you done All The Right Things, earned All The Right Degrees, pursued All The Right Titles… and you’re left wondering why your daily lived experience feels less like the reward you chased and more like drudgery?
If yes to any of this — and most definitely if yes to all of it — welcome. You’re in the right place. I know your frustration. I’ve felt your ache for something more. I’ve experienced your desire to have things calm the F down so that you can breathe a little deeper and a little slower.
And guess what? It doesn’t have to be this way.
And even better? You have the power to change it.
I know. I’ve done it. And now — on the cusp of early retirement at 45, fitter and healthier and happier than I’ve never been — I want to help you do it too.
In this Substack space, and even moreso in my podcast The Reframe, we explore how we can employ lessons from minimalism, stoicism, and financial independence to:
Hop off the Hedonic Treadmill…
Stop the never-ending quest for more: more accolades, more money, more clout, more stuff. Learn the beauty of defining our own version of “enough” in all of these realms. And then pursue precisely that “enough,” regardless of how our professional colleagues, peers, or parents may judge our priorities.
Other peoples’ raised eyebrows are not our problem.
Investigate the Scripts We’ve Inherited…
What are the stories we tell ourselves about how we “should” live our lives? What scripts run through our heads and shape our priorities, without us ever doing a close review of whether we agree? What decisions have we made on auto pilot because it was what we were “supposed” to do?
When we learn to pause, observe these scripts, and decide for our own damn selves whether they serve us, the results can be powerful.
And Build Lives We Love.
Once we define our own priorities and stop the mindless pursuit of more, we can make decisions that lead to less stress, less comparison, and less anxiety. We also get more of the good stuff: more autonomy, more joy, and more self-directed purpose. In short, we can build lives we love on our own terms.
What Can You Expect Here?
Discussion Tied to the Week’s Podcast Topic: Here on Substack, we’ll have an ongoing conversation about the topics I cover each week on The Reframe Podcast (on Apple and Spotify). Please subscribe, so that you can keep up! There’s also a backlog of 60+ episodes that I hope you enjoy.
A Fun — And Hopefully Insightful — “Weekly Reframe”: I’ll also share a Weekly Reframe called “Want, Need, Wear, Read” with examples of how we can implement the podcast’s practices into our everyday lives.
A Community of Independent Thinkers: Mostly, I’d love to start an honest, candid conversation with a community of folks interested in building lives we love, on our own terms.
Please subscribe, and comment freely! I’d love to start a conversation.
In Greece with my family: healthy, happy, and financially free.