Show notes
How John and Rosemary paid off $66,000 in 32 months while still eating healthy and not sacrificing nutrition to do it.
Rosemary and John, cofounders of Flourish Fundamentals are both Functional Nutritional Therapy Practitioners. They are helping the FIRE community optimize their health as much as they optimize their finances.
You can learn more about them on their website: flourishfundamentals.com
and sign up for their 30 day reset program here: https://www.flourishfundamentals.com/flourish-fundamentals-30-day-reset-calling-beta-testers/
Resources mentioned in this episode:
The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin (https://amzn.to/2ts9QDf)(affiliate link)
Free Meal Planning Sheet (www.budgetsmadeeasy.com/mealplan)
Full Transript:
Hey, today we are talking to Rosemary and John about how they paid off their debt and how they are optimizing health and nutrition for the fire community. So welcome Rosemary and John, thank you for having us. Thank you, Ashley. Thanks for being here. And just to, before we jump in, can you guys kind of tell me about yourselves and kind of what you guys do? Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, I guess that you could call us the token, uh, nutrition people in the [inaudible] space. Um, we both sort of got into this financial independence step free community after we were getting out of debt and we had this background in nutrition and saw that a lot of the recommendations around reducing expenses involved like just eat rice and beans. And that was a little bit, yeah, no, no. So, um, we realized that there was really a need for people to talk about the importance of your own health and be able to teach people to empower them to be able to take care of their own health so that, um, they come, you know, they're more in a position of power when it comes to their own health and not just fingers crossed.
Hope you don't get sick. Yeah, yeah. Just not eating ramen noodles and all right. They definitely, there's a sweet spot where we wish we can talk about more later, where you can keep costs down pretty low without sacrificing health. So for example, before we started getting out of debt, when we examined our grocery budget, we were like anywhere from $1,000 a month to 1500 for two bucks. And then we cut that in half. And then we were able to do that and we thought, you know what, let's try to cut it in half again just to see if we can do it. And we did. Um, and I'd say now we sort of settled between 400 to $500, but it's still may sound like a lot to some people listening, but we can get into more about what that actually means. Yeah, that's really not bad.
I mean, for most people that I talk to, and it's true for myself, um, you know, with that was our biggest category was, um, of course it wasn't as healthy as you guys were at, you know, as fast food, convenience foods, things like that. But, and so that is definitely an area where people can improve, um, with managing their money as well as their health. So I'm so glad that, um, you guys are doing that and, you know, giving people other options besides just rice and beans. Yes. Yeah. And it doesn't have to be, you know, crazy expensive. We're not talking whole foods every week. There's other strategies to do it, like buying a whole cow or that sort of thing. So anyway, we'll get there, we'll get pasta, there'll be delicious and that's, yeah, exactly. Yeah. I would not compromise if this was not delicious food.
So before we jump into eating healthy and cutting costs on food, why don't we jump into like your debt pay off story? How much did you guys pay off and [inaudible] how fast did you do it? So we started with 66 in debt, um, a mix of credit cards and some family loans. By the way, there was a little bit for me, mass majority, I made much more or much less intelligent choices. Yeah. But we got that paid off in 32 months was that was the total and most of the time we were on just one salary. Right. Wow, that's pretty amazing. So were you guys, um, just tell me how this started. Were you guys on the same page or was it one of your guys's idea and then kinda had to drag the other one in? Yeah, I mean, I think we were, we, the way I was raised with sort of the Dave Ramsey, you know, never like credit cards were a bad word in our family.
So I never got into debt and never had a credit card. And John had come from sort of a different position. I was raised to believe that credit cards are an emergency fund and so sure enough I used them as such. Yeah. Yeah. I believe your dad had once said that he was doing Dave Ramsey before Dave Ramsey was doing. Dave Ramsey describes that. Yeah. So my family's always been really frugal. But Dave Ramsey actually sort of part of our story, right? Yeah. That's sort of how it started is um, well we went to go see a financial planner actually before we got married. We knew we were going to get married and so we wanted to discuss just sort of like what should we be doing now financially. And that was I think where we had the first conversation about how much debt was on the table. Couples normally have that conversation like when they're alone. And in the first time that number was named was like the three of us in a room. And I was like, Oh wow, okay. Yeah. Cause I think you have like 40,000 at that point or something like that.
Right before we got married. So anyway, but I, but I knew like, that's okay, we can, we can figure this out, we know what to do, we just won't spend any excess money, obviously we'll get this paid off first thing. And like, I knew we, we knew we wanted to get married. So at that point it was like package deal, husband plus debt hashtag that fluff. But yeah, soon after we got married, I picked up Dave Ramsey's book, total money makeover. I don't even remember where I found it. If it was like a little free library or the literal literal literal library, that's hard to say. Um, but I just sort of read through it and then I think John picked it up. I hadn't been on the coffee table one day and yeah, I had just been flipping through it, so I left it out.
Yeah. And John was flipping through it and, uh, you know, started reading it in earnest and I remember we were both linked together in bed one evening and you sort of shut the book and you looked at me and said, okay, I'm ready, let's do this. And I was like, really? Wow. I didn't even have to, yeah, that's awesome. You guys were like together on the same page pretty much from the get go, so that I'm sure that makes it so much easier and faster to get it done. Definitely. Well, I think you'd always all always wanted to pay off debt. I tried many
times, but it never stuck, um, for number of reasons which we can get into. But um, but yeah, the sort of, the way he had laid it out in the book, it was just very, very compelling to me. And once that light bulb went off, I was all in. And that's how I tend to be about things. If, if something is compelling and makes sense to me, I will, Oh, you know, I can turn on a dime on things.
[inaudible] that sounds like me where I did two things. Yes. Yeah, that makes sense. If they make sense. Yeah. John's very persuaded by logic. If you're familiar with Gretchen Rubin, she has this framework of like four tendencies for different types of people. And John is the question or type, which means he'll do something if it makes sense to him, but not if it doesn't. So for him reading that logic of like, here's how the flow works, here's why it works and here's the steps. For him it was like, Oh, that's enough. I'm convinced. Okay, let's do it. So we sort of dove in and started making a plan, examining our expenses, expenses, looking at what are the things that we really need, what are the things that are actually just wants, right.
And that goalpost changes. I think as you know, as you get more into this, what is, what was once considered a need. A lot of those things that moved over into the want column and that that one column keeps getting bigger or things that were in the need column that need copy gets smaller and smaller. So I think that's one of the main thing is it changed. And I mean really it was, it really was shocking to us, at least to me. Um, just how much a difference, making a budget changed our spending. Be more intentional about spending. I mean, at the time we were both full time making over a hundred K a year combined and there was nothing left at the end of the month. There was always more month than money left. Um, and we weren't spending like crazy either. I mean,
yeah, we only had one car. It was 2006.
Right. But it was just, you know, no mortgage, Nope, no kids. But it was just all the little stuff.
Oh, I want this book. We'll go on Amazon and get it. Yeah, go get a manicure, whatever. Lots of fiddly little stuff that you, ah, where did all the money go? So what were some of the, some of the things that you, um, cut back on or changed in order to manage your money better and get the debt paid off?
Sure. Um, well definitely having a budget was huge. Um, doing the, initially we did the Dave Ramsey thing where you actually had physical envelopes where you put cash into each spending category at the end of the month and then only spend from those cash envelopes. We eventually ended up switching to simple the online bank and stat and doing sort of online digital envelopes. We'd still earmark money at the end of the month because what we found is in practice, even though using cash does happen, a more emotional sort of visceral component, which sort of as Dave Ramsey would say, makes you probably spend less money in practice. It didn't really work cause we often forget the envelopes when we'd go out. You know, if you're buying something online, it was hard to then sort of square the budget that way. So w we're big believers in this idea that the imperfect method you stick to is far better than the perfect method. You don't actually do.
Absolutely. So as long as you're doing something right direction that's more important.
That definitely helped was having that the earmark money and then realizing, okay, our grocery money is spent so we know we're sticking to this Kansas sardines we have in the,
yeah, in terms of like what were the actual things that we cut out of that as expenses. At the beginning, it was all those frivolous little things that we didn't, the obvious stuff, you know, the low hanging fruit. Like, okay, do we need to go out to the movie theater every once in a while or can we rent DVDs from the library and watch them at home and make our fancy popcorn. We do this fancy popcorn that we make at home with them. Butter and truffle oil and we like sort of relish that. It's like so fancy popcorn. Um, so we started doing movies at home. Um, anytime we wanted a book we request it from the library or if they had a library already, just get it. The library. Um,
quick pro tip, if people don't use their libraries, this is mind blowing to me, but can go to library and if they don't have the book you can just request for them to get it. And I've never had them not get the book I requested. I've requested probably a dozen by this point, you know, my tax dollars at work I guess. But uh, yeah. And other quick tangent for those that maybe are used to buying books and then writing in their books. That's sort of one of my meditations is underlining sentences. So that took a little bit of an adjustment for me, but it's actually now it's a pro instead of a con because what I find is that by having to write out quotes that I like from books, I actually increased my connection with the material and my ability to remember it. Whereas before I just underline it and then forget it. So,
so other things are, we were going to, we originally were thinking about, Oh, do we need a second car? But then we decided, Nope, we'll stick to this one, make different places. So we just made it work. You know, one person would drop off the other and go to walk or we'd walk. Um, what else did we do? We certainly examined our grocery budget and tried to look at some other ways to, um, reduce, we can come back to that. That's, that's a big HBO now.
Um, Amazon prime, Netflix, Hulu. I mean we had like all four of 'em
piddly little things, but all those little things added up to big results. Yes.
Well, one thing we did eventually was, um, stopped going to get our haircut at a barber shop or a hairdresser. I started just buzzing my hair instead. I like having shorter hair anyway. And so we just bought ourselves a pair of Clippers at Costco and it pays [inaudible].
Yeah. And for a while I was watching YouTube videos on how to cut my own hair. Yes or no. Now I'm like, eh, I'll go get my haircut. I'll just do it less frequently. Um, so those were some of the small things in terms of the [inaudible], the big, big one being housing. Um, we did actually leave that place. We were living at the time because John left a job that wasn't really working out for him. Um, and we moved in with family who had a baby on the way and we said, Hey, can we come? You know, we'll help look after the baby if we can stay in the little, you know, they had a mother in law suite in the back of the house and they said, of course, come on down. So we actually live with them for a little over a year. I was in the bro pair, so, um, that was honestly such a, uh, that was very, very generous of them to let us stay with them. But then not having that rent payment for awhile meant that we could, you know, uh, pay down debt at a pretty Swift rate, um, with, with, even though we were down to one salary at that point. That's awesome. So that really, I'm sure that really helped speed up the process and get this knocked out even down to one income. That's pretty amazing. Now what were some of the things with meal prepping and food that you want to talk about to cut costs but yet not compromise your health?
Sure. I think the number one thing to point out first is that the focus should always be on what's called nutrient density and not on calories. So a lot of people will say, Oh, this meal hasX calories, so it's good or it's great, or it's this many dollars per calorie. And from our perspective as people trained in nutrition, that is just not the ideal way to go.
Yeah, you really want to focus on nutrient density, um, which you know, is just what, what's going to get you. So, you know, you have macro nutrients like proteins, fats and carbohydrates, and then you have micronutrients, which are all the vitamins and minerals. So when we're talking about nutrient density, we're talking about those micronutrients there. So, um, so for us that looked like we were, uh, you can, for example, we talked about this a little bit earlier, but buying like a whole cow or a half a cow or even a quarter cow, you can go in with people and split up the meat. That really reduces the cost to, you know, four or five, three or four or $5 per pound depending on where you are. And you can still get really good quality, uh, grass fed, grass finished meat and support farmers who are raising their animals. In a way that is sustainable and not just sustainable sealant land, but is actually restoring the land so that it's better for everybody. Um, we started actually sprouting lentils and using that to stretch ground meat, which sounds weird, but in sprouting them, you are increasing the nutrient nutrition in the bioavailability, nerdy. You're increasing how your, how your body is able to absorb and use the nutrients
gained. The, you know, you can sprout, you can soak and sprout, you know, all sorts of things. But basically you're doing is you're tricking that seed into thinking that it's already planted in the ground. And so then it will sort of turn off its natural defenses because normally the problem with legumes and nuts and seeds is that they have this protective shell that makes them really hard to digest. And so even people say, Oh, there's all these vitamins and minerals in these foods. You can't really get at it unless you do some, some sort of trickery. And so that's what the soaking the sprouting.
So that's, yeah, so we did the sprouted lentils and we would make that one for one with ground beef. Um, I really like fermenting vegetables. So we would do our own sauerkraut and stuff, which is a natural and super cheap source of probiotics. Super simple, really intimidating. It's literally cabbage, salt and amaze and dark and time and time and not much time. Yeah. Yeah. Um, let's see, what else were we doing? We definitely changed where we were shopping, so I'd say before we,
I mean it was, we just didn't really give it a second thought as to where we were shopping. So buying more in bulk, um, buying locally and in season makes things a lot cheaper. That was super helpful. Um, and then, you know, since then I've been doing a lot more sort of bartering and trading, which is new to me, but I know people have been doing that for centuries. Like for example, um, uh, this summer I have been helping out with, uh, actually where we get our meat, our farmers, they invited me to come help. Well, I offered to volunteer at their booth and they said, we'll pay you, you've all, and told them, I volunteered them that I was going to help them at their farmer's market and they said, we'll pay you. So I basically just get paid in meat now. And so that's also, it does help reduce our grocery budget.
That was that. And then just a quick tangent on meat. So we've said that word a few times. I know that's kind of a controversial topic to a lot of people. We intentionally do consume it as nutritionist because it's one of the most nutrient dense foods on the planet, especially things like liver. Um, you know, people talk about quote unquote super foods and they'll mention things like Asai berries or KL. I was like, those things are great, but if you were to put a table of nutrients and put those side aside, they don't hold a candle.
Yeah. Nutrient density. Like we can get into organ meats too as another cheap source of great nutrition. But, um, there's another, uh, another functional nutrition therapy practitioner of there. And she, she was said, um, I'm pretty sure that all the, the like answers to nutritional problems can be solved with liver. I wish it were ice cream, but I'm pretty sure it's liver. He's so much better if it was ice cream. So much better. Yeah. Actually that was another one. We did start cooking a little bit more with organ meats, which are, the benefit of those is that they're so rich in nutrients and they're really good for you, so likes, they're cheaper, they're cheaper. So, um, if you eat heart, it's good for your heart. If you eat liver, it's good for your liver, et cetera. Um, and I think, you know, especially in our culture, a lot of us are really squeamish about organ meats, but there's ways that you can prepare them that aren't too freaky, that don't taste weird and that you know, your, your kids and your husband will eat too and not know.
For example, you can mix in a little bit of like meatballs for example. And you know, spices and herbs and things that can help cover up the flavor. Resurrection. She wrote a whole post on the blog about easy ways to eat liver and other organ meats. Yeah. Cause I hate liver so I'm always trying to find, I know, but I know it's so good for me so I'm always trying to find ways to get it in my diet. She actually makes her own liver pills. Yeah. I make desiccated liver capsules cause I'm a weirdo. But anyway, it was expensive. You can make them really cheap. Yeah. This is, this is me being like I'm not going to pay $50 for a bottle of 120 capsules of desiccated liver. I'm going to figure out how to do it myself. $5. And you've got some resources on your website that kind of gives people these ideas cause I'm like, Oh yeah, eat liver.
I don't like it. Yes. Yeah. Actually so, well, one thing that is a really good kind of introduction is if you make like a chicken liver Patty, if you just Google parte, it's basically liver plus butter plus herbs and you can do that on, you know, carrot sticks or cucumber slices and it's sort of like a good little dip. Yeah, it's really good. Chicken liver in general is much more mild livers of quote unquote ruminant animals. Cows. Yeah. Yeah. I'd say if you're starting out do a chicken liver potty, that's a good way to dip your toes in the water. Yeah, you're really liked me and you really, really can't do any of the tastes. I think it is worth it to get like a in capsule form because it's just so good for you. Like livers rich in B vitamins, which give you energy, iron Coleen.
It's good for the brain. It's good for your own liver and your own body's detox mechanisms. So yeah, huge fan of organ meat over here coming up. So Oregon meats buying a whole cow soaking and sprouting lentils. Oh, a quick thing about the lentils and the ground meat. So ground meat is another strategy on itself on its own because it tends to be much, much cheaper per pound. Yes. We switched from like steaks, you know, I'm doing more things with gardens. Yeah. I love me a good steak but more expensive per pound. So yeah, having ground meat most of the time doing meatballs, things like that. Yeah. Now what about, um, cause I kinda switched to like ground chicken and ground pork. Is that healthier than like ground beef? Insane, kind of the same idea or no
fear? I'd say they're fine. Um, yeah, so there is this notion that red meat is unhealthy. That's a really, really common belief. It's just flat out not true. There's a lot of myths. That's why a whole other podcast, we don't have that here, but you can easily, you can easily look into, um, there's, there was a lot of shoddy science, a lot of vested interests, um, a lot of politics, so into that. So, um, as so I'm a certified in functional nutrition. I can tell you that's just not true. Um, but if you don't like it, that's, I think often that's where I come to is if you like other meats more or if you like fish like fine, go for it. Um, or if you are a vegetarian, like there are ways to at least optimize your nutrition within those restrictions. You know, having more eggs for example, or having full fat dairy.
So other than those things, um, yeah, it really, I think it was mostly sort of the aggregation of small gains that really just added up over time and then continually going back and looking at our budget again. Every month we do a thing called open loops for each week we'll meet and have sort of a budget party and we'll look at, we'll get all our spending for the week. We'll review upcoming events or upcoming expenses and sort of make it fun. Um, which actually that's another sort of tangent. One of the things we did while we were paying off debt to help make that fine as every time we'd make a debt payment, we'd literally do a dance,
happy dance, happy dance. We'd like hold hands and jump up and down and it sounds so ridiculous, but we look forward to that so much like every time that we, you know, every time that our paychecks would come over, like yes, we get a pay off debt and do her happy dance. And so, um, I like anytime you're trying to establish a habit like that, I would highly recommend the happy dance because it just, it gives you a little burst of excitement and it, it's, once you, it makes you want to do that behavior more. Yeah. She helps create a new habit loop. Yes. Highly recommend the happy dance. I think there's a video of it on our Instagram now. Do you guys have any tips or advice for couples that maybe aren't quite on the same page of maybe just like working together compromising so that you can reach your bigger goal?
Yeah, this is a really, I think, important and interesting topic to me. Um, I really think it's important not to push, not to nag, you know, each person has to come to this on their own and they have to have buy-in intrinsically. In fact, we could talk more about the Gretchen Rubin four tenancies again here I think because especially if your partner is what's called a rebel, the more you push and the more you talk about this, the more they're going to resist and push back.
So just stepping back a bit. So, um, I mentioned Gretchen Rubin earlier, but she's, um, an author and also a podcast or who has developed, she had wrote a book called the four tendencies. So it's this framework of four different tendencies of people and they differ based on how they respond to expectation. So she says like internal expectation might be like a new year's resolution, whereas external expectation could be like a work deadline or something your partner wants you to do. Um, so there are these four types which are upholder, obliger, questioner and rebel. And so they'll uphold both internal and external expectations. So you give them something to do, no problem, checkbox, they'll do it. Don't even have to ask them again. Um, anything they want to do, like adopting a new habit, done, no problem. Obligers or aspire to be. How do you just, you just make up your mind and you just do it.
How is that possible? Um, and then you've got the obligers. So for them it's, it's hard for them to accomplish something, uh, less. They know they have accountability, so they'll do the things that are external expectations, but it's hard for them to stick to internal expectation. Then there's the question or type, which like, John, uh, they will do something if essentially what they're doing is turning it into internal expectation if they go, yep, that makes sense. With my logic and the way I see the world. And if it doesn't make sense, then they're like, well that's silly. You know, that that doesn't make sense. So that is external. If it's a rule or if somebody in authority says you have to do this thing, if it doesn't make sense, I'm not going to do it. Yeah. And then the last one is the rebel type.
So rebels, which is what I am, I'm resist internal and external expectations. So you can tell rebels if you say, I, you know, you can't do that or I bet you couldn't do X. The rebel will say, watch me. So I have, um, you know, one thing I always say is that it's best to just assume that everybody is a rebel and then you'll always do, it's a safe assumption. So I think that in doing that, you, you always have to make the rebel think that it's their idea. They have to come to that conclusion on their own. So one exercise that I think is really useful that I heard about, um, uh, the, have you heard the, you've seen the plane with fire documentary? Um, I haven't watched it now. Okay. So, well anyway, in that when the husband in that documentary is bringing up to the wife, uh, what, what he had to do was make a list of the 10 things that make you happiest.
And so it was like, you know, spending time with my baby, like spending time with my husband, hearing my baby laugh, you know, a glass of wine, chocolate, whatever. And then the approach became, okay, how can we get more of these things that make us the happiest in our life? And so viewing it that way, how can we get more of what we already want instead of where should we we or should we cut money? Right? You know, where should we cut expenses? It's about, okay, let's figure out how to strategize to get more of the things that we want. So like for us, that was freedom, fulfillment, being close to family, being able to work from home. And so we've made a lot of sacrifices and a lot of decisions for us to get more of those things that we want. So I'd say if you approach your partner, have proposed that exercise, say like, look, let's both take a piece of paper, we'll go away, we'll write down the 10 things that bring us the most joy and then we'll come together and compare our lists and that.
Yeah, that that's what they did in playing with fire. That's what they talked about in the book that they wrote. And I really liked that because, because when you approach things from what do you want, how do you get more of the things that you want? It's something that you're running towards, not something that you're running away from. Right. And it just seems more like a world of possibility and there's room for creativity and figuring out how do we do this rather than, okay we have to cut more money. I guess we're really, you know, we really need to cut out spending here. Like that's not motivating or not sustainable. Exactly. Cause inevitably is it both
partners are not fully [inaudible]. You know, in it, one partner who doesn't really want to do it, we'll do it for a while, to a certain extent to make the other partner happy, but the whole time it'll be a sacrifice and it'll be something they're doing for the other person, which has resentment and resistance and it's just not a recipe for a happy marriage or getting out of debt or
building financial independence. So, so I'd say, yeah, the first thing is that list of the 10, you know, the 10 things that make you the most happy. The second thing I would say is, is um, figuring out if those four tendencies, which are partners, you might already have a good idea of what they are, but Gretchen Rubin does have a quiz on her website, um, which is free. You can find out which one you are, but if you know what type they are, then you can, um, you can persuade them in a way that fits their type. And you can also help build systems that will work for both of you with, but with what your types are. So for John, he was persuaded by the logic of the Dave Ramsey baby steps for another questioner. Like John maybe looking at the math of, okay, look, if we push hard, we could get all of this paid off in this amount of time and then we'd have more freedom to do X, Y, and Z. You know, if it's a rebel, it's the, what do you want more of? Like how can we be creative to get more freedom and letting you be yourself.
And I think the rebel to adding in that, you know, an element of credit card companies or the man, you know, they want you to be in debt.
Yeah. They want you to be controlled. That's how you get a rebel to control you and you, you're not gonna, you're not the type of person to be controlled are you? Then it's really hard. You probably can't do it. Yeah. And then so with the obliger, it's a matter of accountability. So, Mmm. You know, building in those systems of maybe it's art, like our open loops meetings where once a week you're coming together and discussing these things, the upholders, they'll just do it. You don't have to worry about that. So that is really good advice. Um, so do I even need to ask you what your favorite nonfiction book is? I think we have a good idea that I have probably gifted that book to people more than any other book. It really, my life, it changed my, my, uh, how I viewed myself. It changed our marriage. It changed how we relate to our family members, to our coworkers
already. I think a good solid marriage and we have good relationships with family, but it just made it even that much better and that much easier to understand why people do what they do. Which pride for me as a questioner is really important.
Yeah. Yeah. And we love that stuff. We love, like why do people behave the way they do? Right.
Um, that's definitely one of them. Another book that's been very transformative for us. It's called the power of when [inaudible] and this is all about what are called chronotypes, which are your natural circadian rhythm. So your body clock clock KC. Exactly. Um, you know, we had this earlier, I'd mentioned that Rosemary is a morning person. I'm a night person. There's actually four types that the author lays out, which are, they're named after animals. So there's a lion, which is the morning person, early riser. Go get him first thing in the morning. They start, you know, they start at 11 and then they quickly taper off afternoon and just crash. It was just Rosemary. There's the bear and they're sort of the nine to five. They follow the sun. So most of about 50% of population are bears. And this is actually how most of society is organized, is around the natural biorhythms of bears.
So you know, we have worked nine to five, that's the bare schedule. Third is the Wolf. That's what I am. So we are really slowly at going in the morning. We tend to be up later and wake up later. Um, it's been really empowering to find out that's what I am because my whole life I always felt frustrated that the entire world seemed to be sort of designed against this natural rhythm. And I always felt like I was lazy or there was something wrong with me cause I just couldn't get up earlier and I would never be able to fall asleep early enough to get up early. So
same here. I worked night shift. So you're probably the Wolf type. Yeah.
Um, and then the fourth one is dolphin and these are sort of the classic insomniac where they have a really hard time falling and staying asleep. Um, but what he lays out in the book is not only normalizing that these, these four tendencies are all normal and natural, but then also he gives you schedules that are sort of optimized for each type, which is really, I mean everything from, you know, when to eat, when to work, when to do creative work, when to do more admin and minutiae type stuff. Um, even work out what to do when to exercise based on your, your natural rhythms would have sex based on your natural rhythms for, you know, APOE enjoyment. And then most important I think in terms of the relationship is if you are a different type from your partner, figuring out sort of the, the, the best compromise time for things based on both of you. So obviously with Rosemary and I, we're kind of opposite ends of the, the spectrum here in terms of time, but we figured out a rhythm that, that works for both of us where we can still, you know,
have a happy,
healthy marriage and still see each other sometimes not want to bite each other's heads off. Yeah. That's awesome. I'll have to check that one out. So do you have any last words of wisdom you've given us lots to think about today? I think one thing that, uh, that, that I always say, um, that about, you know, why it's worth spending money on getting food that's of a higher quality. It's, you can choose to pay the farmer now or you can pay the doctor later. And that's really up to you. And for us, we just found that it's worth it to spend a little bit more money, um, on higher quality food and know that we're taking care of ourselves so that when we do get to a point where we can retire, where, uh, you can enjoy it, we can enjoy it fully. So yeah, we do kind of see food and nutrition and health in general is an investment in your most important asset, which is, you know, there's a lot of people that will optimize for finances there, their financial assets and they'll have a great portfolio, but they don't have the health to fully enjoy it.
Uh, I remember when I was living and working in Taiwan years ago, uh, one of the guys that I was teaching, very wealthy guy, and he had this great quote, which is, he said, health is a one and wealth are zeros. And if you have all these zeros but you don't have the one in front, it's meaningless. Wow. And that's always stuck with me. That's, yeah. Yeah. I think just, I'm going to add one other word of wisdom that I really, really like and that is that I'm sort of going along with what we were saying about the sleep chronotypes and the four tendencies is that we can't ascribe morality to biology. So if you are that night owl type, you know, that's the way your body is designed to run for you. You're not broken, you're not a lazy or bad person. Similarly, um, you know, with the, with whatever tendency you are, if it's rebel or, or a bunch of whatever, like, you know, I'm not a, I used to just have this belief that like I'm a difficult person.
I seem to be like dissatisfied in a cubicle job. Like, what's wrong with me? Other people seem to be okay with this. And he goes, Oh, I'm just a rebel. So, um, I think helping to understand yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Knowing yourself, knowing these concepts that helps you remove that morality from your own biology and understand, Oh, this is just the way I'm wired, so now I can make allowances and make changes in my life too. Um, you know, allow that part of me to flourish. Definitely. That's great. Now where can people find you? Yeah, so we're on Instagram at flourish fundamentals. Our website is flourish fundamentals.com. Um, and we have a weekly newsletter, so we're on flourish Friday. So, um, if you sign up for a newsletter on our website, we send out recipes and, um, teach you about the stuff that you need to do to take care of yourself for optimal wellness.
And then actually, I'm currently writing my third book right now. Um, I'm writing a book that's all about kind of seasonal mood changes. I've always had a really hard time in the fall and winter, and now that that's rolling around again, um, I decided to kind of take all this knowledge and research that I've done over the past year and some things that I've implemented to help myself with that sort of putting that into a book to help other people that struggle with the same thing. Oh, awesome. Yeah, that's gonna be called happy in winter. Oh, awesome. I can't wait to read it. Yeah, I will if then you copy [inaudible]. Sounds good. Thanks you guys so much for being here today. Thank you, Ashley. Thank you.
Special Guest: John & Rosemary Fotheringham.