#39 – From Burnout to Revival: How Dr. Jordan Grumet Resuscitated His Purpose and Retirement

Jordan Grumet [00:08:06]:
Thank you for having me. I’m excited for this conversation.

Ryan Doolittle [00:08:09]:
I am, too. So, just so people know, we met in Atlanta because fincon was happening and I was in town. I live out in la. You live in Chicago, right?

Jordan Grumet [00:08:19]:
Correct.

Ryan Doolittle [00:08:20]:
And so we met there and I was fascinated by your story. You’re a former hospice doctor and you still do that about 10 hours a week. But you had a real change in your life and you moved over to self help, personal finance. Finding your purpose, that’s like your main passion now, right?

Jordan Grumet [00:08:38]:
Yes. So I spend most of my time doing podcasting, writing, public speaking, and only a small part of being a hospice doctor, because I still find some sense of purpose and joy in doing that, but it’s not my main gig anymore.

Ryan Doolittle [00:08:51]:
Right, okay. And how uncommon is that? Because that really struck me. I don’t know of any other doctors who’ve had that change.

Jordan Grumet [00:08:59]:
That change specifically is rare, but it is not uncommon for doctors to burn out of medicine. So medicine is exhausting. And a lot of times what you do for a living is not what you pictured when you were a kid and you decided you were going to go into this field. And so there are a lot of doctors who become consultants, who become inventors, who become authors, who become business people. It’s not uncommon for doctors to use our extensive knowledge. And the truth of the matter is, you know, we went through a doctoral program and then we’ve spent a lot of time managing people as a doctor. So you gain some of these kind of abilities that help you do all sorts of things.

Ryan Doolittle [00:09:39]:
One thing that really sparked your change was a book you read called the White Coat Investor. Tell me how that changed your life.

Jordan Grumet [00:09:47]:
So let me give you some background. My father was a physician. He. He died when I was seven years old. He literally was rounding at the hospital. He had a blood vessel burst in his brain. He died. I was seven.

Jordan Grumet [00:09:58]:
So I saw the world through the lens of I’m the most important thing. And so I thought that he died because of me. I somehow was at fault. I wasn’t good enough. And so at some point, I decided the way I was going to fix this cosmic problem was I was going to become a doctor like him. I kind of co opted his version of purpose because I thought it was going to fit fix everything. And that served me for quite a while. It formed an identity, a purpose that really kept me busy during childhood and young adulthood.

Jordan Grumet [00:10:26]:
But when I became a doctor, I quickly realized that it wasn’t filling me up. It was exhausting. I was doing tons of paperwork. I didn’t feel like I was helping people as much as I thought I would be. And the truth of the matter is I’d kind of gone into this thing because I thought it was going to fix the fact that my father died. And as I became an adult, on some level, I realized that it wasn’t going to make the pain any less. My father died. It was what it was, and becoming a doctor wasn’t going to fix that.

Jordan Grumet [00:10:50]:
So I was burning out.

Ryan Doolittle [00:10:51]:
Yeah.

Jordan Grumet [00:10:52]:
And I was looking for a way out. And I convinced myself, well, if I can just get my finances in order and if I have enough money, I can leave. I never thought I could do something else because I figured the only thing I’ve ever known how to be as a doctor. So it wasn’t like I was going to go get another job. It was I was going to pile enough money up that I could just never work again. And so I could leave medicine. I went to my financial advisor who did all sorts of Monte Carlo simulations, but he never asked me how much I wanted to spend each year. And I had a bunch of real estate, and he didn’t want to include that in the simulations.

Jordan Grumet [00:11:21]:
And so the point was, he looked at my finances. He said, you’re nowhere near where you need to be. And so then I went to my accountant, who was my mom, and I asked my mom, I said, how much money do I need to retire? And she said, $10 million. And I said, why $10 million? And she said, I don’t know. That sounds like the right amount.

Ryan Doolittle [00:11:36]:
Oh, my God.

Jordan Grumet [00:11:37]:
I didn’t have $10 million. So I decided I couldn’t retire. So back in 2014, I was writing a medical blog about what it felt like to be a practicing physician. And Jim Dally, the white coat investor, sent me his book. And he said, can you read my book? Review it on your blog. I’m trying to get it out there to other doctors. So I read his book and within a few hours, because it only took a few hours, I realized what exactly financial independence was. I learned how to calculate the numbers.

Ryan Doolittle [00:12:05]:
I learned.

Jordan Grumet [00:12:05]:
I looked at my own finances and realized something that really hit me over the head. I was probably financially independent already. You see, my parents had modeled all sorts of great financial behavior. So I was saving 50% of my income. I had was already bought a bunch of real estate and was a landlord. I was investing all my extra money in the stock market. So I was doing all the right things and I had accumulated a lot of money by then. I just didn’t understand the vocabulary and the numbers.

Jordan Grumet [00:12:31]:
And so this was this huge epiphany. And I was elated for a few moments and then I had a. And then I had a huge panic attack because I realized that the only thing I had based my whole life on, this sense of identity and purpose of being a physician, I was about to step away from it, step away from the only wisp of a connection to my father, who. I died when I was a little boy. And it freaked me out. And in fact, took me years to eventually pull away from medicine. I couldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. I had to slowly get rid of things I didn’t like in my job.

Jordan Grumet [00:13:01]:
And eventually I was left with hospice. So I got rid of being, you know, in private practice, which was running my own business, which was exhausting. I got rid of nights, I got rid of weekends. I got rid of nursing homework. The only thing I was left with was this very part time, 10 hour a week hospice job. And the only reason I kept that was because I loved doing it. So I’m like, okay, here’s the thing I love that I would do even if you weren’t paying me for it. So that’s purposeful and exciting.

Jordan Grumet [00:13:26]:
I’m going to keep that. But when I left all these other things, I created all this space in my life to start doing whatever I wanted to do. And strangely enough, there were tons of things I wanted to do that I never gave myself permission to. So I loved writing, but I thought that was a hobby. So I always squeezed that into nights and weekends and, you know, lunch hours. So I started writing more. I eventually started a podcast and did a lot more public speaking. And I realized that when I was doing these things, they fit me so much better than being a doctor.

Jordan Grumet [00:13:57]:
Like, I met other people and I connected with those people in ways that I never connected with other doctors. And I’m like I’ve been trying to live my dad’s version of purpose for so long, and it never fit me. And now I’m in my 40s and I’ve finally given myself permission to do things that light me up. And I found this whole community of people that I connect with, and it just felt like a very different world.

Ryan Doolittle [00:14:22]:
How many years did it take to separate that identity from your work? I mean, you identified as the doctor, and then how many years until you were able to say, okay, I don’t have to be that?

Jordan Grumet [00:14:33]:
I think it took a good four years. I mean, it was from 2014, when I realized I was financially independent, to 2018, where I literally gave up everything but hospice work. And so that was four years of getting rid of things, of trying new things out of being afraid and then adjusting, which is interesting because now. So that was 2018. Now I live a life I could have never imagined. 2014, but it’s so much more joyful, it’s so much more connected. I have more friends than I’ve ever had. I have these things that I do that I could have never imagined.

Jordan Grumet [00:15:04]:
These conferences I go to, all of this. Thankfully, it was because I was able to let go of that sense of purpose and identity that weren’t really fitting me and probably never fit in the first place.

Ryan Doolittle [00:15:16]:
Yeah. So in a way, you were like an actor playing a role before, and now you’re just being yourself.

Jordan Grumet [00:15:22]:
And think about this. Don’t we all do this? We all get told by our parents what we should go into. You should be a doctor, a lawyer, cpa, whatever it is. Then we see TikTok and Instagram that show us six pack abs and traveling to all sorts of countries and eight figure businesses. And then we see advertising that gives us these beautiful images of successful people and what they do. A lot of people think that purpose is this big grand thing that we’ve been taught to think. And we’re all actors trying to play this role. The problem is, a lot of times what we see on Instagram and TikTok and even what marketers show us is almost impossible to reach.

Jordan Grumet [00:16:00]:
Like, most people aren’t gonna be billionaires, most people aren’t gonna be president or cure cancer, do any of these big audacious things that we think we’re supposed to be able to do. And not only that, but most of us don’t even enjoy the process. So a lot of us get into these jobs we don’t love to either, or to reach some kind of career achievement because we’ve been told that’s what we’re supposed to do, but we’re just acting the part and it leaves us feeling empty, just like I felt empty in 2014.

Ryan Doolittle [00:16:27]:
Yeah. That really struck me when you said you liked writing, but you would just squeeze it in here and there. And I can relate to that where something that I really like. And I feel guilty almost while I’m doing it because I think this isn’t what I’m supposed to be doing. I should be doing the thing.

Jordan Grumet [00:16:44]:
Yeah. This is not what adults do. Right. This is not a job. This is a hobby. And I remember saying that to myself over and over again. That’s not a job. Being a doctor is a job like writing or public speaking.

Jordan Grumet [00:16:55]:
It’s a hobby.

Ryan Doolittle [00:16:56]:
Right. That’s just some pipe dream. But now that is the job. And you fully accepted that?

Jordan Grumet [00:17:01]:
I have. Now I have to tell you, I get kind of a pass in the sense that I don’t have to make a living doing this.

Ryan Doolittle [00:17:07]:
Ah, right.

Jordan Grumet [00:17:08]:
And that is some of the power of financial independence. But, but. And this is really important. If I had the knowledge and the understanding, maybe I still would have become a doctor, but maybe I would have started in hospice. Like I came to hospice at the end of my career. I did general internal medicine. Maybe I would have started in hospice, and maybe I wouldn’t have made as much money, but I would have had much more career longevity because I would have really liked what I did. Or maybe I would have become a spokesperson.

Jordan Grumet [00:17:37]:
Maybe I would have become a spokesperson about something that I knew about medically, but then could go out in the world and use some of those communication and public speaking skills. Maybe I would have written about medicine. Maybe I would have started a podcast or a blog about medicine. I did eventually start a blog about medicine, but maybe that would have become more central to my career than the actual doctoring itself. And that’s where I think I went wrong. It’s not that we can’t do hard work that we do to make money, because sometimes making money is important, but it’s being more aware of what purpose really looks like in your life and starting to integrate it more.

Ryan Doolittle [00:18:11]:
For your sake, I wish you had been able to figure it out sooner, but for our sake, it’s really an interesting story that you have that journey and the scars you probably have from learning it, you know?

Jordan Grumet [00:18:22]:
Yeah. I mean, so we tell ourselves the stories about ourselves, hopefully, that make us most heroic. So can I imagine a life where I didn’t go through these scars? No. These Scars were hard earned. And I hope, I believe that the knowledge I have now means more because I went through being lost for a while before I was found.

Ryan Doolittle [00:18:43]:
Absolutely, yeah. And how long did it take until you were actually good at public speaking or, you know, these new things that you do?

Jordan Grumet [00:18:52]:
I don’t know if. I don’t know if I’m good at it yet. Here’s. Here is a problem, and this is a real problem. The thing I’m best in the world at is being a doctor. I was very good at it. I mean, I was a very, very good doctor. Part of the disconnect was to step away from something I was very good at, but not fulfilling me.

Jordan Grumet [00:19:10]:
The beauty of stepping into purpose, especially the kind of purpose that fills you up, is you don’t necessarily have to be good at it. You have to enjoy the process of doing it. They’re two different things. Being good at something versus enjoying the process of doing. If you do something that lights you up, whether you’re good at it or not, you’re going to attract other people, you’re going to form communities, you’re going to make connections, you’re going to find yourself engaged in your life more. Once you start thinking about am I good at it or not, what you really are starting to talk about are goals and achievements, and goals and achievements are wonderful. But when the why of what you’re doing is that goal or achievement and you’re not enjoying the process, you’ve kind of lost your way. And so that’s something I definitely had to contend with, the not being as good and yet doing it anyway.

Ryan Doolittle [00:19:54]:
You have a book that’s coming out called the Purpose Code. Someone throughout your speaking engagements came up to you and said, I’m so sick of people telling me to find my purpose. I don’t know my purpose. And it’s stressing me out. Is this kind of what you’re getting at right now?

Jordan Grumet [00:20:08]:
Very much so. My first book that I wrote was called Taking Stock, and it was what about the Dying could teach us about money and life. And one of the big messages is that purpose should come first and we should build a financial framework around it. But as you said, I went to market this book and I go to conferences and speak on it. And I get people who are angry and pissed off. They’d be like, I don’t know what my purpose is and I’m sick of looking for it. Please stop telling me to find my purpose. So I did a deep dive and I’m like, well, everyone says purpose is important.

Jordan Grumet [00:20:36]:
And yet I’m seeing what I look like anxiety around purpose to me. And so I looked into the studies and there are tons of wonderful studies that show that purpose in life is indeed associated with health, longevity and happiness. It’s really clear. Tons of studies. On the other hand, I found other studies that show that worrying about purpose is associated with something called purpose anxiety. And up to 91% of people at some point in their life feel purpose anxiety. So how could purpose be the most important thing and yet anxiety ridden? What I realized is that we probably look at purpose wrong. There’s probably one type of purpose that actually does cause anxiety and another type of purpose that’s associated with all these good things.

Jordan Grumet [00:21:15]:
So in my book I label them big P purpose and little P purpose. But the long and the short of it is big P purpose is much more process oriented and it’s very scarcity mindset oriented. Especially in the US where we tend to think of big, audacious purpose. If you can think it, you can build it in the US So it’s not just purpose, it’s becoming a billionaire, it’s becoming president, it’s curing cancer. But the problem is most of us don’t have agency to actually achieve those things. And so we find ourselves spending a lot of our time doing things we don’t like in service of this goal that we’ll probably never reach, that is anxiety. On the other side, there’s what I call little P purpose, which is process oriented purpose. So what we’re talking about really is doing things that light you up, that excite you, and you can’t fail, right? There’s no way to fail.

Jordan Grumet [00:22:00]:
You do it, you either love it or you go on and you do something else. And so this is very abundance mindset oriented. How many millions of things could you love doing? Whereas big P purpose is all or nothing. You either succeed or fail. Little P purpose is all or all. You just do the thing. And so I think that’s much more associated with happiness than big P purpose, which just frustrates us.

Ryan Doolittle [00:22:22]:
Right. I had this discussion with my wife and it’s easier for me to see her even though I fall into the same anxiety traps. She’s really good at painting, and so she’ll be painting something and she’s worried that she’s wasting her purpose or whatever. And I, and I want to say, you know, just doing this right now is winning. You’re so good at it and you love doing it. You’re winning already. Don’t. I mean what happens later to it, or if someone buys it, whatever is kind of out of your control, but you’re already winning.

Jordan Grumet [00:22:52]:
And so I think we need to be more goal agnostic. Right? You can have goals. You can paint because you want to paint something beautiful. You can paint because you want to sell something. You can have these goals. But if you’re not enjoying the process of painting, then it’s probably not worth doing. But here’s the payoff and here’s the real payoff. When you do things you love, you enjoy the process of doing them.

Jordan Grumet [00:23:12]:
It lights you up, and that attracts other people to you, and you eventually create communities and connections, and that’s where the happiness really lies. Like if she paints and it lights her up, and so she starts taking painting classes and she meets other painters, and maybe she creates a few things and a buyer likes it, and then she becomes friends with the buyer, or maybe another painter says, hey, I really love the way you paint this, but I think you could do better on landscapes. Let me show you how to do landscapes. And before you know it, she’s part of a vibrant community of painters and artisans and appreciators. And that’s where happiness comes from. And so when I think we look at these studies where purpose is connected to health, happiness and longevity, I don’t even think it’s purpose itself. It’s that purpose is a conduit to these connections in these communities. And I think that’s what makes us happy.

Jordan Grumet [00:24:01]:
Everyone thinks money’s gonna make them happy. Everyone thinks career or achievements. But if you look at some of the most long term studies about true happiness, they actually find that interpersonal connections are what mostly makes people happy.

Ryan Doolittle [00:24:13]:
Oh, fascinating. And you mentioned that now you have more friends than you’ve ever had. Is that what happened for you?

Jordan Grumet [00:24:20]:
Oh, my God, yes. And so imagine this. When I started podcasting, I started meeting people, we started talking, I started making friends, I started liking to go to these conferences. But you know what happened? I started becoming friends with all these authors, and I had always wanted to be an author and I always wanted to write. In fact, that was one of those things. You know, I talk about what I learned from the dying, and one is regret. The dying often talk about that they never had the energy, courage, or time to do these things that were deeply important to them. Well, to me, becoming an author, a published author, a traditionally published author, was something that was deeply important to me.

Jordan Grumet [00:24:53]:
And I convinced myself for every reason not to do it. And I started meeting all these authors and they became my friends. And they’re like, dude, I’ll help you find an agent. Here’s my agent. This is who you need to talk to. And I’ll help you find a publisher. This is who I published with. Here’s the email.

Jordan Grumet [00:25:09]:
Why don’t you write them? In fact, I’ll introduce you to them. And so by pursuing my sense of purpose and doing things that lit me up, I was connected to these other creatives, and they helped me do something that was deeply important to me, which was write and traditionally publish a book. I could have never done it without them.

Ryan Doolittle [00:25:25]:
And they just offered. It wasn’t even like you had to sort of hit them up for it.

Jordan Grumet [00:25:29]:
No, no. So one of my really good friends and a popular personal finance writer and author, Grant Sabatier, came to me one day, actually, and he’s like, dude, you need to write a book. What you’re putting out there, you need to write a book. He’s like, I’ll help you write a book proposal. I’ll introduce you to my agent. And without that push, my first book would have never come to be.

Ryan Doolittle [00:25:48]:
That says something optimistic about humans, too. I mean, the people just want to help because they see how genuine this is for you.

Jordan Grumet [00:25:56]:
Well, I mean, look at you and I, right? So I ran into you at a get together. We started talking. I started talking about purpose. My guess is you were like, wow, he’s talking about something. And he looks really excited about this. And I was talking to you, and I’m like, oh, this guy seems pretty cool. He has this podcast. We’re both interested in personal finance.

Jordan Grumet [00:26:12]:
And so, yes, I think there’s some generosity there. But I also think we’re also excited by what we’re excited by. And so when we see kindred spirits, you’re like, let’s collaborate, let’s build, let’s do something. And so that’s where it all comes together.

Ryan Doolittle [00:26:27]:
Yeah, I guess, you know, humans really are social creatures. It just seems true.

Jordan Grumet [00:26:32]:
And I think that’s where happiness really lies again. It’s in those interpersonal connections. We crave them, but the problem is we crave them in the right settings where we feel good, where we feel engaged. And so a lot of people don’t know how to get to that place where they feel good and engaged. I, as a doctor, didn’t know how to get there because I kept on trying to engage people, being a doctor, which didn’t fit me, which didn’t connect, which didn’t really feel like purpose. But when you can find Those things that do light you up, the rest gets easier.

Ryan Doolittle [00:26:59]:
Right. People really need to go out and get this book, the Purpose Code, because they’re going to just. I guess this is quite the tagline. But if you read this book, you will be happy. I don’t know if you can guarantee that.

Jordan Grumet [00:27:11]:
Here’s what I can guarantee. Let me show you. Say what I can guarantee.

Ryan Doolittle [00:27:13]:
Okay.

Jordan Grumet [00:27:14]:
I can guarantee that there are many, many, many people out there who have this vague idea of purpose. And they know it’s important, but it seems too big, too overwhelming, too ephemeral. And so the whole purpose that I wrote this book for was I want to take this big, difficult, hard to understand idea and turn it into something that you can actually use, that you can touch, you can rearrange, and you can build a life around it. And it doesn’t feel hard and it doesn’t feel scarce. It feels abundant. And so that’s my real goal. I do think purpose definitely leads to happiness, but I think we’ve been too confused for too long on what purpose is and how difficult people think it is when it shouldn’t be that difficult.

Ryan Doolittle [00:27:57]:
This book has been described as Brene Brown meets Malcolm Gladwell, which I think is really great.

Jordan Grumet [00:28:02]:
What I really like is this idea of both emotions and science, vulnerability and logic. It all comes together. And that’s why I like those two sides of the coin and why I think they meld well together when we’re talking about purpose is because the truth of the matter is purpose is exceedingly vulnerable and it’s exceedingly emotional. On the other hand, I don’t know if anyone’s given us a logical playbook, a scientific understanding of what it truly is and how to navigate it. And so the idea is I wanted to do both.

Ryan Doolittle [00:28:32]:
Yeah. Which so few people seem to do. So I’m really glad that you’ve kind of entered the chat. Tell me about. Everyone knows Julia Child. Tell me about her sense of purpose and how that played into what you were thinking.

Jordan Grumet [00:28:46]:
Well, I love Julia Child’s story. And the reason why is Julia Childs tried a million things. She wanted to be an author. She actually worked for what now is the CIA. What she did all. So she. She did. She worked for.

Jordan Grumet [00:28:58]:
I didn’t know she actually. They had to. I forgot what the story was. But she created a cocktail that was supposed to get sharks to like move away from divers and like an anti chum. Yes, exactly.

Ryan Doolittle [00:29:14]:
Okay.

Jordan Grumet [00:29:14]:
And so that. That was like her experience being a chef was putting together the anti chum. She had no idea she had any interest in this. And she’s traveling with her husband, who I believe was a diplomat. She ends up in France. She has a meal, she eats the food, and she’s like, this is the most fantastic thing ever. It was something about the taste of the food, the experience, and she decided that she was going to build a life of purpose around that. But what’s excellent about her is she didn’t, like, want to change the world.

Jordan Grumet [00:29:39]:
She didn’t want to become famous. She just wanted to be engaged in this thing that she loved. And you know what? She failed. She went to, like, Le Cordon Bleu and she failed her first test. She went and wrote one of the most iconic cookbooks ever, but it took her 10 years. 10 years. This is not someone who had instant success, but she always had a flair and excitement about doing what she was doing. It was the process that she loved.

Jordan Grumet [00:30:06]:
But by being deeply engaged in these purposeful things that she loved, she eventually ended up changing the world anyway. She eventually ended up making huge riches and being well known and being on tv, but none of that was her plan. And the truth of the matter is that kind of happiness I think we all can find. But it can’t be your goal. Like, your goal can’t be being on TV and being famous. You have to find things that light you up the way that lit her up, and then deeply engage in the process of doing those things. But what comes out at the other end tends to be magic. At minimum, it’s a happy life.

Jordan Grumet [00:30:40]:
At maximum, it’s a happy life plus wealth, riches, fame, whatever the rest of that stuff is you want.

Ryan Doolittle [00:30:45]:
I want to get into a little bit of topics that’ll help people listening who are looking to retire. Tell me your favorite core pursuits, which we define as, like, hobbies on steroids. Joe Salsihai, who we both know, he. He told us they’re, like, super activities, and we told him that legally we were gonna say that we thought of that.

Jordan Grumet [00:31:05]:
Got it.

Ryan Doolittle [00:31:07]:
Tell me what. What yours are.

Jordan Grumet [00:31:09]:
Oh, I love. So, I mean, I love reading. Spend a lot of time reading, like, crime novels, stuff like that. Usually an hour or two a day. I love walking. I will literally walk 10 miles a day. Just love getting out there. I live right by Lake Michigan.

Jordan Grumet [00:31:22]:
I walk along in Lake Michigan all the time. Any kind of exercise. But I love walking.

Ryan Doolittle [00:31:26]:
Do you put headphones on or you just want to hear nature or what do you do?

Jordan Grumet [00:31:29]:
Both. Both, sometimes. Sometimes I’ll put a podcast on. Other times I’ll Put classical music on, and sometimes I’ll just listen to nature. I love podcasting. Like, every moment I’m in front of a mic, I’m excited.

Ryan Doolittle [00:31:41]:
Really? That’s so cool.

Jordan Grumet [00:31:42]:
Yeah. Yeah. I love public. I love writing in public speaking. I mean, some of my happiest times are when I’m in the midst of writing a book manuscript. It’s just so exciting. I find, in fact, I tend to write my books exceedingly fast because when I start, I can’t stop until it’s done. So I’ll write 5,000, 10,000 words a day for a few weeks, and I’m done because it’s the only way.

Jordan Grumet [00:32:05]:
Once I start, I just. I’m so into it and excited and joyful in the process. It’s actually sad because then I’m done. And you don’t write a book that. Yeah, you don’t write a book that often. It’s usually once every year or two that you write a book. And so, like, it’s three or four weeks are really, really joyful. And then it’s like I’m to the not as joyful stuff, like the editing and the promoting and getting someone to buy it, et cetera, et cetera.

Jordan Grumet [00:32:29]:
So I find that there are too many things, like, I love things that I don’t have time for. I love baseball cards. When I was a little kid, I used to collect baseball cards. I would love. If I had more time, I’d love to go back and start collecting again. And really going to baseball card shows and stores, I used to love that stuff. I mean, it’s kind of. And this gets back to purpose.

Jordan Grumet [00:32:47]:
It’s kind of infinite. All the fun things you could do if you really had the time and energy and gave yourself permission.

Ryan Doolittle [00:32:53]:
You know, I once got two Ken Griffey Jr. Rookie cards in one pack.

Jordan Grumet [00:32:58]:
Yeah. Yeah. This was passed. So Ken Griffey was. By the time Ken Griffey came along, I was no longer collecting. The joy of buying packs of baseball cards. You know, one of the fun things was they’re used to. They.

Jordan Grumet [00:33:09]:
They used to come in cellophane packs, the bigger ones.

Ryan Doolittle [00:33:12]:
Yeah.

Jordan Grumet [00:33:12]:
And so you could see the front card. So one year, my friends and I realized every year there was a few different rookie cards you wanted to get. And we realized that the machines always put the cards in the same order. And so we buy the packs until we found the Daryl Strawberry, Dwight Goodner, Vince Coleman rookie card. And then you look at every card that came above it, and then you’d race to the store and try to find a cellophane pack that had one of those players on the front. And then you’d buy the pack, open it, and there would be your key rookie card. So, like, we had a blast with this stuff.

Ryan Doolittle [00:33:42]:
You were too smart for, I don’t think, the average baseball card collector.

Jordan Grumet [00:33:46]:
Oh, we were. We were into it, man. We were so into it.

Ryan Doolittle [00:33:50]:
I’m on the Retire Sooner Network, and one of our podcasts is the Money Matters podcast. And our co host, Jeff Lloyd, his favorite baseball player of all time is Daryl Strawberry, who I would not have guessed. I mean, doesn’t really intersect with where he lives or any of that. But talk about someone who’s been through some challenges and I think come out the other side. Right. He seems to be doing pretty well now. Maybe he read your book. I don’t know.

Jordan Grumet [00:34:18]:
The book isn’t out yet. But maybe he could have used my book. How about that, right?

Ryan Doolittle [00:34:22]:
Yeah. What does your hybrid sense of retirement mean to you?

Jordan Grumet [00:34:28]:
So what it means to me is I have complete control of my schedule. Everything on my schedule is something I chose and that I can cancel at any time. And so not every moment is wonderful. Like, I edit my own podcast, and so that’s not the most exciting moments of my life, but I chose it. I decided to do it. If I really wanted to pay someone else to do it, I could. That’s what retirement or semi retirement or whatever you want to call it looks like. It doesn’t mean not making money.

Jordan Grumet [00:34:53]:
It doesn’t even mean not working for other people. It means that you have complete control of your calendar.

Ryan Doolittle [00:34:59]:
You know, that’s what a lot of people I talk to say is. It’s doing what I want to do when I want to do it, when.

Jordan Grumet [00:35:05]:
I want to do it. Yeah.

Ryan Doolittle [00:35:06]:
Yeah. And I think, because I think a lot of retirees think that I’ll just be happy as once I don’t have to do anything, you know, if I don’t have to work, that’s it. That’s all I need. But those people tend to, like, not find the happiness they thought they would.

Jordan Grumet [00:35:21]:
Yeah. I mean, we are doers as human beings, and so we ultimately will fill our lives up. Yes, it’s true. Once you retire, you might take six months off and sit on the beach and play golf, etc. But most of the time, most people get bored and they start doing stuff. And I think it all does go back to this idea that we want to connect with other people, so we do stuff. Eventually that connects us to other People, mostly. Not everybody, but mostly.

Ryan Doolittle [00:35:43]:
Honestly, how do you balance that with your family life? So you seem like, not a procrastinator, which is like, an amazing skill to have as a writer. I would say most writers tend to procrastinate, so you probably get all your stuff done. Is that so? Then do you just, like, go right into, like, being the best husband, father? Like, how do you tell me how it works?

Jordan Grumet [00:36:04]:
So I used to compartmentalize a lot, especially when I was a physician. It was very much like get up really early, go to work before the kids were up, work really hard, but then be home by 4. So I gotta pick up the kids and eat dinner with them and do the. Those kind of things. Interestingly enough, it’s the exact opposite. Now I more naturally integrate the things I love into my family life, and so my family sees me doing things I love more. But it doesn’t have a schedule.

Ryan Doolittle [00:36:28]:
Do you recommend Chicago as a. As a great place? People might want to live in retirement.

Jordan Grumet [00:36:33]:
Or only in the summer.

Ryan Doolittle [00:36:35]:
Only in the summer.

Jordan Grumet [00:36:36]:
Only in the summer do you live.

Ryan Doolittle [00:36:37]:
But you live there all year?

Jordan Grumet [00:36:39]:
I do, and our plans are actually. So the winters are just cold. I love Chicago. I love where we live in Evanston, which is a northern suburb. I live right by the lake. It’s a beautiful place to live. The winters are tough. I imagine my daughter’s a junior in high school.

Jordan Grumet [00:36:52]:
I imagine when she graduates, both my son and daughter will be out of the house. We’ll probably spend our winter somewhere else. Ah, we’ll probably spend some time in Europe or in Mexico or in warmer places for a few months. And we’ll probably won’t buy another place. We’ll probably do Airbnbs and kind of experience some different places. And maybe if we fall in love with somewhere, maybe we’ll eventually kind of go every summer to the same place or every winter to the same place.

Ryan Doolittle [00:37:16]:
But you’ll. You love Chicago enough that you want to be there in the summer?

Jordan Grumet [00:37:20]:
Three. Three seasons a year. Fine. I just don’t want to be there in the winter.

Ryan Doolittle [00:37:23]:
Right.

Jordan Grumet [00:37:24]:
So January, February, March. I want to be somewhere else.

Ryan Doolittle [00:37:27]:
Are your kids. Well, your. Your daughter’s in high school, so she’s still with you, but the. The son in college, is he far away?

Jordan Grumet [00:37:33]:
He’s about three hours away. He goes to University of Illinois. He’s studying mechanical engineering, so he’s pretty busy, but we get to see him on a pretty regular basis.

Ryan Doolittle [00:37:40]:
We found that happy retirees tend to live near at least half of their adult children. So do you think you’ll be able to nav. I guess it’s up to them, maybe. But do you tend to try to navigate that as you. As you get older?

Jordan Grumet [00:37:54]:
I definitely do. I know my son wants to stay close to Chicago, and that’s another reason to keep a presence in Chicago, even after they’re gone. And at least at this point, my daughter’s even talking about going to college somewhere close to us. So I think. I think so. We’ll see.

Ryan Doolittle [00:38:07]:
You can make it work. So in addition to writing, you said you love podcasting, and you have a podcast. It’s called Earn and Invest. Tell me a little bit about that and why people might want to listen.

Jordan Grumet [00:38:17]:
Yeah, this is the financial 201 story. So we don’t talk anymore about how you become financially independent, how you build wealth. That’s something that so many other people do better. A lot of the conversation is the why. Like, why are you doing what you’re doing? I try to do the deeper dive stories about what people get involved with, and that can range from anything to entrepreneurship to being an author, to franchising, to how you invest. We talk about all that, but I try to take it a step further and do a little bit of a deeper dive.

Ryan Doolittle [00:38:47]:
Okay. And it comes out twice a week.

Jordan Grumet [00:38:50]:
Every Monday and Thursday.

Ryan Doolittle [00:38:52]:
Well, is there anything else you want listeners to know about you or life?

Jordan Grumet [00:38:56]:
I would just say that really what I’m trying to get people to realize is that purpose can be abundant and easy. It doesn’t have to be difficult and hard to grasp. And I think if you get that from this conversation, I’ve done my job.

Ryan Doolittle [00:39:10]:
Fantastic. Well, Jordan Grummett, thank you so much for coming on the Happiest Retirees Podcast. It’s been a real pleasure.

Jordan Grumet [00:39:16]:
Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.