Escape the 9-to-5: How to Plan a Life-Changing Career Sabbatical

Sneak Peek:

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Introduction: Welcome to the Traveling with Kristin Podcast, your destination for travel tips, living abroad, advice and insights that help you experience life in foreign cultures. If you're interested in slow travel, living abroad or a digital nomad lifestyle, you're in the right place. I'm your host, Kristin Wilson, the author of Digital Nomads for Dummies and the host of Traveling with Kristin on YouTube. Thank you for traveling with me today and let's see where our journey takes us.

Kristin:    00:02:12    Hey there, Kristin Wilson from Traveling with Kristin here and welcome to episode 269. My guest today is the very lovely and dynamic Katrina McGhee, who's the author of Taking a Career Break For Dummies. Although this is a short interview as far as podcasts go here on the show at only 45 minutes, it's packed with lots of information that can really help you if you've been feeling burnt out or if you've been really postponing your life for some future date when you're going to retire, or when you have more time, or all of the things that we tell ourselves about when we're actually going to start enjoying our lives, tackling a big project or pursuing a certain goal. Depending on where you're from, if you're from the United States or a country that really doesn't value or recommend taking long-term career breaks, then this will be especially beneficial for you.  

Kristin:    00:03:12    But also, if you're from a country that does encourage career breaks and sabbaticals, and maybe you've already taken one before, I think you'll get a lot of ideas about how to make the most of your next sabbatical. So even if you think that you could never do this, you don't have enough time, you don't have enough money, I encourage you to listen to Katrina's Words of Wisdom and let me know how you feel at the end of this episode. See you there. 

Podcast Interview:

Kristin:   Welcome Katrina to the podcast. It's so nice to finally meet you in video person.  

Katrina:    00:03:47    I know, I'm so excited for this. I have been excited since the day we decided I'm coming on the show and I'm, I'm so ready for this conversation. Kristin,  

Kristin:    00:03:55    I'm so curious. How did you kind of come across the show? I know we've both written Dummies books, so you're probably familiar with Digital Nomads For Dummies, but yeah, how did you come across the podcast?  

Katrina:    00:04:06    Yeah, it was by finding the book. So I saw the book and I was like, oh my gosh, this is so interesting. And being that I have written a dummies book, I have immense respect for any dummies', author <laugh>. And so I just looked you up and I realized you had a podcast and I was like, oh my gosh, like this is so cool. I feel like we should do an episode where we kind of merge our specialties. And so I reached out to you, but yeah, I found the podcast through the book  

Kristin:    00:04:31    Amazing. And I actually did a podcast about lessons from writing that book. So anyone who's interested in writing a book, we will link to that in the show notes thanks to Kayla, our podcast assistant. But yeah. So how long have you been in this travel lifestyle where you're working remotely? Well? Well first tell us a little bit about what you do and then how long you've been in a a digital nomad type of lifestyle.  

Katrina:    00:04:58    Yeah, so Tale is old as time corporate worker, bee high achiever, you know, burns herself out, realizes the hamster wheel is killing her and escapes. So my whole journey to where I am today to The Dummies book to all of this really started from coming to a place after my MBA and my first sort of post MBA career, which was my second career, realizing that I was not living the life I was meant for. It wasn't a life that looked nearly as bright and hopeful and connected and aligned as the life I always envisioned as a kid. And so I decided to take a break. I ended up taking a 20 month break to travel around the world. I had no money. I had like $1,500 when I decided this was what I was gonna do, but I saved $40,000 in 18 months to be able to afford it.  

Katrina:    00:05:46    And I packed everything up. And so that was a really transformative experience, obviously, but it was also the seed planting for me, realizing that a travel heavy location, independent lifestyle was really in alignment with where I was in my life. So that kind of became the first foray. It was almost two years of that and it was amazing, right? It was magical. But at the end of that, I ran out of money. I mean, I purposely, I, I originally thought I would take a 12 month break, but it became a 20 month break. 'cause I was like, I'm doing so good at saving and spending, I'm gonna keep going till it's gone. And I did that, but then I had to come back and figure out what I was gonna do next. So I ended up going back to corporate to pay off the last of my business school student loans, which was at about 40 something thousand dollars at that time.  

Katrina:    00:06:31    So I went back into corporate, ended up getting five job offers in five weeks after my break, which was incredible and beyond my expectation. And I think that planted another big seed for me to want to do the work I do today helping people because I realized it, it boosted my professional life in addition to my personal life. And that was like, wow, I did not see that coming. And so I went back to corporate, became a certified life coach once I paid off all of my debt and started helping people do this, started helping people change their lives and using specifically career breaks and or sabbaticals as a catalyst for the change that they've been wanting and needing. And so zooming out on my life, I went full-time in my business in 2018 and have been a nomad since that point. So I've been a digital nomad since 2018. So we're now at like six years, not counting the two before when I traveled nomadically, but just on a career break, not working and juggling work and travel at the same time, which is very different  

Kristin:    00:07:32    <laugh>. Yeah, definitely. And how did you save  

Katrina:    00:07:36    $40,000  

Kristin:    00:07:37    In one year for this trip?  

Katrina:    00:07:39    Yeah, so I was making about $90,000 at the time in my corporate job. And you know, I had like a fairly high cost of living. It wasn't insane like prices today, but it definitely was high. I had a nice apartment. But what, what it really came down to were just a couple of simple things that weren't necessarily easy, but they were very straightforward. So one was saving lump sums. Half of what I saved came from saving bonuses, saving tax refunds. I remember one time I got an unexpected refund on my escrow account for a townhouse that I had owned but had to rent out because the housing market crisis made it like crash, made it so that I couldn't sell it. And so like anytime I got a lump sum, even if it was a birthday gift, I just put it away. I put it towards this career break fund.  

Katrina:    00:08:22    The other big thing I did was I really started aligning my actions and my decisions and prioritizing how I was spending money. So it wasn't that I didn't spend any money, like I got Invisalign, I did laser hair removal, like there were expensive things I invested in, but I made sure that every dollar I spent was in alignment with my priorities, that I could look at my spending and say, I feel good about all of this because I'm spending money where it matters most. And so that helped me start to save little by little, which started growing. So in the beginning I only saved like $200 a month and it really took me a hot second to like make that shift. But I did. And by the end I was saving like $1,300 a month, right? So it just started snowballing as I made better decisions, I ended up getting a roommate halfway through that experience I chose, we chose a really nice, a really, really nice apartment.  

Katrina:    00:09:14    I had heated covered parking in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which was essential to me. I had like my own space, my own bathroom, but it really reduced my costs, right? And it helped me save on utilities as well. So just making choices that felt like I was moving towards my goal, but in a way where I could still enjoy my life. And then the last secret was I created this thing called the exploration fund, which was a set amount of money. Mine was $200 that I would put away every month and I had to spend it and it was the permission I would give myself would be like anything I want as long as it's embracing a spirit of exploration because I felt very restricted in the beginning trying to save all this money and not really knowing how to do it. And it felt a lot like deprivation. And so by creating this pool of money and then putting focus and intention on like living a bigger life and living a more curious life, I started to improve my quality of life even though I was saving more money. And I think that was like a really helpful moment where things started to shift and I was able to save more and save it faster.  

Kristin:    00:10:15    Yeah, because I've heard in the fire community there's a lot of discussions about, you know, how much to knock your cost of living or your quality of life down when you're trying to save money. And it seems like a lot of people are starting to think more openly about that and think, okay, let's not just live on ramen noodles for the next 10 years, but let's enjoy life now and also enjoy it in the future. And so you've shown that you can do both. It's just about changing your mindset and making a little bit of tweaks to your spending and you know, not just wasting money on stuff that's not really making you happy.  

Katrina:    00:10:53    Totally. Which can be easy  

Kristin:    00:10:54    To do in the United States. <laugh>.  

Katrina:    00:10:56    Yeah. Oh my gosh, it's so easy, especially if you secretly don't love your life, right? Like if you don't love your job or you just feel stuck in some way, it's really easy to self-soothe by spending money on things, right? Experiences, material items. And, but just to do it in a way where it's not fulfilling you and it's not leading towards a bigger goal. It's just like in this moment I feel justified because this sucks and I wanna treat myself to something nice, which is great, but it's a very short term like way of thinking.  

Kristin:    00:11:23    Definitely. It's like an instant gratification. And then yeah, that stuff is just stuff at the end of the day, you know, weighing you down. Uh, so what was your corporate job back then? And then how did you break the news that you were taking this sabbatical? Because I know that some companies will actually let you take a sabbatical and then come back, but it sounds like you didn't wanna come back to that same position,  

Katrina:    00:11:47    Right? Yeah, so my first career was as a healthcare actuary, and then when I went to business school it was because I didn't wanna be an actuary. And I was like, what else could I do? So at the end of business school I accepted a position with General Mills out in Minneapolis to be a market researcher and work on consumer insights. And you know, for me, breaking the news once I knew that I was gonna take a break was scary. But honestly it also was very freeing and I felt like wildly alive when I finished giving my notice. I gave eight months notice, Kristin like eight months. So <laugh> I was like, I was like really down for the cause, right? So what happened for me, right? I have this plan, I'm saving all this money. Like I said, it's, it's snowballing when I was about eight months in or eight months out, so this was January I I'd my break starting in August, I knew like I'm saving this money on autopilot now I know I'm gonna hit my goal.  

Katrina:    00:12:46    I know I'm gonna hit my target by the end of July. So I told my boss in January, listen, I'm giving eight months notice, but I'm planning to leave my job in August and take a trip around the world and I'm probably gonna be gone for a year and I'm gonna quit and I'm gonna do my thing. And he was actually really supportive but also very surprised and was like, are you sure about this? And I was like, yeah, I thought a lot about it. I'm definitely doing it. I've been saving for like here. And he was like, oh my God. And then he was like, well I think it's fine, but I have to ask HR because I've never, I've never had someone tell me this before or do this, so like I just got to make sure there's not something I'm supposed to ask you.  

Katrina:    00:13:20    Or like some restriction or something. He's like, but I think it's fine and you do great work so we'd love to have you for as long as you wanna be here. And so we checked with HR and it was totally fine and I just got to do my job without the burden of pretending or feeling like a liar or being really inauthentic in showing up. You know, they did rotations when I was there and so I didn't have to plan for some big, you know, 18 month rotation where I was gonna go to a new group. They just let me stay on my old group and really like do the job I already knew how to do. So it really made my life a lot easier and I felt so much closer. It was like a huge burden just lifted off of my chest. And when it came to like, what did I say in that room that made him feel so positively about, you know, my news, it's the exact same thing I coach my clients on.  

Katrina:    00:14:10    I was coaching someone on this just last week. You have to find that balance of authenticity and simplicity. And so a lot of people go into it thinking, I just wanna give two weeks notice and I only wanna tell you the bare minimum because I don't wanna be judged. I don't want you to hold this against me. I don't wanna be fired. And I totally get that. However, taking a break is different than leaving to go to a competitor. And when you are planning to take a break, you are dreaming about something bigger. Even if you're burnt out, you are dreaming of a life where you feel restored and you're able to show up fully and be fully present and perform at a higher level in your life. And so when you share with your manager that vision of what you're moving towards, I think it invites them on the journey and offers an opportunity for them to be someone who supports and advocates for you, right?  

Katrina:    00:15:02    And really just embraces the adventure that you're on. And so I shared, right, I wanna take a break. What for? I wanna travel the world. I feel like I've been collecting all of these places I wanna go and I'm never gonna get to them on my 18 days of PTO. So I've decided to just take this year off and go live my dreams and I'm really excited about it. 'cause if I don't do it now, I don't know when I'm ever gonna do it. It's never gonna get easier. And I think it could see like, wow, that's really special. And it's easier for him to get on board than me just saying two weeks in, you know, or two weeks out. Like, hey listen, I'm quitting, I don't wanna talk about it. You know, whatever. He got to be excited for me. And they also appreciated the time to transition and to make a plan and to feel like the team was supported in my exit, which I think is also really critical. If you wanna leave on good terms.  

Kristin:    00:15:48    Yeah, that's great that they reacted so positively because the one time I had to give notice at a, at a real estate firm I was working with that I wasn't even an employee. You know, real, real estate agents are contractors. Yeah. They gave like two months notice, which I thought was generous. I hadn't planned it out that long. And the broker just never replied <laugh>, he never acknowledged my resignation. So I just, you know, followed up what up And I just ended up not going back. So it was like that is a risk. I mean, probably not in a big corporation like General Mills, but probably, you know, depending on the, the personality of and the type of business that you're working for and the size of the business, people can take it personally I think. And so what are some of the things that you tell to your clients? Because there's also a risk that you told them, you know, I'm leaving in eight months. And they were like, well, you know what, why don't you leave in two weeks? Or, you know, why don't you leave next month? And then that would've cut off all of your savings <laugh>.  

Katrina:    00:16:53    Yeah, absolutely. So I say, you know, full disclosure, you have to be, you are the best person to decide in your unique situation what the right amount of time is. I would say my average with clients. So, you know, I've supported nearly a hundred career breaks and of the ones I've coached through giving their notice, it usually averages between one and two months. So I think your two months is great. Like two months is awesome. Most people aren't gonna do eight months. I will say when I left another job to go full-time in my business that I gave them four months notice, right? So I still leaned into giving them notice, and they were a tiny company. I was like one of like six full-time employees. But I loved them and I loved the business and I really looked around and said, if I don't give them enough notice, they're gonna be scrambling and be like negatively impacted by my exit.  

Katrina:    00:17:40    So for me, giving them that notice was really about wanting to set them up for success. And I think what I tell my clients is you have to, to align your actions and your words. So if you are in that meeting and you're saying, I want the team, you know, to sort of go through this as seamlessly as possible, I wanna be an asset in this transition, and I, I wanna make this not painful, giving them notice of like a month, two months, three months, really aligns with that, right? Like, I'm here and I'm gonna be present to help you transition out. So I think that's important. Obviously you need to think about your finances. It was for sure a risk for me to say I'm gonna leave in eight months. But when I looked at the job that I did and I knew I was good at my job, I also said, what incentive do they have to like fire me and then have to like start someone brand new, teach them all the things that I could do first is transition very smoothly into this new role where I can be there and that new person can start and I can teach them my job, right?  

Katrina:    00:18:38    And I also figured they would probably have to give me a little bit of severance if they fired me. And I was like, my break will just change. Maybe it's shorter, maybe I go travel to less expensive places. Maybe I switch up what I do. But I really wanted to feel free and be honest in my own self. But I, I also wanted the team to be set up for success. So focus on what you want to move towards. Don't focus on what didn't work, right? I don't recommend that you show up there and you complain about how they failed you. They might have failed you big time. They probably know it, but like, you don't need to focus on that, right? So instead of saying, I'm just really burned out and this just the pace here is frantic and this is a really toxic situation, you can say something like, I have looked around and realized I'm not performing at the level I know I'm capable of and I need to dig deep and really take a pause to be able to show up as the person I want to be.  

Katrina:    00:19:28    And I feel like my life isn't as big and I'm not living it in such a big way, like the way that I know is possible for me. So I wanna take this time to recalibrate and go live some dreams and really pour into, you know, myself and some restoration, heal the burnout. And I'm so excited. However, I realize this is a really big deal for the team. And so I wanna make this transition as smooth as possible. I'm here, I'm trying to give as much notice as I can. I'm ready to show up in whatever ways you need me to, to make sure that the team feels good whenever it's time for me to go.  

Kristin:    00:19:59    Yeah. And definitely making it about making it about yourself as far as the reasons why you want to leave and then making it about them and their interests in the way that the transition happens. I think that's really good advice. And having coached more than a hundred people on this, what are some of the signs that people need to take a break, but also, you know, that might be hard for people to recognize or maybe they think they just have to live with this burnout. But also can you speak to why as humans living in this modern day society, why are we validated in taking a break or taking a sabbatical that seems like such a luxury? And it also seems like it's not for Americans, it seems like it's for Australians. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> or French people or you know, and I know there's people from all over the world listening to this podcast and maybe some of them have already taken sabbaticals before, but maybe a lot of us have thought, you know, like, I, I can't do that because of x, y, z reasons. Yeah.  

Katrina:    00:21:09    So there are so many great totally suitable reasons to take a break and I talk about a lot of them, you know, in the book. But a few that I would highlight, if you are burnt out, one of the ways you'll know you'll, you're burnt out is that you might feel very apathetic. Whereas once you used to find meaning and purpose in your life, in your job, maybe you're just feeling like you're on autopilot and nothing is really doing it for you, right? There's just this apathy of work. Another sign is being highly reactive. So I actually had this in my job, but thinking about when you show up for work, if it, if you have what is like sort of, I call this like road rage, but email form, I would get emails from people and immediately feel full of rage of like, I already sent you this or like, why are you emailing me this?  

Katrina:    00:21:56    Right? It's just your threshold and capacity to deal with stress is gone, right? You're at your limit all the time and you're kind of in this fire fight or flight survival mode constantly where you're putting out fires. And so if you find yourself being highly reactive at home or highly reactive at work or both, that's another great sign. It could be time for you to take a break. You might have a health issue. I had a client that was undiagnosed with Lyme disease and was able to get a diagnosis when she was on the break so that she had time to really do all of the testing and take time to really like manage that disease once it was diagnosed. So you might find that you have a health condition that just can't seem to be resolved or even diagnosed with the little bit of time you have in between jobs, or you might have a dream that's unfulfilled.  

Katrina:    00:22:42    Some of my clients have taken time off to write books, to travel the world, to do something that they feel like they can't do in the tiny little pockets in between their nine to five or their, you know, like eight to eight or whatever they're working. All of that said, it's okay to take a break just because you want one, just because you don't want to literally work almost every single day of your life from the age of like 21, 22, 23 until you're in your late sixties or early seventies. It's okay to take a break. You don't have to earn the right to rest. You're a human being, not a human doing, right? You need that rest. Professional athletes need that rest, so it's okay. You don't have to earn it through suffering. And that leads me to answering the second part of your question. A huge reason that I wrote this book, and you and I were chatting about this before, but what, you know, what a massive undertaking it was like a lot of sacrificing things to get this book into the world.  

Katrina:    00:23:42    But one of the fundamental reasons why I did this work is because I want breaks to be accessible to more people. And I think when we frame it as a privilege, it doesn't do it disservices so many people because when I talk about it, people assume that it was because I had a trust fund or you know, like, oh, she could do it because she doesn't have kids. Which granted, that made it easier for me. But 30% of my clients have kids, right? They have pets, they own homes, they have careers that they've invested in. Like I had, like I want people to know there's a way to make it work for you and I want it to feel accessible. I don't want to frame this conversation like, I'm so privileged I could do this so that other people hear this and then tune it out and say, oh, well I'm not privileged or I don't have X, Y, and Z, or I have kids, or I have this, you know, like, so it can't be for me.  

Katrina:    00:24:33    I really want people to see how to make it possible for them. And to your point, yet it's not commonplace yet here in the United States. And we like to think about how it's for everyone else, it's for people. I have clients who think they can't take a break because they're married or partnered and they're like, well, somebody else is depending on this part of my paycheck. And then I have single clients that say to me, I can't take a break because I'm the only person. Like if I don't get replacement income, it's just me, right? So if everybody's telling the truth, nobody would take a break. There's no right way to take a break. You know what I'm saying? <laugh>. So it's like how do we come over the obstacle? How do we climb over them and see what is possible and make it work on our terms?  

Katrina:    00:25:12    And I feel like this is slowly changing here in the us but for sure a lot of people feel like they either have to be completely broken down and earn the right through suffering to take it, or it's this immense privilege. And because they don't see themselves as privileged, they just rule it out completely. And so I'm here to change that, right? I'm here to rewrite that narrative and be a part of the movement to help people see this new way of working and living is not sustainable if you don't incorporate breaks. And I said breaks plural, because I think I see this with a lot of my clients too. Once they've had one, they're like, oh, I survived that and it made my life better and I'm happier and more fulfilled. I'm definitely gonna do this again. Right? Yeah.  

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Katrina:    00:26:41    I'm definitely gonna do this again, right?  

Kristin:    00:26:43    Yeah, I, I had probably only one what I would call a sabbatical in, I think it was 2008 where I did a month in Bali where I went to a, a yoga retreat that got canceled and it turned into just this beautiful surf trip with a friend that came to visit me from Puerto Rico. And we just rode around on our motorbikes and had the best time ever and had $1,200 to spend for the whole month. And it worked out. But somehow I thought it was like a one time thing and I've never, I've never taken, I've taken time off, but it's always been forced something like to help a family member or to work on a project. Yeah. Or like, I haven't just had a fun sabbatical. So what are some of the, like, let's say two or three main blocks that are really common among everyone who feels like they wanna take a sabbatical but can't, and then also how can that apply to freelancers, small business owners and content creators who feel like they have to be on 24/7? Yeah. Or no one's paying the bills. Yeah.  

Katrina:    00:27:47    Well, we'll start with the second part, which is, you know, as a self-employed person, or you know, like when you are the one, it's, it's nearly impossible to take a full on sabbatical. I did have one entrepreneurial client who had two businesses and she managed to take a six month sabbatical, three months sort of in a hybrid working, not working, and then three months of peer sabbatical. But she planned for that a year in advance and hired a team member or two team members, right, to take on her role so that she could sort of like exit out gracefully. But that's not the norm. So I wanna frame it as I love to help people take big breaks because I think they're magical and amazing, but they're not the only kind of break and short breaks can be wildly powerful as well, even if it's just two weeks.  

Katrina:    00:28:32    It's more about how you're designing that break and getting what you need out of it than it is the actual length itself. So if you are self-employed or you are sort of doing a thing where you feel like you can't walk away from it, you know, can you construct a way to take a week off? Can you construct a way to take three weeks off or a month off? It might look like preparing in advance. You might have to decide, I'm taking November off and you start working towards that in January. But one of the best ways to make sure it happens is to put it on your calendar, even if it's a year in advance. Because what will happen is someone will come with a great offer or a new project, or there'll be something that you wanna do and they're gonna be like, can we do it in November?  

Katrina:    00:29:13    And you're gonna be like, oh, I was gonna take a break, but you know what, I could do the break in December. And then somebody comes with something in December, right? And then all of a sudden you don't have this window of time. So be proactive, block it off, keep it short. Build trust and evidence, right? That breaks are good. Breaks are massively restorative. Like I said before, professional athletes perform at a higher level because of breaks. They don't just prevent injury, they actually help you perform better, right? They help your muscles break down and rebuild themselves even stronger. And so thinking about that a break can make your business better, it can make you more inno innovative and it can restore you physically and mentally. So when you think about all those pieces together, if you can take a mini break even a week and build that evidence and that confidence that, yeah, I actually am better and my business is better when I take breaks, it can help you over time build up to bigger breaks.  

Katrina:    00:30:07    Now, zooming out to fears that everybody has around breaks, there are three big ones. I can happily talk about two of them, but the three biggest I see are around career. So what will this mean for me if I took a step back? Will anyone, especially if it's like a quit your job, kind of break, like a career break. Will anyone hire me when I am done? Is this like a scarlet letter where I'm gonna be branded as lazy and unhirable? What about this gap? Right? So fear around what it means for your job. Are you sacrificing your career? Number two is around perception. What will people think of me? Who am I if I'm not a dot, dot dot, a lawyer, a marketer, a vp, right? A CEO. Like who am I then what am I? And it's a really confronting question, but an essential question.  

Katrina:    00:30:48    And I promise you, you are so much more than the work that you do, but it can be hard to remember that and this hustle and grind always on, right? Even if you're an entrepreneur that then especially, right? Like I'm a life coach. I love that I'm a career break coach. If you take that away from me, that's some of my joy. But I'm so much more than that. But sometimes it's easy to forget that we are like these multidimensional beings. And the last one is around money. Can I afford to take a break? And I think this is really important to understand because there are two actual spheres within this. One. Big fear, people who can't afford it. Like me, I had $1,500 in my bank account and this big vision of a year plus long break, I had to save the money. I truly could not afford it at the time I had the idea.  

Katrina:    00:31:34    But there's this whole other group of people that consist, at least 50% of my clients fall into this where they have access to the money. But similar to people in fire community, right? It's like, well I've earmarked this for my retirement, I've earmarked this for my emergency fund, I've earmarked this for that. Like saving and, and saving and like, kind of like courting it up like a squirrel with nuts, you know, like in the winter or right before the winter, it can become kind of addicting to feel like you're buying safety, but you're trading something for that because your present self, right is the only one we know is gonna be on this planet. Nothing is guaranteed. So I think life is about a balance between planning for a future, but also recognizing that you literally don't know what the heck is gonna go on and what's gonna happen and that you have to invest in your wellbeing and enjoying your present moment as well.  

Katrina:    00:32:20    And so what I find is that a lot of people have money, they have access to the money or they can easily and you know, like six months create that access to the money they would need for a break, but they don't believe they can afford it. And to that, I say think about all the things we invest. We invest in vacations. Some people invest thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars in vacations. We invest in education, we invest in cars, we invest in houses. Some people are renovating houses, right? We'll invest tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars education in all these things. Do we invest a lot of money in our wellbeing And not just like, I wanna write a book that's productive, I can put that badge out there. So it's okay to take time off to write a book or start a business.  

Katrina:    00:33:01    Like those are more work related things. They're joyful, right? But it's not just about me finding my joy and having some peace and rest and restoration and exploration. And so I encourage people to think about what does my life look like if I never invest in my wellbeing, if I never really invested in my wellbeing, can I afford not to take a break? Right? What does it mean to take a break instead of an expense? Thinking about it as an investment and really deciding you don't wanna die and leave this planet without ever having put some of that hard money that you've worked and sacrificed for so long and so hard to into just enjoying your life and improving your wellbeing, right? And your happiness and your joy. I think that's really important to have a life well lived.  

Kristin:    00:33:46    Yeah. Wow. I've taken so many notes from what you are saying just now. And I, I think a lot of this mindset of holding ourselves back from taking sabbaticals has to do with just how we're raised. Like we're, we're put into the school system at such a young age that we can't even remember what it's like to just be humans and be ourselves without having a label of, I'm in the third grade, I'm in the fifth grade, I'm in the 10th grade, I am a student at this college, I have this job title. It's like we're so much more besides the different labels that we get every single year in our life. And sometimes we have one for one year and sometimes it's for 10 years or 50 years. And it can eventually we start to, it's like that science experiment where they take the lid off the box and then the animals don't jump out anymore because they think they can't get out.  

Kristin:    00:34:37    It's like we've just put ourselves into this, into these boxes that we kind of can feel trapped and, and even people like me who've traveled a lot, I've, I've still, you know, I've burnt out Yeah. So many times <laugh> that I, I'm like, what am I gonna learn? And I even just posted on Instagram recently that, that I was like, okay, I might not publish a video every week for the rest of my life because I, there's just, you know, other things that I wanna do and I don't wanna be under this pressure and schedule all of the time forever. So I, I would, I love making podcasts and I love making videos and sometimes life is really busy and you can get behind on things and then, yeah. So I'm just kind of stepping back, but maybe, maybe, you know, like at last year I closed my relocation program for the month of January because we had a really busy year.  

Kristin:    00:35:36    Mm-Hmm. And so I closed enrollment for a whole month and I reopened in February and I could do that again. But I, I didn't really like, I planned it but I didn't plan a sabbatical around it. I just kind of was like, okay, we're gonna just close. I'm still gonna be working and stuff. It's just gonna be less. Yeah. But just talking to you has made me think, oh wow, what if I actually, you know, just batched a few podcasts and videos and we can make this an annual shutdown and maybe I'll just go skiing. Yes. In Switzerland for the month. Yes. You know, I don't know Kristin, but  

Katrina:    00:36:09    Yes please.  

Kristin:    00:36:10    I'm gonna, I'm gonna come up with some ideas. Well, so how much money do people save on average? I mean of course there's gonna be people with different lifestyles and stuff, but is there like a ballpark for how many weeks or how many months you wanna take off? Yeah, so  

Katrina:    00:36:24    The average for people that take career breaks that are employees is six to 12 months. So again, for self-employed, you know, if you're doing your own thing, aim for a week honestly to start, if this feels so wildly impossible, start with a week. I think a month is a great goal. I love your January idea. Yes. Make it recurring like please, we can talk about this like beyond and I'll totally give you pointers, but I want you to do this. But, but start small, right? If you're an employee and you have an employer and you're like stepping away from that and you're not trying to manage your own business while you're on a break, six to 12 months is a really great amount of time. I've worked with people who have taken two months off all the way to two years. So it just depends on what you need, what you can afford, you know, things like that.  

Katrina:    00:37:07    As far as the cost goes to your point, it will matter if you have another person contributing to expenses, it will matter what your cost of living for the place that you're gonna be is. So if you are taking a break where travel is sprinkled in but you're gonna maintain a home base, you know, what is your mortgage or what is your rent? Like these types of things will matter. So the cost of living, if you're like me and you're gonna sell most of your stuff right and not pay for storage and you're just gonna go float around to be a nomad for one or two years, then that cost of living could potentially be a lot lower. You could travel to places, you know, where your currency goes further. Especially, you know, here in the US are a dollar goes pretty far and you know, many countries.  

Katrina:    00:37:46    So looking at those, but the average number for my clients, like all these things considered 70% of my clients travel abroad at some point, whether that's all the time or part of the time, 30% don't. Some have kids, some don't, some have partners, some don't. When you average it all together, it comes out to about 36 50 US dollars. So 30, 3600 $50 US dollars a month that they're spending while they're on a break. And so depending on how long you wanna go, again, there's a lot of factors that influence that. My break was $40,000 but I was on it for 20 months. I did stay with friends and stay with family for part of that time. I also traveled abroad for part of that time and then I was in the US doing a road trip for part of that time. So, you know, that was my experience.  

Katrina:    00:38:29    I would say what I see a lot of my travel based clients saving is somewhere between 35 and 50 for 12 months because a lot of my clients are in their late thirties, early forties, mid forties, late forties. And they aren't going to stay in hostels the way that I might have in Southeast Asia just to save money sometimes. And so they wanna travel at a slightly higher level. And so that like $35,000 is kind of like an average IC for people that you know, wanna take like a year-ish off and do a lot of travel.  

Kristin:    00:38:59    Yeah, that's really motivational because a lot of people who are making a hundred thousand dollars, 200,000, $350,000 and they're maintaining this really expensive life, it kind of seems crazy that they could just take a sabbatical and live on 40K a year. Yeah. And be happier than when they're making 400,000 with <laugh>. It's that that life inflation. What are some of the places that you went on your sabbatical and what was kind of your average cost while you were in those other countries?  

Katrina:    00:39:32    Yeah, so the three big places I hit were Buenos Aires. So I went to Columbia for a few weeks and then down to Buenos Aires for five weeks. And then I was in western Europe for, hmm, I think about two months I was in France and then a little bit of Spain and a little bit of Italy during that time. But France for like a month, I was in France for quite a while. And then the last big phase was southeast Asia. So similar to you, I did a yoga teacher training in Bali but mine wasn't canceled <laugh>. Oh in, I know we have so much in common. I was out in Southeast Asia for about three and a half months including the yoga teacher training. So within that right there were different, different levels of expense. Western Europe is way different than Southeast Asia and different than you know, south America.  

Katrina:    00:40:16    So my favorite three were Buenos Aires, Provence and Avignon in France. And I really love Vietnam so much. Like I don't even have a favorite city or town. It was just like Vietnam was so amazing. I loved it so much. I was there for three weeks. But all that said it totally varied. So Southeast Asia for those three and a half months, not counting the cost of the yoga teacher training, which was about three k, I spent 5K to be there for three months. Just eating, traveling, living, you know, going to play with elephants at the sanctuary, like doing a lot of like fun things and investing. But it was a very like affordable ca <laugh> place to be. That was not the case with Western Europe. I really wanted to eat and I wanted to eat big time. I read Peter Mayle A Year in Provence and part of why the majority of why let's be real that I went to Provence was to eat.  

Katrina:    00:41:06    I was like, I just wanna try all the food. It's so beautiful here. I just wanna eat and eat meat. I spent somewhere around 65 on average, 65 euros, <laugh>, or maybe it was dollars, but it was a lot of money. It was almost 70 US dollars a day eating in France. 'cause I would go out for breakfast, I would go out for lunch, I would have like crepes for a snack, I would go out for dinner, I gained weight. But like it was happy kind of weight. But I just ate and ate and ate while I was in France. And that that I think I spent about $5,000 being there for about seven or eight weeks. Like it was, it was a lot more. I was still, you know, doing hostels sometimes doing air. I did a lot of Airbnb at that time where I was like sharing, I had my own room and bathroom, but I was like in an apartment with the people who owned the you know, apartment. So that like really reduced my cost. And then Buenos Aires was super, super affordable. I was there for five weeks and I think I spent about 1700 US dollars all in like food, you know the Airbnb, I have my own Airbnb, I did a lot of tours, I had like a great time. Columbia was also very affordable. So it just kind of depends on where you are. But those were my three highlights for sure.  

Kristin:    00:42:12    Amazing. You had your own eat, pray, love I know experience I did and I'm happy to join you on any of those. But you know, people were just commenting I to, I've done some videos on affordable places to live abroad and they're like, oh you can't live here on a thousand dollars or 1500. I'm like, no, but you actually can. Like if you were doing that short term for five weeks on 1700 in Bueno Air, so on your food tour and all these things, I mean people can live there, retire comfortably there on on less money. Well I know you have to go, I could talk to you for literally five hours, but share with us what were some of your epiphanies during your sabbatical and how many months in did you start to really start peel back the layers and come forward with these new goals for how you're gonna reemerge into the world when it was over?   

Katrina:    00:43:02    Yeah, We'll start with the last part. So I would say I really didn't force myself to have that level of reflection with clarity. I mean I was thinking about this all the time, right? Like it would come up and resurface like what's waiting for me after what do I wanna do? But I never had an answer. So I would say I didn't actually take time to really reflect with clarity until the last four months. So I do this thing called the reentry period. Like I set this up with my clients when we're working on a plan and it's proactively from the very beginning when you're making your entire career break plan, setting aside time and money to really transition out of a break and out of break mode into figuring out with clarity what you wanna do next and then taking the steps to create that, right?  

Katrina:    00:43:44    So setting up your resume and your cover letters and thinking about what kind of jobs you're gonna have and what your non-negotiables are now that you've changed. So those kinds of things. If you were gonna go back to an employer situation and if you're gonna launch your own business, you might want more time for that re reentry because you're gonna have to have some time to like plant a bunch of seeds. But it's like allowing that time to really transition and to process your break experience and reflect. So for me it was like the last four to five months where I started really asking myself hard questions and really digging deep enough to find answers. But I was worried and thinking about it off and on, like it would float into my brain pretty much right away. Like, this is amazing, but what's gonna come after this is amazing, but will anyone hire me? Yeah,  

Kristin:    00:44:23    Your subconscious is like, hey, just reminding you we don't have a plan. Exactly.   

Katrina:    00:44:28    Yeah, we dunno. It's so uncertain. We dunno what's gonna come next. So that was like for real, a real part of my experience. But the reentry period made it very manageable as far as like general epiphanies go. I mean we could talk about this forever, but my younger brother was my favorite human and he unexpectedly passed away a week before my break started. And keep in mind I've been planning for this thing for two years and so I'm standing at the precipice of this amazing life-changing break that I've worked so hard for and saved so hard for and then literally the worst moment of my life. And they both have to co-exist at the same exact time. And so one of my epiphanies was that I was so freaking proud that I showed up for my life to live the biggest life I could before he passed away.  

Katrina:    00:45:18    So that like I didn't wait for tragedy to strike, to believe that I had to live my life. Like I decided I was gonna live my life because I deserved to live a life. And then this was just affirmation and confirmation that that was what I was supposed to be doing. Like go live your life girl. And I felt like another epiphany related to that was the power of our inner wisdom. I would not probably have mentally survived the loss of my losing my younger brother if it wasn't for the break. I had $40,000 I had already given notice and quit my job like unofficially. But you know, I was like a week out of officially quitting my job and I had a general plan for what to do for the next 12 to 18 months of my life. I cannot imagine losing him, going back to a job that was sucking out pieces of my soul, having no more money in savings, having $1,500 in my bank account.  

Katrina:    00:46:09    Like when I started saving for my break and no plan for what to do. It would have probably like emotionally killed me, <laugh> inside. And it just felt like I had no idea this was coming. But if this was coming, there was no better situation for me to have to deal with this than the one I had created for myself unknowingly just by following my intuition. And I think to give one more big, you know, epiphany at a very just high level, I'm capable of miracles. Like I created a break from $1,500 with no plan. There was no Instagram, there was no YouTube to follow, like take these steps. There was no Taking a Career Break For Dummies to like lead me through. And it's like holy crap, when I put my mind to something and it's really aligned with what I want and need, I am so capable. I traveled around the world by myself and I was not a world traveler before I did this. And I left a corporate job just three years into a post MB, a experience with debt. I went, I went on this break with debt and I paid it all off in less than two years at the end of my break. But it was like I made miracles happen and that break just really confirmed for me what I'm capable of. Wow.  

Kristin:    00:47:20    So powerful. Katrina, thank you so much for sharing that. It's, I can't imagine what you went through and what so many people are capable of. If we would just let ourselves follow our dreams. So I'm sure everyone's gonna have a lot of other questions for you and really wanna dive deeper into this topic. So where can people find your book? And also I think you have a special download for us on 45 Epic things to do on a break. So yeah, where can people connect with you and learn more? Yeah,  

Katrina:    00:47:53    Absolutely. Um, you can find the book in Barnes and Noble or you can buy it on Amazon. It's Taking a Career Break For Dummies. It's in Kindle audio book now and of course paperback. And as far as connecting and getting the download, you can find that at kmcgeecoaching.com/45things. But it's 45 of the coolest things my clients have done on a break. A lot of times it's hard to really visualize and understand what you could do with this time. And so this download just very simply gives you this really beautiful picture of the kinds of things you can fill a break with to really restore your tank and to just enjoy your life.  

Kristin:    00:48:26    Amazing. Well link to all of that in the show notes. Thank you so much Katrina, for reaching out. So nice to meet you and I can't wait to continue this conversation later. Wow. What an action packed conversation. So much value. Thank you to Katrina for reaching out and sharing about this. Or I may have never come across her book. Definitely pick up a copy of her Taking a Career Break For Dummies book and we'll also link to everything in the show notes so you can also get her list of 45 epic things to do on a break because that was a question that we ran out of time that I really wanted to ask her, like, what are some of the things that people do when they take this time off? So I'm looking forward to checking that out. And as usual, let us know what you love about the podcast. You can leave a five star review wherever you listen or on our new website at podcast.TravelingwithKristin.com. Thanks again for spending time with me today, and I'll see you back here in two weeks for a brand new interview with Jason Moore from the Zero to Travel podcast. You won't wanna miss it.