Episode 405: 10 Life & Financial Lessons from Running My First Half Marathon in Jamaica

Jamila Souffrant 0:02

You have to rise to the occasion. You have to learn concepts you weren't familiar with. You have to sit down and confront that bank statement. You have to think about your life and what really matters and what's your enough point. And so sometimes you think, all right, well, that's not possible for me. But as you start the journey, you realize, wow, like the possibilities are opening up in a way I never saw before because I didn't have enough information at the beginning or the start of it. I didn't know enough Welcome to the journey. To launch podcast with your host Jamila Souffrant as a money expert who walks her talk. She helps brave journeyers like you get out of debt, save, invest and build real wealth. Join her on the journey to launch to financial freedom

Jamila Souffrant 0:58

if you want the episode. Show Notes for this episode. Go to journey to launch.com or click the description of wherever you're listening to this episode in the show notes, you'll get the transcribed version of the conversation, the links that we mentioned and so much more also, whether you are an OG journeyer or brand new to the podcast, I've created a free jump start guide to help you on your financial freedom journey. It includes the top episodes to listen to, stages to go through to reach financial freedom, resources and so much more you can go to journey to launch.com/jump start to get your guide right now. Okay, let's hop into the episode. Hey, hey, hey, journeyers, welcome to the journey to launch podcast. I'm your host, Jamila Souffrant, and this is going to be a solo episode, and I will be sharing more about my experience running the reggae marathon in Jamaica that I just did last week. Well, if you're listening to this in real time, and I'm also going to be sharing 10 lessons and takeaways that I learned or received on this journey to preparing for the half marathon, and how it relates to the financial journey and life journey. So I do believe that this will be helpful to you, even if you do not like running, don't plan to run. There were so many similarities in which I were was able to draw lessons that I hope can help you on your journey. But first, I do want to just talk a little bit about the race and my experience in Jamaica and why it was so special for me, and then we will get into the tips. So first off, I was so excited to be a part of the reggae marathon this year. The reggae marathon is essentially a long distance race, road or road race in the grill Jamaica, and it has been going on since 2000 so this was its 24th year, and they have different distances you can do. They have the 5k which is three miles, 10k which is 6.2 miles, and the half marathon, which is 13.1 miles. So my friend and I ran the half marathon. And if you want to check out more about the reggae marathon, go to reggae marathon.com they're going to have the race again next year. I see it's going to be December 7, 2025 and for me, this was so special for so many reasons, because one, the race fell on the basically, almost to the day of the year anniversary release of my book, Your journey to financial freedom. So my book came out December 5, 2023

and this year made a year that I was able to run the race in my home island of Jamaica. So I was born in Jamaica, left when I was a baby, but still have family there. Have brothers there. My sister lives in Kingston, and I used to go to Jamaica every summer. So I have a deep, deep connection to Jamaica. I know sometimes, if you're coming from another place, or you're born somewhere else, the connection can sometimes drift or not be as strong, but I really feel like the way I was raised and been able to go back so many times, I just feel such a connection to my island. So being able to go back at the one year mark that my book was released to run my first ever half marathon, the longest I've ever run, the longest distance I've ever run, was just, I mean, it was amazing. It's almost when I try to think about all the things that I had to go into place or be in place to make this happen in my life, I'm like, this happened for a reason. Now I do want to shout out a couple people, because this wouldn't be possible without Kenisha Korea. Hope I said your name right, Kenisha, but she's a journeyer. She listens to the podcast, and she has a platform called about her. Culture. So it's a social impact platform that celebrates and supports African and Caribbean women around the world whose work is positively impacting community and culture. I was featured on her site. She listens to the journey. So watch podcast, hello, and she reached out a couple years ago to tell me about the race and say, Hey, maybe you can come down be an ambassador. Let's work it out. And this was, I would say, a couple years ago. And so do you know that we tried two times before this time that worked to make this happen, but for whatever reason, the stars were not in alignment and we couldn't make it happen. But I always kept being optimistic about it, and eventually, now this year, it worked. So shout out to Kenisha, because she's really reached out to me and put the reggae marathon on the map for me, letting me know about it, and then hooked and hooked me up and connected me with the reggae marathon people who basically facilitated me to be able to go. And so I want to shout out Diane Ellis, who is a part of the reggae marathon team. She and her crew did such an amazing job holding and running this event in Jamaica. You can tell that they do a lot of community work, and it's a thought out race. I mean, they've been doing it for 24 years, and I love that they have different lengths or different distances. So if you're not a long distance runner, it's something you can still do. I saw people walking. I saw different ages, different I saw a kid running like he must have been, like six years old. I know they had some high school and college students running. They get prizes, they get back to the community. It was just, I mean, go check out reggae marathon.com and I really hope that I can go back next year. And so I want you guys to come with me, so check it out, and you'll hear me talking about it, hopefully more over the year. Now, with that, I do want to share two places that I stayed at, because this was also very special about my trip, is that I got to stay at two really nice boutique resorts, family owned and black owned resorts. Now in Jamaica, tourism is a big money generator, and most of the time we know about the big hotel chains, but there are still some boutique, family owned, black owned people who are running and owning hotels, the smaller hotels, even some bigger ones in Jamaica. So I got to say it to them. The first one was Rondelle village. Just want to give you a little information about it. I'm going to be linking, by the way, all of this in the show notes, because I want you to go check it out. But Ron del village was the first place my friend initially and I stayed. It is a family owned and operated beachfront resort on the grill, Seven Mile Beach, and has really lush tropical gardens, a nice pool steps away from the beach. If you follow me on Instagram at journey to launch it at Jamila Souffrant, I posted a couple of shots of me walking to the beach, and I really enjoyed the walk. I think that was one of my favorite things about the about the stay is this, taking in this walk to the beach and taking in the environment and the sounds and the trees and all the all the foliage. It really was nice. And we ate at Jay birds restaurant. It's a restaurant located at the hotel. It was so good. I had the Jamaican breakfast. Every morning that I was there, had good dinner. But really, for me, I love Jamaican breakfast. I don't know how to cook it. Unfortunately, I know Shame, shame, shame. So whenever I can get it, I'm getting it. So that's fried dumpling, boiled banana, ackee and saw fish callaloo like I was going in. So something I really also enjoyed. But overall, I really, you know, loved the accommodations. And just want to shout out to the people at Rondell village for making that happen. And guess what? When I was at the village, I ran into Episode 399, guest Tanya Taylor, so she was just on my podcast at the beginning of November, and we're sitting at the restaurant with shalia, my friend who came with me eating. And then I saw Tanya as she looked familiar. I mean, I just interviewed her a few weeks ago, but she was like, hey, and she came up to me, and I was like, Oh my gosh, that that's you. I thought it was someone I recognized, but she was basically also staying at rondale village because she was participating in the marathon. How cool is that. So you can also check out Tanya's episode. I will look it in the show notes. She talked about coming here to the United States from Jamaica, undocumented, and being able to make a way for herself is super inspiring, and being able to build her finances up to a point where she is financially secure. So check that episode out, and it's really nice hanging out with Tanya at the resort and even running with her at some points in the race. The second place that I stayed at was travelers. So travelers was really a cool experience. And I love the story of travelers. It's also located in the grill and so. Staying at Travelers was really nice because I love the history of it. So travelers started as a single cabin and bar, and it grew to a 60 room hotel by the founder, Winston Wellington, and now it is a thriving, larger hotel in terms of 60 rooms than when it started. And what I love most about this story is that his three sons now run the hotel together, Winthrop, Winfield and Wingate, Wellington, how Jamaican are those names, but his three sons have taken the reins, in a way, and are running the business. And I just love that story. And Winthrop has a YouTube channel, throp. It's called throp, and I'll link that, but he interviewed me for his YouTube channel to talk about my connection to Jamaica and obviously some financial topics. I can't wait to share that and see it when it's out. But that was also really special. But again, staying at both of these places was really nice and really special and just added to the experience of being in like Jamaica. Now, let's go a bit about the race. I'm gonna go a little bit about the race, and then we'll get into the tips again. This was my first time running this long distance, and my friend and I were a bit nervous. You know, I started running more accidentally or reluctantly in the pandemic because all of the gyms were closed, and I still wanted to be fit. I still wanted to be active. So I remember going out and at first just walking my husband and used to run, and I would look at him like, all right, I'm not running. I'll just meet you back at the car. Gonna take my time, because I never really thought about or wanted to run. Whenever I saw people running, I thought to myself, why are you doing this to yourself? It looks so hard and miserable, but I got a little bug in me that said, You know what, how about you just try something? So I remember trying to run half a mile and then a mile, and then I finally worked myself up to three miles at a time when I was running, when I first started, and that was so hard for me, even just running the half a mile like I thought I was gonna pass out. But I eventually started to build up my stamina, and three miles became what I did just, you know, I'll do my three miles. As soon as I heard the voice that's tracking the mile say three miles, I stopped. I said, All right, I'm done. So when this opportunity, when Kenisha first reached out to me and said, Oh, there's an opportunity maybe for you to run at this race and they have longer distances, I said to myself, Hmm, now, if this works out, I'll train to run longer. And when I did find out that it was gonna work out, I was like, It's time to get serious. And that's when I started to train and run longer distances and get to the point that I got to where I was able to run 13.1 miles in Jamaica. So the race started at 5:15am and we had to get up. We left our hotel at 3:45am to get on a shuttle. Shuttles were picking everyone up along the main road in the grill to take us to the starting point. And it was such a vibrant, lovely energy, like you felt it. You felt the energy while you were there to be excited to run. Everyone's super nice. And I mean, these are people from all over the world, like I said before, different ages races, different countries that came to Jamaica to run this race, and we started at night, so 515 is dark, which is good, because that means we don't have to be running in the sun for the majority of the run. And then basically, depending on how fast you run, though, we we did end while the sun was up, so it was challenging, but probably one of the most rewarding experiences that I have done this year, I feel like it was like the highlight of my year was being able to do this race. And so again, I'm so just thankful that it was able to happen. I'm going to link rondale village in the show notes, but you can go to rondalevillage.com if you want to check out the accommodations, and also travelers, which is TBR, dot travel, if you want to learn more about them. And then if just follow me on Instagram, if you're not already or check out my Instagram, depending on when you listen to this, I'll post just some pictures about both places and more of my outtakes from my Jamaica trip.

Okay, now I want to get into the lessons and things that I've learned that really just solidified, and the themes I pulled out from training for this race and running the race, and how it relates to your financial journey and just life journey. So there are 10 points. Let's get into it. Point number one, or lesson one, have patience, and when the time is ready, when you are ready, the opportunity will appear. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear, saying that I love because there will. Disappointments, there will be things that don't happen the way you want. They're probably happening to you right now, and you're wondering, why can't I have what I want now faster? Why can I have more money now? Why can I have that job now pay off the debt, or maybe just something didn't work out in your favor? And that is true, you can be disappointed, but just know that things are more than likely. I like to believe things are always working out in my favor, even when it doesn't feel like that, and when I think that way, even the disappointments, while I take them in, I say to myself, well, maybe it wasn't the right time, and even when I look back for the race, I wanted to really run the race last year because it was the weekend before my book came out. And I thought, How amazing would that be? Like? It would be such an exciting week. I'd go to Jamaica, run the race over the weekend, and then fly back and my book will be out that Tuesday, where I'd have my album, album release, my book release party. And when I think about that now, I'm like, how would you have made that happen? Like, there was so much going on that week, there was so much going on that year, even two years prior, because a book, writing the book, it took a long time. It took a lot of energy. And so I don't think that I would have had the bandwidth to train for this race, if it would have happened when I wanted it to happen two years ago or last year. Because when I realized that it was going to happen this year, I got really serious in the fall about training. Started running longer distances, which takes longer you know, I'm not I I'm not a fast runner. So it takes a while when I'm training, when I'm running, and so this was the perfect, perfect year for it to happen, and I'm so glad it didn't happen back then. And so there are things happening in your life that you want to happen now, but listen to me, you may not be ready for the opportunity, or it's a reason why it's not happening yet. And then, just to add on to that, don't block your blessings when things don't work out for you. So in this instance, or in this case with the race, when things kind of fell through for the couple years that it didn't work, it was fine. You know, even though I was disappointed, I would still keep in contact with Kenisha and say, Okay, well, thank you for trying. Let's try again next year. And so stoking, kind of like the fire or the or the embers, if that's the right way to say it watering the seeds, you know, being still positive with people, even though things are not going my way, essentially helped me. Because instead of maybe not responding to her or being upset that it wasn't happening, I was like, You know what? Like, it's fine. It's happened when it's supposed to happen. And because of that, the opportunity came back around to me. So when things are not going your way, still, you know, keep your composure. You just never know when that person will be able to help you out, will be able to connect you to where you need to be. So that was number one. Number two, set your goals and intentions to be higher and more ambitious than you think you need them to be, because then you will rise to the occasion. This, for me, is especially true when I'm thinking about the financial independence journey. I always say that trying to achieve financial independence is a moon goal. It is a big goal thinking about being able to have enough money. So the definition of financial independence, in the way that I speak of it, in the fire movement, terms financial independence retire early, is having enough invested, having enough income from your investments to pay for your living expenses, so that you don't ever have to work again if you don't want to. Now, that is a big goal, but I think it's a goal worth embarking on, even if you feel like it's so far away or not achievable. Because what happens is, when you set a goal that high, you are going to find a way to move forward, even if the steps are smaller than you like. And I say that. Think about it this way. Let's just say you did some calculations, and if you need the calculations, they're in my book, but you essentially need to think about, Okay, how much do I need to pay for my expenses? The quick rule of thumb, by the way, is 25 times your annual expenses. Gives you a nice little chunk of money, and that amount is what you'll need to essentially reach financial independence. Now let's just say you calculated your number, and you need $5 million depending on your expenses, and you want to reach financial independence in 15 years. And you're like, oh my gosh, that feels like so hard, especially depending on your starting point. But you say, you know, I'm gonna give it a go, and you give it a go, and you try your best, and in 15 years, instead of that $5 million you only have, and I say that in quotations, $300,000 now is that anywhere, maybe close to what you really needed or want. It's not bad, but it's not there. But guess what? It's more than you would have had. If you did not start, because maybe if you didn't start and try and apply yourself, you'd have zero. So I really do think that setting big, audacious goals are very important, and not that you can't have small ones, because the small ones are very important to really get you through and give you that momentum, but setting them to be more ambitious allows you to rise up to the occasion and push yourself in ways you didn't know what's possible. And I definitely felt that with training for this race. You know, at one time, I thought, listen, three miles is it? And before that, I thought one mile was it. But now that set my sights to running 13 miles, I started realizing I was setting my five mile goals and my eight mile goals, and I would pass those earlier goals or things I thought I couldn't that it was so hard for me to do. Now, not to say that that was easy, it was still very challenging, but because I had set the goal so much bigger than what I was comfortable with, I was able to rise to the occasion. So set big goals. It's okay to set big goals, and you'll be surprised at how far you reach. Lesson number three, you need to immerse yourself in the community and around the people with the traits and accomplishments that you want to adopt or you want to achieve. This is, I mean, this applies to anything, whether you're trying to run a business and be an entrepreneur, or you're a parent, or maybe a mom, or you are trying to get out of debt, being around people that you admire, and you can really see that they're actually doing the things you want. I'm not talking about like social media, and it looks like nice, but like they are doing the thing you want to do, and that's the norm for them, sets things so apart in terms of what's possible, because then you start to realize that the things you once thought were not doable or you couldn't do. There are people doing it all the time. Like, there are people literally running marathons every day, ultra marathons. Like, seriously, I am following or I come across this lady on my Instagram, and she's been running like ultra marathons. I think it was like 5040, miles a day. I'm like, How is that possible? But someone's doing it, and so it makes me feel like my goal of running a half marathon at 13 miles. Listen, why not? It's possible as long as I want to do and I put the work in so being around and immersing yourself in the world you want to be a part of is important. I remember on my own financial journey being into the podcast and blogs, and when I started the podcast, going to conferences and going to FinCon to immerse myself around other people in the personal finance space, all really helped me see what was possible for me so immerse yourself in the community that you want to be around. Because for me, when it came to running, it was having a friend, my friend shalia, who is like, I feel like she's the real runner, because she, I think she, she would like to probably push herself to do more, is helpful, because I have a friend now who I can look at and say, okay, for her, like we're doing this together. It's my community or being around other runners. It's such an energy booster and changes and shifts your mindset.

Hey, journeyers, if you are loving this podcast, then you will love my book your journey to financial freedom, a step by step guide to achieving wealth and happiness. I wrote this book for you. This book is for you if you want a clear and enjoyable path to having more money options and a rich life, this book is for you if you hate your commute and the fact that you need to seek approval or permission from a boss. I hated that when I worked this book is for you. If you weren't born into wealth, you didn't marry rich or win the lottery, but you still want freedom. This book is for you. If you're at a crossroads, a major decision or event is imminent, maybe a career change, marriage, starting a family, pressures are reaching a tipping point, and the discomfort and the desire for more can no longer be ignored, and this book is for you. If you find yourself zoned out at meetings, looking out the window or daydreaming about the life you truly want, so go pick up your journey to financial freedom.com. So I can show you how to map out how to get from where you are today to where you ultimately want to be and enjoy the journey. While you're on the path, head over to your journey to financial freedom.com. To see where you can pick the book up. It's available on Amazon, bookshop.org, Barnes and Noble, your local bookstore everywhere. Go to your journey to financial freedom.com. To get the book now you lesson four,

don't let the exterior of things or your assumptions about people fool you and make a fool out of you. So by that, I mean when I was running or you. Just in the race in general, there were different types of people. There were older people, people of all different sizes, and people who were running faster, people who were walking. And so if I were just to look at and try to compare or make an assumption about somebody, about how fast they were, or how good I was doing or not doing, that wouldn't necessarily be a fair assumption, because I have no clue about what they really can do their starting point, the distance they're running. Maybe we're running totally different distances. And so it's really important not to judge the exterior of things, not to make assumptions or try to impress other people at your own detriment. So for example, I definitely felt the energy right running in the marathon, and felt like, Okay, I you know, I think that's partly what helps in running, is running with other people. So you do feel encouraged. But if I was trying to think like, oh, I don't want to get past or I want to run faster, and I could, like, push myself too hard and burn myself out where I couldn't finish the race, maybe, right? I have to run my own race. And so when you assume things or you don't know the full story about things, you can put yourself in a predicament where your mindset is off because the things that you know are not the full story. And so don't let the exterior or assumptions fool you about other people. And don't let what you think people are going to think about you change how you want to behave and operate. That comes with material items, that comes with maybe, okay, you know, I think a lot of times that I think I know for the kind of freedom that I talk about, it's more silent. The kind of wealth that I'm talking about is not necessarily a very out loud wealth. It's not something you can necessarily see and make a snap judgment about. Maybe, if you're paying real attention, you can. But what I mean by that is you can look at someone's car and assume they don't have money because maybe they're driving a beat up car. You can look at someone who's driving a nice car and assume maybe they have it together, but that's obviously not the case, because you don't know what that person has in their savings if they have debt in their investment account, and that goes both ways. Just because someone has a nice car doesn't mean that they're in financial trouble either, but the type of wealth and freedom that we want to achieve is not going to be things people are going to be able to see right away. It's going to, I think, be shown in how happy you are, the kind of time you can take that can you take your time in the day and control your day, versus people controlling it for you like that is the kind of wealth that you can't pick up, and so being able to be very intentional about not letting your assumptions trick you into judging someone or having their judgments impact your own journey. So that was number four, all right. Lesson number five, it's really hard to measure your true experience or performance outside of the numbers if you're comparing it to another person. So this is kind of similar to don't let the exterior or assumptions fool you, but it's a little bit different, because I mentioned before, people were doing different things at the marathon. Some people were running 5k 10k some people were running the full half marathon. Some people were walking, some people were running, and then walking and then running again, like we have, you know, you don't really know. And if you were to compare yourself, you might think, Oh, I'm doing better than that person. They're not doing as well as me, or I'm ahead of them. And then they pass you. And then now, you know, so really, when you're thinking about your financial journey and life journey, you might see people what seems like they're ahead of you, and especially with social media. Now, we're getting all these cues and these, this almost, it's almost like a stream of, I wouldn't say consciousness, but like it's, we're being really sold a lot of things, whether it is from corporations and in media and then just on we sell each other a lot of things, just, you know, images and facades on social media, and then we're all accessing it and seeing it right. And so you may not understand or know what tools a person had to help them get to where they got and then you're comparing your own journey to that, and wondering, why, why can I get ahead faster? Or why can I pay off this debt this person looks like? You know, they got it together and you again, you don't know. So your experience, your journey, is truly, uniquely your own. Now you can draw on inspiration and lessons like I'm saying now, obviously, if it's going to help you, but be careful to not let any of the negative things that sometimes come up when we are looking at other people's lives and their journeys get you down to a point where you feel like you're not. Doing well enough, or you can't make your goals, because, again, everyone has different starting points. Everyone has a different situation. My, let's just say my $100,000 salary, if we're comparing salaries to someone else's, $100,000 salary with no kids, is different or no debt, it's different. Everything is just individual to our own journey. Lesson number six, energy. Energy is so important. Energy and momentum on this journey is really, really key. And it doesn't mean that you can't slow down or take breaks, but the energy and momentum, usually, even when you don't feel like doing something, will carry you through. So you need to find ways to have energy boosters or momentum, whatever that looks like, whether it is things and joys that you find on a daily basis, simple things doesn't have to be very expensive that help you get through the day. No, I remember when I did not enjoy or love my commute. I had to find things about my commute that I enjoyed. I had to get the energy to keep going to driving the hour and a half, two hours one way to work, and same thing with the journey. And so the momentum that I experienced at the marathon was pretty cool, because I remember, when I was training for the marathon, the most I'd ever run was 10 miles, and I was speaking to a another runner, who was saying that, you know, you don't really have to run longer than that, because once you get in the race or in the marathon, the energy of the other people will take you home. And I'm like, Okay, so, and it was so true. I loved, loved, loved, and I almost could feel it, the energy while running, everyone was so encouraging. You know, there are people who were coming back, so there's like, at one point you turn around, you make a loop to come back to get to the finish line. And so there, when the people were passing me, and I know they were, like, ahead of me, because they were going back to the finish line, I was it encouraged me. I'm like, okay, like, look at them, like they're doing it, and they'd be smiling, or maybe they were struggling in their face, it seemed. And I was just like, wow. Like, this is so encouraging. And so energy is really important, because I do feel like that momentum helps us move forward, even if we don't want to. So whatever energy boosters or momentum you need for your journey, find them. It's similar to the community lesson that I talked about is we'll get that in a community. You'll get that, hopefully, in a person or a friend or someone in your life that can help give you that energy to help carry you through. And the other thing was, I just want to say so my friend shalia, we I typically don't like running with anyone. I like running solo. But with this race, we kind of separated. We weren't too far because we were running about the same pace, but we weren't really running together for the first, I'd say, maybe five miles or six miles, and then we started to run together for the last of it, for like, the rest of the race, which was like five or six miles. And it felt so good running next to her because we were at the same pace. So I didn't feel like I needed to, like, have to run faster or slower. I mean, it was, it was just the energy that I was receiving from her and that we were giving each other, encouraging each other, really got us through to the end. Oh, and I did a reel about that too. I did a reel where I did every mile. I said, you know, hey, mile one, mile two. So you can check that out on my Instagram if you want. Okay, Lesson Seven, training and preparing for whatever path you're on, like the journey you're on, is the work. It is the goal, the destination or the end goal is not That's not it. That is not where you're going to find the solution to all your problems, and when you're finally be happy. I think when we think about our life that way, we miss our life. It passes us by because we're only looking forward to the one end goal, and then we get to the end goal and realize, like, wow, this is not it. I'm still not happy, and it's so important, that's why I talk about just in my podcast and in the book, to find happiness even without so even if you still have debt, even if you're not close to your investing goals, even if you're not working somewhere that you enjoy, like, how can you find the silver lining? How can you find the happiness in the journey and make it something? Because the journey is going to be majority of the work when I think back on training for the marathon. Yes, of course, like being in Jamaica and the race itself was amazing, but most of the time was spent in the training was spent in the months and months before the race. And I compare this to your financial journey in a way that or financial independence journey. I call it your before awareness of financial independence, and then your after awareness of financial independence. That we are all on this journey, whether we know it or not, you need your finances so. Um, whether you are intentionally doing something to help yourself and your finances, it's you still need your money to work for you. And before I found out about financial independence, I wasn't doing things as intentionally, but I did make some good choices, not always perfect, that helped catapult me forward on my journey when I did know about financial independence. And so often time we have these different parts of our journey that we're not even aware we're on the journey. We're not even aware that this is part of it, like the game started. We're in the game, and you know, like you don't realize it yet, until you have the awareness. Like they say, a fish doesn't know they're in water, but it's in water. So with the journey, once you realize you're on it, how do you make the best of it? How do you understand that, while, yes, it's great to have that big goal that I was talking about before, and other goals, but how do you make the moment the present moment and the journey itself, what's important, because everything you're doing that that, if you had to stack it up and compare it, it's a lot more time and energy to do the training or the journey than is the end point. And then again, once you get to the end point, you might you're going to have another goal or something else you want to do. So just understanding that, hopefully, I know for me, puts me in a place of when I when I know that there's still a lot of things that I want to do and that I'm looking forward to, is that I don't hang my hat or look at just that goal at the end, I'm looking at, how do I bring that happiness that I think I'm going to feel at that point to my life today? Okay, Lesson Eight, are you still with me? The journey is as much or more mental and emotional as it is physical. It's this concept of the inner and outer. It's this concept I talk about in the book your journey to financial freedom about the tangibles and the intangibles in the wealth formula. And like of course, running is very physical. You have to be in a certain amount of shape for your body and be able to withstand certain things to be able to run. But what I've realized training is that in even running the race, is that my mind and my spirit almost wants to give up faster than my body. Running really is like a meditation. I've heard this before, if you're moving meditation, because there's so much about it that is challenging, not just your body, but you're thinking, I know for me, I'm thinking even at the first mile, depending on the day and how I'm feeling, like I don't want to do this, like, even just to start the run, I'm like, oh man. Like, I don't even want to go. I don't want to do this. This is going to be hard. It's cold. And then when I'm running, I listen to music. I listen to podcast. I usually listen to podcasts, a lot of murder, Dateline podcast, but I sometimes my mind starts to wonder, I'm like, thinking about how much further I have to go. I'm getting bored. So all these things my monkey mind, which reminds me of my Vipassana meditation that I did where I was in silence for 11 days, and they talked about the monkey mind and how you just it's always gonna be moving around, swinging around in your head like a monkey, like all these thoughts about what you can't do, why you should stop, and then ultimately, to reach that physical goal of being able to run and finish whatever goal you set for yourself on if you're running, you have to, like, be able to get past your mental you have to be able to to harness your mental and sometimes ignore the negative things that are happening in your mind. And that is so true for your financial and life journey, because all the things we want to do, like all the action items, paying off debt, investing, negotiating a salary raise, buying the car like these are, to me, tangible things you can measure because it needs you need money to do it. But in order for you to do any of those things, you have to work on your mindset, your habits. You have to work on things that sometimes you can't measure. It's a feeling, it's a aura. It's a energy about you that even if something is hard, you're going to try it anyway. Even if things are hard, you're going to keep going and not stop. And so for a lot of us, the external gains we want to have and achieve first need to be achieved inside of us, like the inner wealth. Us being our biggest asset outside of the other external assets that we're trying to build is that's what we need to pour into. So the journey for me, and I think for a lot of us, I think for everyone, if I'm being honest, is as much or more mental and emotional as it is physical. And so just keep that in mind as you are going forward. All right. Lesson Nine, the possibilities are truly endless. You may think that you do not. Want to do something. And, I mean, some people are like, I would never run. I'm not going to run. So it's not even about running. It could be about something in your life, you didn't even think about it yet, or you thought about it and said, That's not for me. But if you gave it a chance, like, if you don't really want to do something, you just don't do it, right? But if you really gave it a chance and understood, okay, am I not doing this because I don't think I can and I'm afraid to try, or is it something else? But once you give it a go, I believe the world opens up for you and opportunities open up for you like never before. That's why I think the journey to financial independence is not just a financial benefit. It's a life benefit because of the person you need to become in order to achieve your goals, meaning you have to rise to the occasion. You have to learn concepts you weren't familiar with. You have to sit down and confront that bank statement. You have to think about your life and what really matters, and what's your enough point? Like, there's all this reflection and work that has to be done when you start a journey. And so sometimes you think, all right, well, that's not possible for me. But as you start the journey, you realize, wow, like the possibilities are opening up in a way I never saw before because I didn't have enough information at the beginning or the start of it. I didn't know enough, and this is so true for my running journey and life journey, because in the beginning I thought I'd never run more than three miles. I was like, This is it. And then this opportunity came, and I was like, this is perfect way to challenge myself and to celebrate home island and the book and all these things. And so you just never know what's possible for you, even when I talk about quitting my job, I had set the goal to reach financial independence in seven years when I first started, and realized really quickly that I did not want to wait seven years because of all the things that I was juggling, and I was able to quit my job a lot earlier. That's that seven year mark, and do what I'm doing now. Do this work, share my ideas, write a book, all these amazing things while raising my family, hanging out and doing all this, all the things I need to do as a mom, as a wife like this, I could not have imagined, I mean, in in my wildest dreams, I could have imagined it, but I didn't know it would happen this way, because what I what I thought I could see like I couldn't really see, because I had to start first, and I didn't know the possibilities, but they are truly endless. And so I would just say that if there is something that you want to do, or you don't know you want to do yet, to keep following the next best step in front of you, because you just never know what's possible for you. You just have to start all right, 10. We're at the final lesson. I feel like I can literally talk give lessons about so many things as it relates to running and preparing for this race and then just the financial journey. But I really do believe in serendipitous, full circle moments, that things are not always accidental. I believe in the magic of life. I believe in a higher power. And so it depends on what you believe in, right? But I think once we start to find and appreciate the blessings in our life, to know that we are connected to something bigger than us, to feel like that the things happening around us are working to help us. Then think life, the joy that we are searching for, that we want. You'll see it every day, because the fact that you're listening to this is a miracle, the fact that you were born of all the, you know, the combinations of your mom and dad being able to bring a child into this world. Here you are. And I just, I love to find that in my life, and find the full circle moments, find the coincidences that are not really coincidence, but like, wow, this is confirmation that I'm on the right path. I could not have planned a better one year kind of anniversary of my book being released and going back to Jamaica to run, like then this, then the timing of this trip, or that someone who happens to be a journeyer and listens to the podcast knew someone and could connect me to be able to be a part of this race, seeing Tanya from early episode in the podcast. I saw her at the resort, and I'm like, look at that. How amazing is that being able to one of my sisters, she was in Jamaica at the same time, so we saw each other, really, for a few hours one day, while I was there, my other sister, who lives in Kingston, came to see me. I was also able to meet up with Tiffany grant, whose episode was released while I was in Jamaica, like so we recorded this episode. I wasn't really, like planning to release it while I was there, but Tiffany grant, she literally lives in Jamaica now, and we talk about that on her episode, I was able my friend and I were. Able to meet her and have dinner in Jamaica. She lives in the grill. And I just thought that was like, so special, that all these things were moving in alignment and becoming what I feel like is the beauty of life, that these things are happening to us and for us, and when we can notice that, when we can appreciate that, I think it happens more for us. And so to know that about your journey, I think, is really special, because it gives you hope. It keeps you optimistic, even when things are not always going your way, but realizing that the magic is happening, the blessings are happening, you know, you believe in God like he's working in your favor. All right, wow. Okay, so those are my 10 lessons, or 10 takeaways from training and running in my first half marathon in my beautiful home island of Jamaica. If you want to check out the reggae marathon, go to reggae marathon.com

I see on their site, it says the next race next year is December 7, 2025 so look, you got time to train, and hopefully I'll be there next year, and you guys can run with me. Oh, I did see okay, here's another cool, cool moment that happened when I crossed the finish line. There was another journeyer there. She was, like, at the end, but she just said really quickly to me, she's like, Oh, I'm so glad you did this. I listened to your podcast. I'm a journeyer, and like, we hug, we're kind of sweaty, but I was just like, wow, look at that. Look at that. And so I hope that this podcast episode and the tips helped you. If you want to see any of you know the things I talked about, whether it was the my stay at rondale village or travelers, or just the race check out at journey to launch at Jamila Souffrant, I'll be I posted some content already. I'm posting some more stuff. And if you did get something from this episode, share it with someone. The podcast has been around since 2017 which I can't believe. And one of the things I did not mention that I need to mention is that one the Jamaican Gleaner, which is a the biggest newspaper I believe in Jamaica, did feature the reggae marathon and mention me in the actual article, which I thought was pretty cool, because I'm like, wow, look at this. And if I can just read what it said, I did provide this quote, but I want to read it to you. Among those participants this year is Jamila Souffrant, a jamerican and reggae marathon brand ambassador, who will be running her first half marathon. The Milestone coincides with the first anniversary of her debut book, your journey to financial freedom, and this is me in the quotation saying, Not only is this my first half marathon, but it also serves as a celebration of my book anniversary. It feels amazing to return to my island home where I was born, a true homecoming and full circle moment. So that was pretty cool to be featured in the Jamaican cleaner. And then the other thing I wanted to say about the podcast is it recently won an award. So bank rate, very popular platform, selected the journey to launch podcast as the best personal finance podcast as a part of its 2025 Bank Rate visionaries. So the bank rate visionaries recognize trailblazers who dedicate themselves to financial education and empowerment. And I am just still sometimes in awe that people listen like I know you're out there. I always say this, but I'm literally in my office right now talking to myself. I don't know how many people this will reach, but when it reaches someone and you tell me that it has impacted you, or when I do get recognition, even though external validation is not like the goal, it reinforces why I do this work. It reinforces that this is the pathway that I'm supposed to be on. So I just want to say thank you. If you ever shared the podcast with a family member or friend, thank you. Make sure you're subscribed and you're following the podcast wherever you listen. So whatever app you're listening on, go to that app right now, like open it up and make sure you press follow or subscribe, and that way you won't miss an episode and continue to share it. That's honestly, the way that the podcast continues to get out there. And I hope you enjoyed this episode. All right, until next week, keep on journeying. Journeyers. Don't forget, you can get the episode show notes for this episode by going to journey to launch.com or click the description of wherever you're listening to this and you can still grab your jumpstart guide for free to help you on your journey to financial freedom by going to journey to launch.com/jumpstart

if you want to support me and the podcast and love the free content and information that you get here, here are four ways that you can support me in the show. One, if. Make sure you're subscribed to the podcast wherever you listen, whether that's Apple podcast, that purple app on your phone, your Android device, YouTube, Spotify wherever it is that you happen to listen. Just subscribe so you are not missing an episode. And if you're happening to listen to this in Apple podcasts, rate review and subscribe there. I appreciate and read every single review. Number two, follow me on my social media accounts. I'm at journey to launch on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and I love, love, love interacting with journeyers. There three, support and check out the sponsors of this show. If you hear something that interests you. Sponsors are the main ways we keep the podcast lights on here. So show them some love for supporting your girl four. And last but not least, share this episode, this podcast, with a friend or family member or co worker so that we can spread the message of Journey to launch. All right, that's it until next week. Keep on journeying. Journeyers. You

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