Episode Transcript
Alara Sage (00:01.459)
Hello, hello, and welcome to Wealth Embodied, where we activate and inspire you in wealth consciousness, creative genius, and visionary impact. You know, one of the things I think that all of us truly desire is financial freedom. We want to have the experience of wealth while also creating the life that really lights us up, creating what we deeply desire. And today we're going to talk to our wonderful guest, Ingo Schulmeier.
who took a leap of faith after 15 years in a successful corporate career. He overcame his limiting beliefs and jumped into the unknown. Today, himself and his family live life on their own terms. His goal is to help people do the same, break free from the system, create mental freedom and financial independence. Ingo, my love, thank you so much for being here with me today.
Ingo (00:58.08)
Yes, thanks for inviting me. It's a pleasure.
Alara Sage (01:00.807)
So do you believe that financial freedom, financial independence is available for everybody?
Ingo (01:07.726)
Yeah, I mean, that's a big question for the beginning, but I would say in general, I would say yes. And I think the reason why we are not all financially free is that we are standing in our own way usually, right? I don't think it's we're limited by external circumstances. So I also believe in abundance as you do. And I think there's enough for everyone. But yeah, I think we have our own limiters.
that hold us back and that we're standing in our own way. So that's why we're not getting there. And I think it's also for many people, it's difficult to overcome them because it requires some effort and work to go through them and to solve them.
Alara Sage (01:52.253)
Yes, it does. It definitely requires effort and work. I saw on your website, you have a blog post about do the hard thing first. And that's one of my favorite sayings because we do. We have to show up. We have to do the work. So tell us a little bit about your experience from leaving your successful corporate career. Did you do that merely for financial independence? And did that feel like something that was tangible for you? Or were you really just leaping
Ingo (02:02.146)
Right.
Alara Sage (02:22.089)
without really the certainty.
Ingo (02:26.026)
No, I didn't do it for the financial free. I think we made the good money and I made good investments already before in my corporate life. But think financial freedom is more, I think before you become financially free, it requires that you become mentally free, right? And I was, yeah, maybe I had money and everything, but I was not really free because I had this job and I was working a lot and there was lot of stress in my life and...
a lot of work hours. And I was, it also didn't really fulfill me. didn't, it didn't meet my purpose, right? So was not, yeah, I just didn't become happy with that. And I was for many years, you mentioned it, I was more than 15 years working. And I was always good at setting my goals and achieving my goals. And I'm also an athlete, I'm an Ironman. So
I was always good in these things, right? To set a goal, having this vision, visualize that plan for it, go for it, having the consistency and resilience to stay on track and achieve the goal. But it didn't really fulfill me when I achieved the goal. And that's when we made this change.
when we said, we sell everything. It was a radical step, but I think it was great for us. I think for us as a family, it really was the best decision we made because we really went out of the system of this job. And from there we became, first of all, I became mentally free because I started to reconnect with myself and to find really out what I really want actually. And I mean, I also don't believe in...
money as an end goal, think money is a great tool and we should use it and it can help us in a lot of things, but I don't think it can serve any purpose, right? Money should never be your final goal because first of all, will, yeah, you will burn out because it cannot motivate you. It's much better if you have really something that, yeah, a purpose that you can give back, that you can make a contribution. And based on that,
Ingo (04:31.054)
you have a much stronger desire to achieve your goals rather than it's just money and it's just material things. yeah, so I discovered rediscovered myself and I found myself I worked a lot on myself and I aligned with my inner truth. And from there I became really free, I would say and then came also this step that I
that I started working on things that I'm really passionate about, that I can help people doing similar things like getting out. I think most people even don't know that they're trapped somewhere and that it's not going perfect, even if they're like successful in the how society defines what is success, right? It's usually not our own definition. And yeah, so when I started working on that and reconnect with myself, then I think I became really free and with that also financially free.
Alara Sage (05:21.777)
I really love that point that you alluded to, which is that financial freedom isn't really about just having money. mean, this is really what I stand for with wealth embodiment is sure we can have the money. That doesn't mean that we feel free. Because if we are showing up to a job or to any kind of circumstance that isn't fulfilling us, that is stressing us out, that is really not our
Ingo (05:24.61)
you
Alara Sage (05:51.337)
passion, right? Not what lights us up. How does that feel free, right? It feels quite the opposite, right? It feels like we're kind of stuck in this jail or this thing that we have to do, which I think a lot of people experience. They feel like they have to go to work. They have to do these things to provide for their family. Did you come up against a lot of limiting beliefs within yourself? Particularly I'll call out
the providing for your family, because that's a big one for anybody to hold, right? As soon as we have kids, the game changes.
Ingo (06:22.274)
Right. Right. Yeah. So yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think I was always an adventurer. I was always traveling a lot. But it's much easier when you're alone, right? Once you have a family and you're married and you have these responsibilities and you have to pay the mortgage. And I had this limiting belief when I was working my job. I mean, I had a good paycheck and everything and we had a house and we had whatever we were traveling.
the world and we had everything we needed. But still I had this limiting belief that I can't quit my job because I need a paycheck at the end of the month and I need to feed my family and what will happen if I'm not successful. And so I had this for many years. And I think we all have this in a certain way, like some limiting beliefs, right?
if we want to try to do something new. And I mean, it's always more comfortable to stay on the track we are and our mind doesn't like change, right? We don't want to, we want to keep the things as they are and not to change too many things and everything that's in the unknown or that's not so familiar to us, first of all, it seems to be risky, right? And yeah, and then to actually make this step, I think you need to...
you need to assure that your pain is big enough. I mean that's just a requirement. I think that's the most terrible thing that can happen. I call it the curse of a good life. Because if your life is more or less good or you're comfortable and you're not really suffering but you're also not really...
blooming. That's the most difficult situation to get out of because you don't really have a reason to change. mean, you should. And with every step you make, mean, the bill is getting higher and the time is getting shorter. But it's very difficult to get out of that. And for me, it was just like the pain accumulated and I was not happy in the job anymore. And then finally, when the pandemic came up and before in my job, was also traveling a lot.
Alara Sage (08:06.025)
Yeah.
Ingo (08:35.17)
in the semiconductor industry. went to Asia, Korea, Taiwan and the United States. And then during the pandemic, I was just sitting at home and having this endless Zoom meetings all day long. you know, I was getting really bored and frustrated and the kids didn't go to school anymore. And my wife was also not happy anymore. And that's why we reached this threshold of our pain where we said, OK, now we have to make the change. It cannot continue like that. We need to make a
make a change and then we made this bold decision that we sold everything, we sold our house, we sold our cars, we all our material things that we had aside a few suitcases and we took an airplane to Mexico and started traveling.
Alara Sage (09:21.777)
I love how you talk about the pain and that threshold. And I really love how you talk about that, you know, that comfortable life, the life of, okay, I'm living well, because I agree with you completely. And it is very dangerous, so to speak, in the context of it's easy to just stay with that and live successful per societal descriptions. But
Ingo (09:30.05)
Thank
Alara Sage (09:51.513)
not necessarily really feeling successful and most definitely not feeling alive right in your life.
Alara Sage (10:06.569)
And what a blessing that you guys had, right? That that pain threshold got to the point that you had to do something about it. Is that how it came up for you?
Ingo (10:14.476)
this.
Ingo (10:17.834)
Yeah, you're right. People are afraid of pain, but it's part of life. We cannot keep only the ups, there are also the downs and the downs usually lead you to more growth. So you need to go through them and you should also celebrate them. And know that after that it will be better again. But yeah, it's needed sometimes.
Alara Sage (10:42.621)
Yes. what outside of, know, of course, the big, I have to provide for my family if I quit my job. What were kind of the core limiting beliefs that you came against yourself with transitioning your life in this way?
Ingo (10:59.454)
I think that was the core belief. I think the other point, it's maybe not necessarily the limiting belief, but the other thought you have is also the...
I mean, if you're staying for so many years in your career or in a certain, you're walking your path for so many years and you think you're on the right track, right? You're having your successes and that to make such a radical change requires also like that you admit that you were actually wrong all these years, right? And it's like this principle of the sunk cost, right? You invested already so much in this and you want to keep going because you don't want to...
like kind of lose all what you created before. But it's also like not really working like that because I mean if you invest 10 million in a bad business.
So you don't want to lose this 10 million, but rather than investing another 10 million, because you know it's a bad business, it's sometimes better to forget about this first 10 million and say, okay, I need to do something else. But this is a very difficult decision to make, right? Because you actually need to admit that you were wrong all this time and that you, yeah, that now you need to change something.
Alara Sage (12:12.241)
Yes, and I think there's a balance between understanding, that was a mistake and owning your mistake and having resilience, as you mentioned earlier, right? Because there's times where we do need to keep carrying forward with something. And then there's times we need to we need to let go. Right. So how would you say that you differentiate those two?
Ingo (12:30.935)
Yeah.
Ingo (12:36.97)
How I differentiate the when we need to let how to make this decision you mean Yeah, I think Decisions are very important and I think that's also something when I'm working with my clients. It's also something many people struggle with making decisions, right and I think what helps me here is to Tell them. Okay. I mean
whether you make the decision or not, anyway you make a decision, right? Even if you decide to stay where you are, you make the decision not to do something else, right? So it's also a decision and you need to be aware of that. And if you look on the risk, I mean, every decision has a risk. And it's, we think staying where we are is less risky than going out and doing something else. But I also don't agree with that. mean,
But you just need to practice that and you need to practice. That's why I like adventures. Yeah, right. I like competitions. I like adventures. And that's why, yeah, you need to get used to that again. And yeah, start making decisions that are maybe in the uncomfortable thing or the unknown thing. And you will, you will notice the more decisions you make that's going into the unknown.
the more comfortable you're getting with it. it's actually, usually it doesn't turn out bad, right? Usually it comes out something good. If you do something different, in most cases, it will be a good thing. Even if you fail, then you have a new experience and you can do, change it again. The other important point is what we shifted in our perspective when we made this decision is, and when you make such a big decision where you're saying, okay, we're selling our house and we're leaving it, we're leaving our jobs.
In the beginning you think, wow, what will happen if I'm not successful? We'll end up on the street and everything. So you can make this really like a terrible future scenario. But what we did was we changed our perspective. said, okay, what's actually the worst thing that can happen?
Ingo (14:37.632)
We said, okay, the worst thing that can happen is we go there now to Mexico, we're traveling around for one year, we're having a vacation for one year, and if we don't like it, if we don't find a place there, we go back and we look for new jobs and we buy a new car and we do the same again.
So we actually, the worst case scenario was having a one year vacation and going back to our, to our lives before. then, and then suddenly not that scary anymore, right? Because decisions, a decision doesn't have to be forever, right? If I'm doing a wrong decision, and then whatever, I mean, I wouldn't change my decision tomorrow that I'm making today tomorrow. But if you figure out in six months that the decision for your business or for your private life or, or whatever.
doesn't lead you where you want to go and you're not even in direction, then I mean, there's nothing wrong with changing this decision again.
Alara Sage (15:29.297)
Yes, and it's so important, as you mentioned, to be willing to look at the worst case scenario because usually our minds create up these big, dramatic expressions. But the truth of it is it's just not that dramatic. And even as you mentioned, if it all quote unquote fails or goes the wrong way or you decide, hey, you know what, this isn't really for me, you had an experience.
Ingo (15:44.3)
Yes.
Alara Sage (15:58.313)
you added to your toolkit of experience and knowingness and intelligence, quite frankly. And regardless, I always, I think I'm very similar. You and I are very similar in that context of, to me, it's always an adventure. There's always something to be learned, to be gained from those experiences. What would you tell people if somebody's listening to this and they're like, man, this is hitting me?
I can tell maybe I'm in that comfort zone. I've got the life that's comfortable enough. What would you tell them if this is hitting them and they feel inspired to start questioning if they should keep going on the path that they're doing or maybe change it?
Ingo (16:48.662)
Yeah, before I answer that, would say, mean, change is also such a concept, That we have, should I stay or change? mean, we know everything is constant, but change, right? So even if I stay, will change, everything will change. The conditions will change, surroundings will change, I will change. So I just can change intentionally or I can change just by, or I can get changed by whatever the circumstances are and it's that.
Alara Sage (17:04.883)
Yeah.
Ingo (17:13.768)
my decision if I want to create my life actively or being the passive, how do you call it, the non-playing character, Like that's just like standing around and pushed around by the circumstances. And what I usually start with is to really, I mean, first you need to recognize that you, that something
doesn't feel good for you, And it doesn't have to be something that you're really in terrible pain or something, or you had a really big drama. It's just like this feeling of not really being fulfilled. And I think the first step is always to start to reconnect with yourself. And that was also something I think we talked briefly about it, right?
I was following for many years this, I thought I have my own definition of my purpose and my success and my truth. But the truth is we're very biased and distracted by all this noise around us, by social media, by the opinions of our friends and our families. And these are all kind of, we adopt them in a way, right? We take this information and we make them partly to our beliefs and this is our belief system. So I think we need to.
Yeah, to start with your process of what you really want is to just disconnect from everything else and start to reconnect with yourself and look for alignment there. Is there alignment between who I truly am and how does my life look like today and how do I want my life to look like? And this can be by meditation or just by going for a walk and leave the phone at home, right? And just being there with yourself and with nature.
I think that sounds trivial, but I think today it's very difficult for most of the people. If you look around in the metro, most people cannot stay for one minute without checking the messages or social media on the phone. And so I think that's why it's very powerful to really have this connection with ourselves and start from there and then start to question our belief system and our reality, how it is really.
Alara Sage (19:25.295)
Yeah, I think also it's really hard for people to answer the question of what do really want?
Ingo (19:32.363)
Yeah, I think that there are actually two points. The first one is who you really are, where you're coming from. And this is based on, this basically the force that is usually holding you back from really striving. And this has to do with all the experiences you made and the belief system you built up, right? It's like, yeah, you to, you adopt this limiting beliefs. For example, if you have limiting beliefs around money, they're usually coming.
Alara Sage (19:32.403)
How do you?
Ingo (19:59.942)
We usually will build our belief system in our early childhood. For example, when we are sitting at the dining table with our parents and they're talking about money and money is the root of all evil and money is bad and something money is only for criminals or yeah exactly and you have to work hard for the money. These are all this, this become our reality right?
Alara Sage (20:14.983)
Money doesn't grow on trees.
Ingo (20:24.366)
our reality is basically the thoughts we repeatedly tell ourselves and they manifest over the years. And the longer you keep them with you, the more difficult it is to change them. But it's always possible because we did it in the first place. We built our belief system and we have making new experiences. That's why it's so important to make these experiences. We make new experiences. We have new thoughts. We can change our belief system. And the second force is actually where you really want to be. And this is basically your purpose, right?
What are you? Why are you here on this world? It's a little bit philosophical or spiritual now. But I think this is also important because this is like the force that is pulling you in the direction where you want to go. So you need to look for your purpose and how you can really make your contribution in the world.
Alara Sage (21:13.705)
So going from this very different position in corporate to a coach now, and not just focusing on just that one aspect, the total flip of your reality of your life, what are you experiencing now? Do you feel that fulfillment? Do you feel mentally free and financially free?
Ingo (21:37.184)
Yes, I must say it was, it was for us, it was a very good step. And I must say from the moment, you know, I didn't really worry about what I will do. mean, we had savings and everything, so we had investments. So I didn't really worry about finances, but I'm also not the person who wanna like sit on the couch now all day long or.
sitting at the beach and having caipirinhas all my life. So I need to always to do something and I wanna make my contribution. So yeah, when I quit my job, I think from this moment, when we sold all this material things, it was like a freeing process. It really set us free because we don't, you don't care anymore. You don't have this responsibility. You don't have this mortgage. You don't have this house anymore. You don't have to take care of this car anymore. You're just there and you just, yeah, it's...
you feel the freedom immediately. And I must say, I never worried and also never really looked back in my old life because it's, yeah, I don't have this pressure about money anymore. I don't have this pressure about my job anymore. And in the beginning, I even didn't work. I think the first nine months we were just traveling around and checking it out. And I was working a lot on myself, like personal development wise and also with on my own transformation.
And yeah, I must say I feel much more free today. I can decide every day what I want to do. mean, sure, I still have family, I have responsibility here, but you know, I mean, I can decide what I'm doing and what I'm working on. yeah, I don't have, I feel much less stressed than I had before.
Alara Sage (23:19.123)
Yeah, very beautiful. And how specifically are you helping people as a coach?
Ingo (23:26.614)
Yeah, so I'm doing exactly what I said before. I I'm helping them, what I mentioned before, to connect with themselves and to work on their belief system. And it's called transformational coaching because it's not that I'm, you know, I don't have your roadmap. I cannot show you your way. I can just help you to find your way by asking the right questions. this is, so I believe we all have our own truth within ourselves. So I don't believe there's any walkthroughs in life or there are any like predefined
pattern, as you read it sometimes in some personal development books or like, I think we all need to find our own way. And yeah, I'm helping people working on that overcoming their limiting beliefs, building the right habits. And I think that's important work. And I'm doing it because this was also something I worked on myself a lot. And I did all this education is actually not because I wanted to become a coach, but to improve myself and to make my own life better.
And I was working for many years with a coach. And yeah, but for me, the changes and the transformation was so profound. I mentioned, from his corporate life where I had money and I was maybe financially free, but I was not really mentally free to now a life where I really can enjoy living my purpose and doing whatever I want to do.
And yes, and from this, this was so profound for me that I said, okay, I need to help more people because I think many, there are many people out there that stuck in this hamster wheel and they just don't know how to get out. And I some people are not even aware of that. think I cannot help them. But once you're becoming aware that you want to change something from there, there's a lot you can work on. And, and this work, I think this is a
has a lot to do with implementation and transformation. Intellectually, we all get it. We all know what we want to do and the information is available. All the books are saying the same. But we're still not there. We are not all financially free. This is because it's so difficult to work against our own belief systems. Most of the things we're talking about are unconsciousness. Usually, we cannot...
Alara Sage (25:44.881)
Yes.
Ingo (25:48.012)
for ourselves, cannot go so deep because our unconsciousness is protecting itself from us changing it. So that's why a coach in this context can be so helpful because yeah, having that said, it's also not always pleasant work you have to go through because yeah, a coach usually asks this unpleasant questions and helps you to go through this unpleasant experiences and memories and beliefs that you build up over in your life.
But this is the only way to, yeah, to unbury and to get rid of them.
Alara Sage (26:24.593)
Yeah, I always say, you know, the professional athletes, they all have coaches, even though they're extraordinary athletes, right? But they have those coaches to help see themselves, right? To help see where they need improvement, what they're doing really well at, because we can't always see ourselves so easily. We can see others really easily. We can't always see ourselves. It's a beautiful irony. And I really love how you spoke to helping people find it for themselves, because
Ingo (26:29.634)
Hmm.
Ingo (26:35.202)
Yes.
Ingo (26:45.065)
Yes.
Alara Sage (26:54.087)
There really isn't a specific strategy to any of this. We can use tools and modalities, but the truth of it is, is we have to connect to who we are. We have to realize who that is, what we want, what our passions are. And nobody can tell us that. Nobody can tell us what those things are. We have to see them, feel them, connect to them ourselves.
Ingo (27:11.362)
Hmm.
Ingo (27:18.594)
Yeah, I would just add to that. It's not that we just cannot see ourselves. I think we, in many cases, we also don't want to see ourselves, right? Because it's quite scary to, yeah, I think looking in the mirror is also, I mean, it's good exercise, right? Just look at yourself in the mirror. I mean, not just like to make up your face or something, just look in your eyes for some time. It feels really uncomfortable, right? Because we have to deal with ourselves.
Alara Sage (27:44.571)
Yes, absolutely. And it's interesting, it's a tantric practice to stare in the left eye of another individual and you can do that in the mirror with yourself and your face shifts and it's very uncomfortable because the different archetypes of the psyche are shown through the face. It's a very intriguing practice. So how can people reach out to you, connect to you?
Ingo (28:05.026)
Right.
Ingo (28:09.398)
Yeah, I think if you want to learn a little bit more, the best is to go to my YouTube channel. There I'm talking a lot of the stuff we talked right now. I explain my coaching process and everything and how to overcome limiting beliefs, how to fight financial freedom. It's YouTube at The Small Reset. That's my channel, The Small Reset. And the other thing, if you want to learn more about one-on-one coaching is my website. It's also called thesmoreset.org.
and there you find also a blog and a lot of information.
Alara Sage (28:41.897)
Beautiful. Yeah, I'll have that link in the show notes. Thank you so much for joining us. I really am celebrating you through your transformation and your family and the wonderful country of Mexico and just everything that you guys have experienced as well as you're inspiring others to do that for themselves.
Ingo (29:01.782)
Thank you so much, it was a pleasure.
Alara Sage (29:05.297)
And to the audience, definitely reach out, listen, connect to his YouTube. You know, the limiting beliefs, the shifting of our mind is so imperative to creating the life that we want, to feeling that fulfillment, that happiness, that joy that is available to all of us. And as always, I love you all so very much. Be sure to share this episode and tune in next Tuesday and Thursday. Much love.
