Fitter & Better (at pickleball), Money Worked While I Played, A Life You Want To Come Home To | FRLN 143

I got home Monday evening (9/21) after 2.5 weeks on the road.

And something pretty incredible happened.

I came home fitter & richer.

My net worth grew by tens of thousands of dollars while I was traveling, playing, exploring, and having fun. And after an epic road trip through California, I was genuinely excited to come home.

Not because the trip wasn't amazing.

Because my regular life is amazing too.

In a weird way, these 2.5 weeks became a stress test for the Fit Rich Life I've spent years building.

My fitness didn't fall apart when I left my normal routine. My money didn't stop working when I stopped working. And my life at home didn't feel boring after weeks of novelty and adventure.

Quite the opposite.

The trip reminded me just how freaking good my regular life is.

Let's dive in.

FIT — Fitter & Better (at pickleball)

Over the last several years, I’ve developed a very different mindset around travel and fitness.

I no longer expect travel to make me less fit.

I expect to get fitter when I travel.

Travel means more walking, more movement, different gyms, different environments, different challenges, and usually a ton of opportunities to stay active in ways that feel fun instead of forced.

So when I left home on September 4th for 2.5 weeks on the road, I fully expected to come back leaner and fitter.

And I did.

Since returning, multiple people at Brommer Park — my home pickleball courts — have commented that I look even leaner and more muscular than I did before I left.

​My body-fat scale, which I traveled with, also showed my body fat trending down over the time period I was traveling.

That part wasn’t a huge surprise to me anymore.

What I wasn’t expecting was to come home better at pickleball too.

Since I’ve been back, multiple people I regularly play with at Brommer have told me that my pickleball has noticeably improved.

That was really cool to hear.

Because throughout the trip, I was playing in different places, on different courts, with different players, and adapting to different styles of play. I wasn’t consciously thinking, “This trip is going to make me a better pickleball player.”

But apparently it did.

And the other interesting part is that I did all of this while strength training only three times per week.

Actually, that’s become pretty normal for me over the last several months. For years, I typically strength trained 4–6 days per week. These days, I’m mostly lifting three days per week, occasionally adding a fourth.

Meanwhile, I’m playing pickleball 5–7 days per week.

And the fascinating thing is that my physique hasn’t gotten worse.

It seems to be getting better.

That has been a really interesting lesson for me.

More isn’t always better.

I love strength training, and I will strength train for the rest of my life. Maintaining muscle, strength, and bone density as I age is incredibly important to me.

But right now, pickleball is the highest-excitement way for me to move my body.

So instead of trying to maximize both, I’ve been asking a different question:

What’s the amount of strength training I need to continue getting the results I want while creating more time and energy for what I currently love most?

Right now, three high-quality strength sessions per week seems to be working incredibly well.

And there’s another piece to this: I’m moving A LOT.

I’m currently averaging more than 17,500 steps per day. Some of that comes from pickleball, and a lot comes from walking.

I actually wrote Newsletter 141 while walking around my father-in-law’s neighborhood in Huntington Beach. And I’m writing this newsletter on Sunday morning while walking around my own neighborhood back home.

There’s something magical about walking and writing for me. Moving my body gets my brain moving too.

At home, I’ll also pedal on my bike chair while doing creative work or coaching 1-on-1 clients. None of this feels like “cardio.” It’s just my life — pickleball, walking, writing, pedaling, lifting, and playing.

I’ve stopped trying to maximize the gym and started maximizing an active life.

This ridiculously active lifestyle is one of the reasons I’ve been able to maintain roughly 6–10% body fat year-round for more than a decade without feeling like I’m constantly dieting.

Even better, I haven't weighed or tracked my food intake in over 2.5 years, and I'm currently 6-7% body fat. FTR — I did weigh and track every calorie I ate for 10 years straight, so my intuitive eating is highly dialed into maintaining a lean & muscular physique.

The point I'm making is that the best fitness program eventually stops feeling like a fitness program at all.

It simply becomes the way you live.

RICH — Money Worked While I Played

This still feels like magic to me.

I spent 2.5 weeks traveling around California playing pickleball, exploring new towns, spending time with family and friends, going to FinCon, hitting the beach, working out, eating good food, and having conversations with interesting people.

I played.

And while I was doing all of that...

My money kept working.

My current net worth is approximately $3.69 million, and it's up nearly $57,000 during September.

Now, I'm not saying I "made $57,000 on vacation." That number fluctuates with the markets, and there will absolutely be months where my net worth drops by $57,000 — or considerably more — while I'm doing the exact same thing.

That's investing.

But coming home from this trip and seeing that my net worth had grown by tens of thousands of dollars while I was out living my life made me feel so freaking grateful.

Grateful for the money machine I spent years building.

Because this is what I wanted the money for: freedom, play, exploration, following my greatest interests and pursuits, and having the ability to wake up and decide how I want to spend my time without money being the primary factor driving that decision.

And here's the funny thing:

What feels like magic today was incredibly boring while I was building it.

I lived below my means. For periods of my life, I lived WAY below my means. I saved and invested every single month, and I did it for years.

That's it.

It's not rocket science, and I'm not special. But you do have to be willing to go against the grain of what's considered "normal."

Normal is making more money and immediately upgrading your lifestyle. Bigger apartment. Nicer car. More expensive restaurants. More stuff. Then you get a raise and somehow find a way to spend that too.

Building wealth requires creating a gap between what you earn and what you spend — and then consistently investing that gap into assets that can grow over time.

Do that for long enough and something incredible starts happening.

The money you spent years working for starts working for you.

I've watched friends reach financial independence incredibly quickly — sometimes in 3 or 4 years. I've met others who did it in 5-9 years. For others, it takes 10, 15, or more.

Income matters. Starting point matters. Life circumstances matter. There isn't one universal timeline.

But the financially independent people I've met tend to share a remarkably similar behavior: they consistently spent less than they earned and invested the difference for years.

Eventually, those years begin compounding on themselves.

And if you build the machine big enough, you can reach this beautiful place where money is no longer the driving factor behind how you live your life.

Money becomes the supporting factor that helps you live your best life.

That's where I am now.

The coolest part isn't seeing $3.69 million on a screen. It's waking up and playing pickleball on a Wednesday morning. It's taking 2.5 weeks to drive around California. It's staying an extra couple of days somewhere because I'm having fun. It's going to FinCon because I want to deepen relationships. It's structuring my work around my life instead of structuring my life around my work.

The $57,000 isn't the payoff.

The freedom to live my best Fit Rich Life is the payoff.

And to remember that I started my money journey $80,000 in debt, 6 years behind on my taxes, and stressed AF about my finances makes it that much sweeter.

LIFE — A Life You Want To Come Home To

Monday evening, after 2.5 weeks away, I finally pulled back into Santa Cruz County.

I couldn't wait to get home.

I couldn't wait to see my wife and my pet liger — aka my cat. I couldn't wait to sleep in my own bed, be back in my beautiful home, and wake up the next morning knowing I was diving right back into the life I've built here.

My home gym (Santa Cruz Athletic Club) and my super-fit gym friends. My home pickleball courts at Brommer Park and my pickleball friends. My neighborhood. My routines. My creative work. My wife. My cat.

And I was also incredibly stoked to get back to my hometown nature.

I'm looking forward to walking the stunningly beautiful beaches along East Cliff and West Cliff again, getting back among the majestic redwoods, and cold plunging in the Pacific Ocean soon.

Those are things I get to experience regularly when I'm home, which makes it really easy to start taking them for granted. But after being away for 2.5 weeks, even thinking about returning to those familiar places makes me appreciate them more.

This is a beautiful Fit Rich Life I've built here in Santa Cruz County.

And that realization hit me:

I don't need a vacation from my life.

I LOVE my life.

That doesn't mean I don't love traveling. Quite the opposite. Travel is one of the things that helps me appreciate my normal life so much.

Having novel experiences that take me away from home creates contrast. And that contrast allows me to realize just how fucking good my life is.

I think there are two parts to this.

First, proactively build a regular life you absolutely freaking love.

Not a life that looks impressive on Instagram. Not the life your parents want for you. Not the life your coworkers are building. Not the life society tells you you're supposed to want.

Your life.

What do you actually want your normal Tuesday to look like? Who do you want to wake up next to? How do you want to move your body? Who do you want to spend time with? What kind of work do you want to do? Where do you want to live? What kind of nature do you want access to? What do you want to have enough time for?

Then start building toward that.

It might take years. And you'll probably never finish, because a great life evolves.

Three years ago, I wasn't even playing pickleball. Today, it's one of the biggest sources of joy, movement, friendship, challenge, and play in my life.

Other interests I've had over the years have faded. New ones have appeared. I've changed. My circumstances have changed. My interests have changed.

A great life isn't static. A great life evolves.

As you age, discover new things, master skills, get bored with old things, meet new people, and enter different seasons, your definition of a great life should be allowed to evolve with you.

And then there's part two:

Leave it sometimes.

Get out of your routine. Go somewhere you've never been. Meet people you wouldn't normally meet. Eat different food. Sleep in a different bed. Explore a different culture. Challenge yourself. Get uncomfortable. Experience novelty.

Travel has this incredible ability to make the familiar visible again.

We adapt incredibly quickly to good things. Your house becomes your house. Your spouse becomes the person you see every day. Your friends become the people you always hang out with. Your gym becomes the place you always work out. The ocean becomes the ocean. The redwoods become the redwoods. Your neighborhood becomes the streets you barely notice anymore.

Then you leave.

And when you come back, you see it again.

Distance renews appreciation.

After 2.5 weeks away, I'm excited to get back to the coast, the redwoods, and the Pacific. Even the anticipation makes home feel fresh again.

It reminds me that this is home.

It reminds me that I deliberately built a life in a place I genuinely love.

And when I walked back into my house last week, I felt overwhelmed with gratitude.

Not because I wanted the adventure to end.

Because the adventure reminded me how much I love what I was coming home to.

That's the paradox.

Build a life so good you don't need to escape from it. Then occasionally escape from it anyway.

Not because you're running away.

Because sometimes you need to leave your life for a little while to remember just how much you love it.

ACTION — Keep Evolving

Pick one (or two) to evolve your life and level up:

FIT — Find your minimum effective dose. Look at the way you're currently training and ask: What am I doing because I actually need it, and what am I doing because I've convinced myself more is always better? See if there's somewhere you can do slightly less while creating more space for movement you genuinely love.

RICH — Increase the gap. Look at what you earned and spent last month. Find one way to increase the gap between the two — then automate that difference into investments. The money machine is built one month at a time.

LIFE — Define your ideal Tuesday. Forget vacation. Forget retirement. Forget the highlight reel. Write down what an incredible ordinary weekday would look like for you right now. Then identify one thing you can change to make your actual week look more like it.

Your fitness should support your life. Your money should support your life. And your adventures should remind you how much you love your life.

That's the Fit Rich Life.

To your health, wealth, and happiness,

— Justin David Carl