Redefining Success, Personal Freedom + Resiliency with Ingo Schulmeyer (part 1)

What does it mean to truly live free? Meet Ingo, a free spirit and financial freedom coach from Germany, who took the bold leap to redefine what success and happiness mean for himself and his family. During the global pandemic, Ingo broke away from societal norms, leaving behind a corporate career to chase a life of fulfillment in Mexico. Uncover the inspiring story of how this major life change impacted his family, especially his children's adaptation to a new, nature-focused educational environment. Ingo’s journey is a testament to the courage required to step off the beaten path and embrace change for the sake of personal and familial growth.

Ever wondered how to align your goals with your true purpose? Ingo, who transformed from a technical professional into a transformational coach and ultra-endurance athlete, shares his insights on setting meaningful goals. We explore the challenges of the "curse of a good life," where comfort sometimes conceals the way to true happiness. Listen as Ingo recounts his journey from struggling with teenage insecurities to achieving athletic feats and questioning the value of goals without deeper meaning. Learn how spiritual practices like meditation and yoga, along with the power of visualization, have helped him and can help you find your path to personal freedom and fulfillment. Join us for a thought-provoking conversation that promises to equip you with tools and inspiration for aligning ambition with contentment.

About Ingo Schulmeyer:
Free Spirit, Financial Freedom Coach, World Citizen, 6x Ironman, happy family father
https://www.thesmallreset.org/
https://www.youtube.com/@theSmallReset,
https://twitter.com/Coach_Ingo,
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ingo-schulmeyer-10245294

Chapters

• 0:06 Reignite Resilience and Personal Growth
• 6:24 Transformational Coaching and Personal Growth
• 14:18 Goal Setting and Personal Growth

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:06

All of us reach a point in time where we are depleted and need to somehow find a way to reignite the fire within. But how do we spark that flame? Welcome to Reignite Resilience, where we will venture into the heart of the human spirit. Resilience where we will venture into the heart of the human spirit. We'll discuss the art of reigniting our passion and strategies to stoke our enthusiasm. And now here are your hosts, natalie Davis and Pamela Cass.

Speaker 2: 0:41

Welcome back to another episode of reignite resilience Resilience. I'm your co-host, natalie Davis, and I am so excited to be back with you all today. And joining me, of course, is your co-host Pam Cass. Pam, how are you?

Speaker 3: 0:53

today. You know what I am fabulous. This is my last thing of the day. Maybe, Maybe we could all be so lucky. I think I have a few things more that.

Speaker 2: 1:03

I have to do for work tonight, but it's been a long couple of days, yeah, oh yeah, I think as you head into this holiday season, it's like the days get longer and the weeks get shorter. I don't know how that works, but that's what happens, yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:16

And I get older and that's it.

Speaker 2: 1:19

That's it. Well, we have a fabulous guest that's joining us today, so I will toss it over to you. If you could tell our listeners who's joining us.

Speaker 3: 1:29

Yes, so we have a special guest today and I'm excited because we just get to have some of the most incredible people on our podcast and this bio is incredibly short, but wow so, free spirit, financial freedom coach, world citizen, 6x Ironman, happy family father. So I'm going to pass it over to you. And is it Ingo? Did I say that right, ingo's?

Speaker 4: 1:56

great, yeah, Okay perfect.

Speaker 3: 1:58

So I'm passing it to you and you know, tell us your story, tell us about yourself, and we'll just dive right in.

Speaker 4: 2:05

Yeah, sure, first of all, thanks for the invite and thanks for the quick summary. I tried to make it very short, but it's basically some side of my life, but I'm happy to share a little bit more. So, yeah, my name is Ingo, I'm from Germany. I lived there most of my life, but I always wanted to go out and I was always curious about adventures. And it happened. Then I started traveling and everything and I also started to work in a career. I made a corporate career, so I was working for more than 15 years as a engineering and product management director in the semiconductor industry, but it didn't really fulfill me.

Speaker 4: 2:38

And then actually, yeah, like a few years ago, almost three years ago, me and my family we made that decision it was during the pandemic and we said, okay, we were not so happy anymore with the jobs and before I was traveling a lot all over the world, and then I was just sitting at home and sitting in front of the Zoom meetings all day long.

Speaker 4: 2:56

And, yeah, then I think I reached a point where the pain was big enough and we just said okay, and then the kids didn't really go to school anymore because they were closed and they had the Zoom meetings.

Speaker 4: 3:06

That didn't work and so it was a little bit frustrating. So we made a decision. We said, okay, we sold all our things our house, our cars and basically everything we had and we took everybody our two kids and our two dogs and we moved to Mexico and we traveled around here for like eight or nine months and then we found a place here actually the city where we live now and we really liked it here and and the kids liked it, so we, they went to school here or they started going to school and, yeah, we decided to stay here, at least for the next I don't want to say forever, right, because for me nothing is forever, so I'm not, that's not my planning horizon but at least for the next years, I think, until the kids are a little bit older. I mean, they're now teenagers, so I guess in a few years they want to make their own decisions, and so we said, ok, for now we're staying here.

Speaker 3: 3:54

So wow, so you leave Germany and go pretty much across the globe to Mexico and travel around for eight or nine months. How did the kids adjust to that? How did they feel about that? How did they? How did they adjust?

Speaker 4: 4:08

Yeah, for the kids, I think it was incredible because they I mean, of course, you know, in the beginning they were they were a little bit sad because they had to leave their friends and everything and their like family. But I think we also did it in a good age. They were at this time they were, I think, 9 and 11. So we said, okay, if we want to do it, we need to do it now, because once they're teenagers, it's much more difficult to take them out of their social environment right, because they have their own friends or more close friends and everything. And yeah, I mean they were pretty open and I think they did a great job in adjusting here and I think also they learned a lot here when we're traveling, about the culture, but also about life in general. And yeah, when we arrived here in the city, we were here for like a few days and then we met another couple. He's from Germany and she's from the United States. They also live here and they had a daughter and the daughter went to school.

Speaker 4: 5:02

It was a very nice school. It's like in the forest. It's a small school. The kids are in the nature all day and they're. It's a very nice way of learning, and we said, okay, you can try it to go there to our kids, right, and they went there and after the first day they came home and they said, okay, we will stay here, wow that's all it took.

Speaker 3: 5:23

Yes, jungle, and they were.

Speaker 2: 5:24

They were sold on it yes, absolutely well, inga, you started out on this journey of looking for more, wanting more. Right, you had reached this point where you weren't getting the fulfillment and satisfaction out of life that you thought. You knew that there was more. So how has that journey progressed for you? Where are you now with that?

Speaker 4: 5:43

yeah, I think very good and I think for many years I'm on a personal development journey right, more than 20 years I'm 46 now and when I started studying and when I was in my early 20s, I started to work on myself and I always wanted to make this career and I was always chasing these goals that most of the people have right when I have a career and money and like whatever and it also worked pretty good for me. I was always good in chasing my goals. I usually achieved the goals and you mentioned I also have an athletic career. I did many Ironmans. I went to the Ironman World Championship on Hawaii in 2018. So I was always good in manifesting my goals and also then go for them and achieve them.

Speaker 4: 6:24

But, yeah, you said it correctly. I mean, what was missing was really like the real purpose and the real maybe my definition of success right, maybe it was not really. I was not really aligned with myself and, yeah, for many years I maybe thought it was. Yeah, maybe I was chasing somebody else's dream and it was. You know.

Speaker 4: 6:42

I mean we all think that's something I figured out. We all think we know what we want right and we know what we're striving for and we know what a good life should look like. But I found that we're also very biased by, especially today. Right, we have all this social media and all this stuff and we hear all day what other people are doing and from our families and friends, so I think it's very difficult to find this connection with ourselves, and that's something maybe I was missing and it's something I've worked a lot over the last years and, yeah, now I feel much better. I mean, I built my own business, I'm doing stuff that I love to do and, yeah, Fabulous, and I'm assuming that you started this business after moving to Mexico.

Speaker 4: 7:21

Yeah, exactly, and already before I started doing meditation and started finding my own purpose and starting my spiritual journey. And then when we moved to Mexico, I didn't really know. I was also not worried so much about the finances, so I thought we will work it out somehow, and it was also, I must say, when we made this decision, I had for many years I had this limiting belief that I cannot quit my job because, you know, I need to paycheck at the end of the month and I need to feed my kids and I need to pay the mortgage and everything. But once we made this decision, it was like a freeing process right Immediately it fall, this big burden fall from the shoulders. And when we were standing at the airport, I remember we were standing there like with dog cages and with eight suitcases or something like that. We still have the photo, yeah, and I never really looked back and I never regret anything.

Speaker 2: 8:12

That's great. That's great. And you mentioned like going on that spiritual journey piece, right with the yoga, the meditation, the reflection. I'm assuming you did some journaling in there, figuring out who you are and then, yeah, and not having that not that it wasn't responsibility, but feeling like you were kind of tethered to your career. Because you were responsible, you had to pay for the house and the food and the kids and taking care of your family, and I have the visual, like the freeing experience, of standing in an international airport with your luggage. And I have the visual, like the freeing experience of standing in an international airport with your luggage and your pet crates, like here we go your whole life like right there.

Speaker 2: 8:50

Here's your new beginning.

Speaker 4: 8:52

Yeah, it was really like a new beginning and that's what I wanted to say. I was not worried about finding a job for something. First I thought, because I'm coming from a technical background, I will find something you know, some consulting or engineering. But then I did also a lot. I did a lot of like courses and educations on transformational coaching and NLP and this stuff, and in the beginning I didn't do it because I wanted to do this as a job. I did it for myself, to find out more about myself and about my past and all my you know my belief system and everything about myself and about my past and all my you know, my belief system and everything. But yeah, the changes and the experience was so profound for me that then I started to do it more and more and with other people and I started to do this as a job and building my business based on that. And it wasn't a plan from the beginning. I mean, it's just like it developed like that.

Speaker 2: 9:37

It naturally progressed. Yes, well, tell us about this business. I'd love to hear this now that you've come out of the engineering tech side and you come into more of a tangible, spiritual, transformational side of your career, your profession I mean I'm helping people that were basically in the same situation that I was right, there were people that are.

Speaker 4: 9:55

I think there are many people that are more or less successful, right, or at least at least what society defines as successful. I mean they have good jobs, they have good money, but still they're especially in the Western world, right, like in Europe or also in the United States. People are so stressed right, they're just running from one meeting to the next and everything is yeah. It's almost like you're delaying your happiness for the time for once you made enough money or once you're retired. I think that's a problem because time is very limited. So that's what I'm working on with my clients now to help them to find really their purpose and also to take away this limiting beliefs that they have and eventually find also better solutions for such people.

Speaker 4: 10:41

So I call it like the curse of a good life. Right, because I think we because most of us are not really miserable, right, we have. I mean, we have something to eat and we have a roof and a shelter and buy some pleasure and everything. It could be better, but the point is, if you're in this kind of good life, it's very difficult to change from there because the pain is not so big enough that you're really life. It's very difficult to change from there because the pain is not so big enough that you're really willing to make this or to step in this potentially much bigger risk of doing something completely different, and so you just step by step, you continue on a path that's not really bringing you where you want to go.

Speaker 3: 11:16

That's my mission to help people so how do people like I guess I would. I'm trying to think of the question I would ask you. It's how do people one find you and how do they usually come to you? Like, what makes them say, oh, I need to seek out a coach or somebody in this realm, Cause I don't know? I think, like you said, most people were just kind of on this like forever treadmill and we're just showing up and doing the same thing over and over again and we're living a comfortable life. But what happens usually, or is there a common thing that typically happens that makes people say I think I want something different?

Speaker 4: 11:51

yeah, I think the first step in this process is that you really recognize that you're in such a situation and that you, that you become aware of that and that you really become after willingness to change something.

Speaker 4: 12:01

And therefore, I think you need a certain level of pain and look, I think it's much. I mean it sounds maybe silly to say, but it's much easier to change something if you're coming from a really, let's say, a dramatic situation. Right, if you have a really dramatic childhood, or if you lose some partner or family member. That's very hard and it's very sad, of course, but then you're in a position where you really have to make changes because there's no other way. But if you're in this good life, it's yeah, as I said, it's very difficult to even even get there. And yeah, I mean the first step is that people need to recognize that and then usually they recognize also that it's easier if they get help from somebody, because it's very difficult to find it out for ourselves. And I think in dialogues, if you have a good coach, it's much easier to. It's not always pleasant, right, but it can help much more to go in these areas of your subconscious mind and feelings that you usually avoid to go there.

Speaker 3: 12:59

Yeah, because I could see wanting to hold on to that past life and not letting go of that to start a new life, just out of fear of the unknown of what could happen. But you did it, yeah. Yeah, sold everything and started this new, amazing life, yeah.

Speaker 2: 13:17

Not every individual is going to transform every area of your life, which is what you and your family did right. You transform your environment new environment, new career, new school for the kids. Financial situation looks different because you're going from engineering position and salary position to an entrepreneurship space. Like you transformed everything at the same time. Not everyone's really cut out for that transformed everything at the same time. Not everyone's really cut out for that.

Speaker 4: 13:44

Just the same way, not everyone's cut out to be an Ironman, competitive athlete and I'm saying, yeah, I mean, that's my solution. What I'm doing is I'm not proposing anybody to do the same right, I'm helping people to find their solution. I believe we all have our own solution within ourselves and we need to get it out. It doesn't help to follow anybody else's path. I'm not recommending anybody to sell everything and move to the other end of the world, but we all have our own. I strongly believe that we all have our own truth and our own way that we should walk in ourselves.

Speaker 3: 14:18

Do you have tools that you use to help people kind of figure out what that is?

Speaker 4: 14:23

Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean there are many psychological tools for depending on different situations. I mean, usually we're starting to work on really finding their purpose and therefore you really need to dig in yourself. And I mean tools that they can apply for themselves are meditation or just like, yeah, disconnect from for a while from from your phone, from social media, or also from friends and and reconnecting with yourself. But there are also, yeah, a lot of tools that we use, a lot of this, nlp tools, if you're familiar with that, and yeah, so you can work on different things. You can work with limiting beliefs, you can work on fears, you can work on your vision, and I mean the tools are basically just by asking questions. Right, that's my only task. Right, I'm not giving any suggestion, right, it's just the best coach is just asking questions and listening.

Speaker 2: 15:17

Yeah, that's right. Wow, that's amazing. Well, ingo, you mentioned that you've really had this natural drive to achieve your goals, setting those goals since a young age, so even before this journey that you've entered on traveling and now with your family. Can you pinpoint when that started? Has that just been as a child? You set a goal and you knew I'm going to make the school team, or I'm going to whatever, fill in the blank of whatever a childhood goal would have been no-transcript.

Speaker 4: 15:57

That's a very interesting question. I need to think about it. I think it was definitely not always like that. I remember when I was a teenager, I was a very bad student. I was a lot out and with my friends and making parties and doing all the stuff like smoking, weed and drinking alcohol, and I think it started when I was like 18, 19, 20, when I got maybe too old for this nonsense. So from there I started to really start to look for always growing more and, as I said, I was very bad in high school. I had very bad marks, and then I started working. But then, when I was 18, 19, I decided I want to go to university, I don't want to study and I want to do more than that. I started doing a lot of sports and I think it started then, I would say, and from there I always increased my goals and they become always bigger.

Speaker 2: 16:51

Yeah, is that also when you found or had the desire to compete in an Ironman competition?

Speaker 4: 16:57

This started also like that. I mean, I started when I was like 18. I come from an athletic family, so we went skiing when we were kids, I played football and then between 13, 14 and 18, I didn't do sports anymore. But then I came back, I started running and then I started cycling, of cycling, races, also long distance cycling and I think it was in 2007 when I said, okay, then now I'm running a lot of some cycling, a lot. I just need to add swimming, then I can do a trial run. And then I taught myself swimming. I mean, I knew how to swim, but not really like a professional swimming. So, yeah, I think it was in October 2007 I signed up for my first Ironman, which was one year later, and I couldn't swim.

Speaker 4: 17:42

So in the winter I had to go to the swimming pool and I went there three, four times a week during the university and I taught myself swimming. And then, one year later, I did the first Ironman. But then I was also just. I mean, this is also like a nice example for like a progressing or a growing goal, right, I just wanted to finish there and I finished. But then I wanted to become better and at one point, I said, okay, I want to go to the world championship and I reached this. Then, like 10 years later in 2018, I went to the. I qualified for the world championship.

Speaker 3: 18:12

Do you do Ironmans anymore Right now?

Speaker 4: 18:16

no, but I think a little bit about it because when we were traveling I didn't have bicycles here, and now I'm going running and again I have a mountain bike here. But yeah, I'm pretty busy with my other stuff right now, but maybe in one day.

Speaker 2: 18:30

I was going to say it doesn't sound like you miss it yet.

Speaker 4: 18:33

The point is, I mean, if you think about evolving goals, yeah, the point is, when I went, this was also something. When I went to this world championship, then in 2018, I think this was also like a pivoting point for me, because when you reach there and when I crossed the finish line, I mean it was amazing, right. But a little bit after that, I also felt empty somehow, because, okay, I mean, what's coming next? I went to the world championship, so what's? I mean? There's not much more, right I I could say, okay, I can do it whatever Half an hour faster or something like that.

Speaker 4: 19:06

But yeah, so I was a little bit missing the sense of setting these goals and just running from one goal to the next. That also was a point when I started to look for something with more meaning, because I figured out, okay, I mean, if I'm running just from one goal to the next, it's also not really fulfilling. So from there, I started also to find more passion in the moment. I like competition sometimes, so maybe I'm not saying I will never do it again.

Speaker 2: 19:31

I can't say that that would ever go away.

Speaker 4: 19:32

I can't imagine that ever going away in a person that competitive that natural competitive nature.

Speaker 2: 19:38

We hope that you've enjoyed part one of our two-part conversation with Ingo Schulmeier, the ultra endurance athlete that has found his way to his purpose in life through visualization and manifestation, to a place where he is living life on his terms. Make sure that you come back and join us for part two, because we're going to continue to dive into understanding the importance of setting goals and making sure that we don't fall victim to the curse of a good life. We'll see you soon.

Speaker 1: 20:08

Thank you for joining us today on the Reignite Resilience podcast. We hope you had some aha moments and learned a few new real life ideas. To fuel the flames of passion, please subscribe on your favorite streaming platform, like or download your favorite episodes and, of course, share with your friends and family. We look forward to seeing you again next time on Reignite Resilience.