Diania Merriam on Imagining The New American Dream
- 4:30 – why she stopped wanting to be the highest paid CEO in the world
- 6:30 – how she asked for two months unpaid to walk the camino
- 13:00 – on helping others and the costs of individuality
- 17:30 – on being cheap versus being frugal
- 21:00 – knowing you don’t want things versus actually not wanting them
- 28:00 – how she launched her idea for the econome conference
- 30:00 – details on the econome conference
- 49:00 – her vision for the “new american dream”
Why is talking about money so hard? Diania puts it bluntly:
When were talking about money, were talking about what we value
This conversation covers Diana’s journey over the past several years reinventing her path and learning about new modes of living life. She shifted from someone who graduated college assuming she “would be the highest-paid CEO in the world” to someone who wanted more ownership over her time, creativity and money.
Asking for time off from work
A few years ago she had just finished another year at work and was likely going to get a big raise. However, she didn’t actually want more money.
She wanted more time.
She decided to go into her manager’s office and ask instead for two months off so that she could walk the Camino de Santiago, a famous walking pilgrimage in Spain.
On the first day of that trip, she had a profound experience of being able to help others in a powerful way that was the start of a shift of how she wanted to orient herself in the world.
Launching the EconoMe conference
Experiments with the FIRE movement, minimalism, and seeing how resourceful she could be in her life taught her a lot and led her to want to create a space where people could build bonds and share their experiences for a “new American dream”
She was a brave early tester of my Reinvent course in the summer of 2018 and prototyped the origin story for the conference, which kicked off in 2020 and has been running for several years.
The conference will explore “The American Dream” which Diania believes originated as an ideal where “every person has the right to pursue his or her own idea of happiness.”
EconoMe is a one-day conference about reclaiming this right!
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