Transcript
Marcia Narine Weldon (00:01.628)
How often do you pause to consider what truly drives your passion in life? In today's episode, we're going to dive into this question more with the super inspiring Aman and Tom Costega. I want you to join us because they're going to share their journey from the rigidity of the law to the liberating world of life strategy. And they're going to offer some insights on how to break free from societal norms and redefine your personal success. So this episode is for you, whether you're a lawyer or not, maybe you're just doing something where you want to strike out on your own path. And Aman and Tom are going to tell us how to get there.
So Aman, I've known you for a while, because you used to teach me yoga for lawyers. And Tom, I'd see you in the background. So I have a little bit of an understanding of who you are, Tom, but I'd like you to introduce yourselves to our audience in one minute or one breath or less. And Aman, we'll start with you. Why should they listen to this podcast episode?
Aman And Tom Costigan (00:51.756)
I think because we're an example of what's possible as being two people who followed all the rules, did everything that we were told to do that would make us happy from parents and society. And then we took, I guess, you know, found courage to make different choices based on the way that we wanted to live our life. And that has been unconventional and other people don't understand, but we continue to communicate together and to continue taking action on a life that we love.
Marcia Narine Weldon (01:22.062)
Awesome. Tom, what about you?
Aman And Tom Costigan (01:24.654)
I'll just introduce myself in one breath or less because I like to be quick, but I grew up in Canada and I've been a lawyer for about 12 years and I come from a family of lawyers and I can as long as I can think back great grandpa, grandpa, all that, my sister, my uncles. So I went down that path and recently I kind of broke free of that and I'm on a sabbatical trying to figure out what's next. So we went from that life of kind of, you know, we knew what was coming next and now we're just trying to figure it out and live on our own terms.
Marcia Narine Weldon (01:56.882)
So I love that. And so there's gonna be some people saying, I'm not a lawyer, this is not for me. The amount of people I talk to who might be doctors or in finance or in some kind of business, and it's interesting because a lot of times we tie our professions, at least here in the United States and maybe Canada might be a little similar, right? We tie ourselves to what we do. That's our identity. And I don't know if you all saw the Wall Street Journal article that came out a few weeks ago about how do you answer the question of what do do? Because there's some people who might've been laid off or there are people who are retired.
or they're people who hate their jobs, but in the US we so much tie our identities. What do you, know, hi, how are you? Hi Marcie, what do you do? I'm a lawyer. Other people like, I try to make the world a better place. I play pickleball, whatever it is, but we tie ourselves. So how did you feel free to break away from the identity of being a lawyer? And again, it could be the same as if you're a doctor, a stockbroker, an investment banker, et cetera. Why, why now and how?
Aman And Tom Costigan (02:55.308)
Yeah, I'll go first. I really struggled with that because I had a built in answer. I was a lawyer and that question usually comes up in conversation. and since we've left, it's been about five, six months. And honestly, it hasn't come up that often, even though I'm always prepared to kind of answer what I'm doing. And I don't really have a quick, easy answer. And I went to a conference, in July and I thought that was going to be, you know, what do you do? And it was coming up and people did ask that. And I was really terrified of how to answer that, but
I've just kind of broken through that and it's not really my identity anymore and I'm trying to get through it, but it's not easy. It doesn't just happen like you leave and all of a sudden you have this great answer for what you're doing and that identity I'm still struggling with. So I don't really have a great way to break free through that.
Marcia Narine Weldon (03:38.182)
And I'm glad you're being candid about it, right? Because of course you guys don't have all the answers, but you still have some answers that are probably gonna help people. You might be a step ahead of somebody else. So somebody else is gonna get a lot of value from what you just said. Amon, what about you?
Aman And Tom Costigan (03:52.814)
Yeah, I think for me, it was about so I practiced for law for 12 years in private practice. It was kind of about at the five year mark. I was known by my colleagues and friends as being like, you know, when we went to New Orleans, they requested work, work, work by Rihanna out of jazz bar. Like that was my reputation, right? I was chicken with my head cut off. That was who I was. And that was my identity. And then slowly over time, it took me about six years, like, you know, kind of till the end of leaving earlier this year, about six years.
Marcia Narine Weldon (04:07.474)
Thank
Aman And Tom Costigan (04:21.41)
to start introducing different identities and hobbies and things that I loved back into my life or new things that I had never tried. And one of the things, for example, would be surrounding myself with people like you, who are professors at a university. You're doing all of these different things. You're into spiritual. You're coming to my yoga class for lawyers. You are a coach. You're doing all these different things. And I was like, wait a minute.
you can be a lawyer and all of these other things and a mom and you can be a sister and that just kind of blew my mind. So I started surrounding myself with other women, other people who were living the life that I wanted to live or who were doing life differently. And I just started kind of circling myself and really just flooding my social media, flooding my ears, my brain with those kinds of people and that kind of work.
because I knew that's where I wanted to be. And I just had to like blow my mind, like this is possible. I can be a lawyer and these other things. And then that's allowed me to expand my network of people, my ability of what I think is possible in this life. And then I've been able to make decisions in my life that kind of more bring me closer and closer to that.
Marcia Narine Weldon (05:33.206)
So for the person who's listening and says, that's all well and good. They were lawyers. They probably made a ton of money. And again, big myth. I'm not talking about you, but not all lawyers are rolling in the dough. How did you think about this financially? Because one of your big messages is financial freedom. So for the person who's listening and says, I want to be on sabbatical and not know what I want to do with life, that sounds like heaven. What kind of planning does that take?
Aman And Tom Costigan (05:42.22)
Yeah.
Aman And Tom Costigan (06:01.516)
Yeah, it took a lot. I'll start here because I'm more of the finance of the two of us, I think. I always grew up saving and stuff like that. And I always had an interest in it. But it was a I went out for beers with a friend of mine in December 2017. And he mentioned financial independence and the fire movement. And he introduced me to Mr. Money Mustache and the I think the article was the shockingly simple math on early retirement. So I really went down that rabbit hole of
Marcia Narine Weldon (06:19.078)
Duh.
Aman And Tom Costigan (06:29.986)
wait a minute, if you save 50 % or more of your income, this is how long you have until retirement. And really it's a number, not an age. So we really spent the last, I don't know, seven years just on that path and saving as much as we could. And along that journey, we cut out, you know, things that we didn't really value. So we had two cars, we sold them, we became a one car family. We did a lot of just really fun things to kind of cut down expenses and save more income. And so I think
You know, it's easier, like you said, on a higher salary, but you can do it if you make less, but you just have to kind of figure out what you value and you kind of spend ruthlessly on things you love and cut back on things you don't.
Marcia Narine Weldon (07:11.676)
Amon, what would you add to that?
Aman And Tom Costigan (07:14.19)
Yeah, I would say that it was really, so I had $100,000 in student loan debt when I came out of law school. And I also ended up buying a new Mercedes when I became a lawyer, because you know, that's what you do, or at least that's what I thought you did. So then I got on this path of like, I want a dollar to my name. So then I got sucked into the personal finance, you know, I just wanted $1 that was my own that wasn't I wasn't spending student loan or bank money or credit card money. And so I got really into personal finance to
Marcia Narine Weldon (07:26.354)
You
Aman And Tom Costigan (07:41.794)
And so together, think the communication of us being able to talk about these things openly about where we want to like where we're headed, what our goals are, and really making sure that while we were cutting expenses, that we were also making sure that we weren't missing out on living life, you know, in those years, right? Like seven, eight years, that's a long time of your life. So just making sure that we continue to not eat beans and rice every day, which we never did, but we'd never wanted to be so.
Marcia Narine Weldon (08:06.162)
And there's nothing wrong with that. In case my son is listening, I was like, you know, you can save some money by eating literally, beans and rice, protein, everything. But okay, nothing wrong with that.
Aman And Tom Costigan (08:14.574)
Yeah, there's a stage in life for that too. Yes. Yes. And as we approach, you know, as we approached into our 30s and stuff like that, it's like, well, let's not cut out everything that we love. So what are those things and really being conscious and intentional and deliberate in deciding those things and having those conversations. And so it really was about while I may have kind of drifted off the personal finance love path, like as much as Tom.
I know that it's important to achieving our goals and to living out our goals. And so I'm here at the table and I will be present at the table for those conversations because I know that money funds our dreams and our goals and where we want to be.
Marcia Narine Weldon (08:51.698)
Tom, you mentioned the fire movement. I know what that is, but for our listeners who may not know, what is it? And how influential was it? Was it like, this is really interesting, but now I don't think so. Or did you say, this is what I'm going to do?
Aman And Tom Costigan (08:56.972)
Yeah, so it fires them.
Aman And Tom Costigan (09:04.428)
Yeah. Yeah. Fire stands for financial independence, retire early. So, yeah, it's that whole community of just saving or investing as much as you can and retiring as early as possible. That's kind of the extreme version of it. initially I thought it was, it was pretty influential for us, but as we kind of went through the path, like we definitely don't ever want to retire from working. We want to do something. And so it was kind of from, we need to do this as quickly as possible and, know, get our optionality up to.
Well, maybe there's another way to do it and what can we do once we hit that to like keep working and what are our passions? So, it did go from hardcore fire to, yeah, we spoke like financial independence is more our, our style and what can we do once we hit that number or whatever it is, to keep working and keep having, you know, some meaning in our lives. and I think that's where we are now is just, you know, we want to keep working, but we're just, we want to have enough money to have options.
Marcia Narine Weldon (10:04.772)
What do you say to people that have kids that say, I can't cut because, you know, the kid wants their PlayStation or their, I don't even want to age myself. I don't even know what kids want anymore because my kid is 28. But, know, what I do, I do have a goddaughter. She's once gets certificates and money. So, you know, so what about the people who have kids who might say that's easy to say if you're, you know, two young, successful lawyers, but I've got kids to feed.
Aman And Tom Costigan (10:19.502)
you
Aman And Tom Costigan (10:30.058)
Yeah, I think you got this one. Okay. Well, we do have a, we have a kid, he's two and a half and we have another one coming in a couple of weeks now. So for you. Yeah, thank you. So we didn't have kids kind of when we started the journey, but they have, you know, they've come into our lives. So it is possible. We haven't gotten to the stage where they're in sports and wanting all the technology and all that stuff. So when we get there, we're going to have to face that.
Marcia Narine Weldon (10:40.626)
plot twist, didn't know that, congratulations.
Aman And Tom Costigan (10:58.76)
but you know, we've done things like we, have hand-me-downs for our child. got it from friends and family. We don't go out and spend, you know, on the new toys. get them from the Facebook marketplace group. sounds really boring, but that's kind of a way to do it. Yeah.
Marcia Narine Weldon (11:13.306)
No, these are the tips that people need to know, right? I'm assuming somebody is right now listening to this while they're driving, they're saying, gosh, I wish I could pull over, or they're listening to this while they're at home and they're taking notes. And I want you to be as specific as possible. So let's kind of rewind. Your Facebook marketplace, know, hand me downs. What else might you say are some conventional? And then what might be something that's an unconventional financial strategy you might recommend?
Aman And Tom Costigan (11:37.326)
have anything else? I also, we use our buy nothing group. So I don't know if that's big and like it's it's big in some communities, but maybe not in others. But we have a very active Facebook group in our community where essentially parents are gifting away, you know, winter clothing, toys that their kids are no longer using. And we do the same thing. We use it and then we just pass it on to the next family in the group. And then you can like literally I have gotten all the books. I've gotten an entire bookshelf worth of books.
that are excellent books and our son Mateo like loves them. So that's just another way of being able to, I think, reuse, keep things out of the landfill, know, share in the community and also keep a zero cost. Yeah, keep it zero cost.
Marcia Narine Weldon (12:24.508)
So this is the buy nothing movement. So you've got the fire, the buy nothing, the Facebook marketplace, chock full of finance little advice. Is that the most unconventional thing you do or do you think there's one that most people would say, I don't think I can do that, but it really worked for you.
Aman And Tom Costigan (12:26.859)
Yeah
Aman And Tom Costigan (12:41.582)
I don't think we've gone really off the map with saving money on Mateo. we're pretty like, you know, yeah. if I actually, in general, mean, we sold both of our cars. We're one car family. We bike as far as we can when we can. yeah, we saved more than 50 % of our income for the past seven ish years. we have like, we used to have weekly money dates where we would sit down and just talk about the status of our money or net worth, what we're spending on what's coming up.
Marcia Narine Weldon (12:47.568)
or just financially in general.
Aman And Tom Costigan (13:10.412)
what's gone wrong in the past, what we can change for the future. We've changed that into more doing it quarterly. But I think that a lot of couples don't sit down and have those conversations. So the openness and the communication is something that I don't know if it's unconventional per se, but I don't think a lot of people do it. And that really did help us get on the same page. Yeah.
Marcia Narine Weldon (13:29.394)
I actually love how you framed it as a money date, right? Because a lot of times couples get together like, all right, we got to look through the bills now, who's doing this? So, and I'm sure you had those conversations too. I'm sure it wasn't like, it's a date, candles and money, right? Or maybe it was, but I think that reframe really makes it seem like this is a good thing. We're going to watch our money grow. We're going to, you know, we're going to love on our money as opposed to thinking about this as some major sacrifice. Cause even if it is a sacrifice, right? You sell a car, you buy nothing, you do all these things.
you're looking at it and framing it more in a positive way, which I think energetically has to be better than what most people do.
Aman And Tom Costigan (14:05.518)
Yeah, we started with a pump up song. So we'd find a song that kind of got us going for that week. And that's kind how we got. Was it Edamame? Yeah, we like that one. That's our real estate. So and every time we have real estate investment, that's an opportunity or something that closes, we play that song together. Like it's just kind of associated with us and kind of energize us. We have a little bit of a dance party because you have to make it fun.
Marcia Narine Weldon (14:11.11)
Give us examples. What are some of the pump up songs?
Marcia Narine Weldon (14:26.119)
love it.
Aman And Tom Costigan (14:29.326)
You had some rap songs that had money in them. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Trophies by Drake because it's really upbeat, you know? But yeah, those are good ones.
Marcia Narine Weldon (14:38.594)
money day, we've got the music, you've got the dancing, and you're not eating rice and beans. What could be better, right? There you go. So I want to switch gears a little bit. So you all have a podcast. What's it called?
Aman And Tom Costigan (14:41.346)
Yeah. Exactly.
Aman And Tom Costigan (14:49.132)
Marriage with intention.
Marcia Narine Weldon (14:50.962)
marriage with intention, right? And you talk about, so one of the things you guys have talked about is transitioning from being rule followers to being rule breakers. So what does that mean? And then what's a specific rule that you individually and as a couple have decided to break?
Aman And Tom Costigan (15:09.614)
I think for me, like I said, I grew up in a family of lawyers and it was just kind of, I shouldn't say expected. I wasn't pushed down a path at all, but it was kind of like an expectation that you go do something like that. So I went into law without much thought about it and just kind of went through the motions. I did it for 12 years, although we had plans brewing in the background. I think the general thought with everybody looking at us was we're just going to continue on that path.
Like on became a partner. We were doing well in our careers. I think the thought was, okay, you just keep going down that path. and like we, got out of it and we've started a podcast. We've started an online course. we've, you know, got some real estate investing going on. I've managed our own finances for a long time and doing our own investing. So I think, you know, the conventional wisdom would have been, it's smarter just to stay in your career. And when we left, although I'm on sabbatical and I don't know what I'm going to do next.
But when we left, was met with kind of like, huh, like, why are you doing that? That doesn't make any sense. So yeah, that's kind of the iteration of our journey so far in rule breaking. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I grew up in a family where I'm the first female in my family line to go to university and to get a second degree. Like, so to go and to get two degrees.
Marcia Narine Weldon (16:17.222)
What do you think? Come on.
Aman And Tom Costigan (16:31.054)
And I'm also the first in my line of females to also not have an arranged marriage. So for me, education was very, very important. That was first and forefront. And then after that was getting married were the two main things. So for me, like breaking the rule that I will call, which is my mom not being able to go to university and me then leaving a law career, it was very confusing for my family to understand and very difficult for me to share and decide.
to have the courage to do and to also be proud of myself at the same time for making that decision, that I can have one dream, which was to go to law school, become a lawyer, do the best public good that I could in the work that I was doing. And then I can decide to pursue my next dream, which is being an entrepreneur. And for me bringing in that freedom and like time freedom, but also doing meaningful work, which is also really important to me as well. And so that has really been something that I've had to break.
in terms of like education is so important, you get a degree and you stay in that forever. And then me breaking that deciding, hey, I actually want to be an entrepreneur and I want to have this freedom and flexibility. And then the other thing I would add is like Tom and I are big into traveling and creating memories as a family. So for us, it was, it's been a long, I think, yearning of ours to travel per slow periods of time together. So when with three months old, we went together, we went to Portugal for six weeks.
Marcia Narine Weldon (17:52.402)
Mm-hmm.
Aman And Tom Costigan (17:57.644)
and we travel just slowly. So no rush, no like get on the flight, head back, go to work the next day. It was let's take these six weeks to enjoy and to stay in spots longer and to really try to immerse in the culture and give Matteo that adventure and that sense of like memories that we can, you know, create. And then we did it again just before he turned two. We went for the month of June to Italy, Sardinia, and we traveled there. So like slow travel to us is really important.
And again, people were like, I don't understand why you're doing that. It was just off of COVID when we went the first time people like, that's not safe. That's not okay. Why are you doing that? How can you do that? People didn't understand. And so it's like, I think that's another unconventional thing that we're doing that is again, an example of possibility. Like you can travel with kids. And I was also five months pregnant at the time we went on our second long trip too. like, that's not everybody's dream. That's not everybody's thing, but I'm here to say what is your dream? And like,
you can, it's possible, you can do it.
Marcia Narine Weldon (18:58.194)
So people are going to listen to you say, all right, sounds good in theory, but how? So if both of you have used the word courage a few times, right? If both of you have done something different from family conventions, the arranged marriage, I saw it as a whole other podcast episode we should do because I'd really be curious about that, right? But a lot of times people are worried, I'm going to disappoint the family. I'm going to let people down. I am the first person. Or more importantly, what I hear, because I coach lawyers also, who am I to complain?
Would I make $400,000 a year or whatever it is? No one in my family has ever seen that kind of money before. Where I've got this great degree, I'm wasting it by doing something else. how did you individually, cause I'm sure your paths are a little bit different. How did you get that courage and what did you have to do? Is it, you know, looking at other podcasts and getting inspired by other people, but you can listen to all of that and people can still say, I just couldn't do it.
And sometimes people have to do something because they're running away from something. And sometimes people are running to something. So with all of that kind of background and that question, was there something that specifically said, now is the time? Or how did you build up to being able to break all of those rules, societally, professionally, and from a family perspective?
Aman And Tom Costigan (20:17.428)
Yeah, I'll go first, I guess. For me, it was a gradual buildup. I struggled with that a lot of like the family aspect and what are people within the firm going to think of me and neither of us left a situation where we were like, we need to get out now. Like we both had good careers. We enjoyed it. We were in good positions. We had good firms. So for me, it was a gradual buildup of when our first baby came, I kind of really struggled with, am I going to go on paternity leave or not?
and it's, mean, the profession is changing, but it's still a little bit of a stigma. and there is a bit of a, it ruin my career or hold me back or not? And I had to struggle with that. And, I had a few guys ahead of me in my firm that had taken parental leave and I talked to them and I decided, you know what, if it holds me back or not, I'm going to do it. I took it. I took five months off when Mateo was born, we went traveling and then I went back and then that kind of set the tone for, well, I'm still in this career.
I'm still in a good position. I'm still enjoying it. Nobody has said anything to me. Nobody's holding me back. So maybe it's just in my head, right? A lot of these stigmas are maybe just what we project on other people from our own thoughts, right? So when the new baby came along and Om had given her notice, I was in a position where I thought, well, I can take this summer off and spend it with Mateo, with Om. And before the new baby comes, this is like the perfect moment. Rather than taking another parental leave and going back to work, I thought,
Okay, there's never a perfect moment to take this time, but this is a moment and I'm never gonna get this time back with a two year old, my wife and before a third baby comes. So I just thought I have to jump now. It's maybe not the right time. Maybe we're not ready, but I felt like it was just a moment in time when I could do it.
Marcia Narine Weldon (21:48.06)
Mm-hmm.
Marcia Narine Weldon (21:59.216)
Right.
Marcia Narine Weldon (22:02.788)
Awesome. What about you?
Aman And Tom Costigan (22:05.934)
Yeah, think mine's more like I got I got like a list is coming up in my head because I'm just I'm like that. That's like how I think. And so for me, like I was happy and I felt complete in my legal career. But how did I get there? I would say yoga was a huge part of it. I'd been doing it since I started practicing. So for 12 years, every Monday night for two hours, I went to the same class with the same teacher with basically the same people because everybody was
It's so powerful. And you know, where else are you finding two hours of undistracted time in your life, right? So for me, it was like a commitment that I had. And it was taking that time to really go inward and build that relationship with myself. So like that self trust that like listening to my intuition, like, is it intuition? Is it not? Is it just me trying to escape a situation that I don't want to be in? Right? Or, like, and the disappointment that you mentioned, like that was huge for me.
or giving up on a career that I had spent 15 years trying to get to, maybe plus plus some years trying to get into law school and all of that. And so for me, there was a lot of emotion that I needed to work through. So that time every week was time with myself just to go inward, not only just on that decision, but it gave me time and space to really pause and think about like, what do I wanna do with my life? And like, is the time now?
So I think yoga was huge for me. Another thing was journaling was a big one for me. So just watching my thoughts. So I'm big into like the mindset as well as spiritual together, but really watching my thoughts and really taking in that meditation, know, skill of being able to be a witness and be able to observe our thoughts and the limiting beliefs or, you know, the things we're worried about disappointing others or what other people are going to think, the judgment of other people. So really just watching my own thoughts and what's happening.
and being able to journal about that and catch what's happening and being able to be that witness and then being able to redirect and change my brain's thinking because my brain is just trying to keep me safe, right? It's trying to protect me from all the bad things that I think could happen from, you know, changing careers and trying something new. And then I also think Tom having open discussions with my partner, like every quarter we meet.
Aman And Tom Costigan (24:24.0)
as a couple and we spend a weekend intentionally planning the next quarter as well as just our bigger vision and future for life. But those quarterly, I guess you will call, we've done 20 now in a row for five years. So that is an opportunity for us to be able to kind of open something up. And that for me for in January earlier this year, that was the platform. It was like, Tom, I have these thoughts about, you know, maybe
pursuing my next dream and I think the time is now. I wasn't pregnant at the time, I didn't know. And I was just kind of like, I think the time is now. I'd been teaching yoga online for three years, doing vision board workshops for lawyers. I loved that work. Being an entrepreneur, that to me made me really happy and excited. And so having communication with Tom and being able to bounce ideas and share and kind of openly discuss like, okay, so what does that mean for our finances? Because for me, I'm a planner, I need to know that like our finances are good. We've been working on it for the last seven, eight years.
I need to make sure that he's okay with it. Like, what does that mean for him in terms of like, does he need to continue to work? What does that mean for our family? And so I think like having those things in mind, along with I was working with coaches, I still work with coaches. I think that's been very valuable. I have one-on-one, I have a group program as well that I'm in, but it just keeps me kind of refocused and in the zone on where I'm headed and where my future self, like what is she doing in this world? And like, how am I getting myself there?
Marcia Narine Weldon (25:46.514)
One of the things you talked about is you guys meet on a quarterly basis, and you also now have developed something for others. You've got a quarterly marriage alignment retreat, QMAR. I don't know if it's pronounced anything different, but that's what I'm saying. Okay. So what is that? And what's one key element of this framework that you all have developed that you believe could help not just couples, but any individual who's looking to live life more intentionally?
Aman And Tom Costigan (26:13.294)
between QMAR, so your thing. Okay, so I got really excited about it. So QMAR, we learned about it in 2020, actually, and we ended up joining another lawyer and her husband who were teaching the program. was all into expanding myself. I talked a little bit about this earlier, but I was into personal development and joining the groups and the people and the networks that I could that were going to take me to the next level and expand my brain.
And one of them was this QMAR program. So we signed up, we did it, loved it. It has created so many results in our life, right? Including the ones we're talking about just in 2024 that we've had. But I think the biggest thing that's come from it of intentionally planning essentially just over a weekend, every quarter is dream casting. I think that is one thing individually or as a couple that can be life-changing. Because anytime I've set goals in the past, it's generally like,
you know, a health goal, a work goal, a, you know, a spiritual goal or something like that, or a family goal. So I'll kind of just, I kind of stay surface level or very like linear, or I'll see somebody else do something. And I'm like, I want to do that just because I saw them do it. But I'm not really sure that I really processed it in my own, you know, body and in my own mind. And as whether that was really something that I wanted to do, like write a book, I hear lots of people say, I want to write a book. And I kind of go, you know, did you get that from somebody that you saw?
or is that really something that you wanna do? So I love the practice of dream casting beforehand before you set your goals. So for us, it's like having our individual visualization time, which is like literally 10 minutes. And then we get together and we dream cast together and we go through some prompts.
Marcia Narine Weldon (27:56.671)
So talk about what dream casting is because you're saying it as everybody knows there is. I think I'm figuring it out and I love how it sounds. So before you talk about the props or how you do it, just give us a little bit of a definition so we're all on the same page.
Aman And Tom Costigan (28:09.784)
Sure, so basically when I started doing Dreamcasting, I thought I had no dreams. I thought that like, it just kind of black wall was what it was. So what helped me was the prompt, which is there's several prompts, but one of them that really helped me in particular was, wouldn't it be cool if, for us, if we went to Portugal with our son for a month and a bit and just traveled when he was young? It's something so simple or.
wouldn't it be cool if we could go to a movie during the day when nobody else was at the theater? Like just, you little things are like getting outside or going to that retreat that you saw online that really spoke to you, you know? And so that really just started opening up my mind to what my dreams were. And those together, like just kind of.
you know, saying what comes to your mind and sharing those in a way that you're not sitting at a table looking at each other's eyes deeply, but rather you're in an active mode. So you're like doing something so like walking, I'm moving my hands as if I'm like walking or we've done other activities together as well. That like allow us to just share freely and openly and there's like no judgment around like, but we can do that because we don't have the money to do that or that's not possible because of this or like how would we even do that? So that's like kind of off the table, but it's really just like big thinking big visioning.
and creating that safe space to have that conversation together.
Marcia Narine Weldon (29:31.354)
And obviously if you are not in a partnership, you can do this on your own, but the key is not to limit yourself. So wouldn't it be cool if? I love that. Anything you want to add to that, Tom?
Aman And Tom Costigan (29:44.01)
Yeah, so I think it's just the process of just giving yourself the time and the space to like, know, like Om said, do something physical, not looking at each other. And if you're an individual doing it, going out for a walk or doing some activity that you're not usually doing, and just really thinking of like, what would I do if I only had one year left to live or something like that, right? Just getting your big dreams out and what, you know, what you would really want to get out of life. I think that's just really powerful because it really leads to
Okay, how do I achieve that? And let's set goals for the next quarter and chunk them up into how can I do that in 10 years or whatever. So I think the whole process of whether it's dream casting or just the QMAR or setting goals, if you're an individual or a couple, is just giving yourself that space and that weekend, that dedicated time. Cause I mean, I never was a goal person. I always had, you know, maybe I'm to do this or maybe I'm going to do that, but I never sat down and actually put goals on paper and achieve them. So for me, it was just, you know, having that space to just.
We know we're doing that for the weekend. Everything is blocked off. So we have that time. You sit down, you do the weekend and you actually have something concrete come out of it. I think that was really powerful for us.
Marcia Narine Weldon (30:51.686)
Love that. Fantastic. Now, one of the things you talked about was the importance amount of yoga. So some people probably stopped listening to you then and they kind of came back like, yoga's not my thing. He's talking about meditation. Now we're going to get into all this stuff that I don't like to do. I really focus lawyers on anybody. It's a high achiever in a high stress role, not necessarily on yoga, but the importance of kind of some kind of mindfulness practice, right? And I know mindfulness plays a major role in your life. So for the skeptics out there.
So actually, I'll ask two different questions for the skeptics and for those who are already in it. What's something that might be a technique or practice that you find particularly effective, especially as it might help in people making difficult decisions like you have done or diffusing tension? So how has mindfulness helped you? I'm going to ask you all individually. And what's something that you can tell people to inspire them to get started or to deepen whatever mindfulness practice they already have?
Tom, let's go with you first, if you don't mind. I saw you looking over to her for these are you listening. yeah, I he was looking over at her to go first. So let's let you go first.
Aman And Tom Costigan (31:50.899)
Yeah, I'm less of the yogi.
Aman And Tom Costigan (31:56.664)
Yeah. No, like I said, I'm much less of the Yogi. so just even having some sort of mindfulness practice was different for me. So I guess I was more of a skeptic. But just like what mindfulness has taught me is I used to be very reactive and I would kind of like, need to, guess it was the fight or flight response when I was a lawyer of just like, we need to get all these things done right now. So I was very reactive right away. would have to send that email right away.
But just having a mindfulness practice, whether it's just like breathing and spending some time doing that or going out for a walk for me, find that meditative to go into the forest by our house and walk. I've learned to just slow down and I don't need to respond right away. I don't need to get that email out right away. I can think about it. And that has been life-changing for me because I don't have that stress of I need to respond right away to this person. I need to do that.
It's just, okay, think about it, slow down, put it out of your thoughts for a bit, come back to it when you're ready. That really has changed my way of thinking.
Marcia Narine Weldon (33:04.326)
that. What about you?
Aman And Tom Costigan (33:05.942)
Yeah. And I'll say he says he's not a yogi or he was a skeptic, but he showed up six years after I'd been going to our yoga class. So we went to the same yoga class for five years together. And then then we started teaching. But the first thing that our yoga teacher said was like, you're yogi from a past life. So he has this natural thing. And my whole thing was she was like, man, you need 10 to 15 % less effort. And I was like,
I don't know how to effort less. I don't know how to do less. So my whole thing has been really this relationship with trying to like, what does it mean to do less, to effort less? Like, why would I effort less, right? So it's really been this building of this relationship and taking, know, my law practice habits, tendencies, strengths, whatever you want to call them as a chicken with their head cut off.
who gets work, work, work by Rihanna requested for her. You how is it taking that into this new entrepreneurial journey that I'm on or to being the mom that I want to show up as being, right? Or the daughter that I want to be or the wife that I want to be. And so for me, it's been able to take that skill, that practice and don't get me wrong. I don't look forward to going to my yoga class every week. There are days I want to stay in and not go.
Marcia Narine Weldon (33:59.922)
you
Aman And Tom Costigan (34:22.232)
There are days I don't want to meditate and I'm like, why would I meditate? This is like, I don't want to do this. And I've been doing it for a long time. And I think that that's totally normal and nothing wrong with that. And I think it's just continuing that practice and just showing up for ourselves. But coming back to, I think what's come away for me is really that relationship and that ability to slow down, like Tom says.
to build in that pause before I react because not everything I'm thinking needs to be said to Tom. Right? Like that, and that right there is huge, right? Or in a work setting, right? Like not everything I'm thinking needs to be said or typed in an email or sent in a text. So it's really that creating that pause as well and just being aware of how I'm reacting and showing up in my relationships. I think that's been just very, very valuable.
And then the technique I would just say is back breathing. That one I love and I think not enough people know about it, but essentially we all breathe right in the front of our body, generally in the upper chest. I think back breathing for me has been life-changing when I'm able to kind of focus my mind to the back of my body and know that there's muscles at my back ribs.
and then just try to expand my back ribs as I'm breathing rather than keeping everything in my front body. And it's like an instantly calming breath that you can literally do anywhere, even driving and stopped at a red light.
Marcia Narine Weldon (35:45.144)
I love that. See what I tell you guys? Chalk full of practical tips. Right. So, you know, one of the things that you mentioned that's interesting is basically yoga and mindfulness as a way to help preserve a partnership, whether that's a business partnership or as a marriage. Tom, has Amman being a yogi and you being a past life yogi that you don't want to acknowledge that you are a yogi, how do you think
Aman And Tom Costigan (35:48.302)
Thank
Aman And Tom Costigan (36:10.786)
You
Marcia Narine Weldon (36:14.61)
her yoga practice, her mindfulness practice has helped your joint venture.
Aman And Tom Costigan (36:20.715)
Ooh, that's a really good question. I don't know about the yoga practice. mean, the slowing down and not having to get everything done on one day, think would connect. cause Ominous is extremely good at being organized and just being extremely disciplined on. need to go like, she'll have a calendar of what she needs to do months out. But I think if you don't slow down and actually think about what actually needs to get done, you have it. We all have a tendency of just getting everything.
on a list of to do and just having it right in front of you and you feel like you have to get it all done in one day. So I think, you know, the yoga practice and mindfulness and just slowing down in life and realizing it doesn't have to get done right now. think that would tie into how we've gone about our joint venture right now together and just not freaking out about every little detail. It's kind of bigger picture and what we want to accomplish in five years instead of tomorrow.
Marcia Narine Weldon (36:52.454)
Mm-hmm.
Marcia Narine Weldon (37:18.796)
So for people who might thinking, couple of might be sitting and thinking, this looks great, they look really happy, or they sound happy if they're listening to it. What's the most overlooked difficulty when it comes to working together and living together?
Aman And Tom Costigan (37:32.814)
Yeah, I mean, if you've gone through COVID with a partner in a small space, you know that just being around each other all time might not be all that healthy. So we've really, we set up boundaries around our, our tasks in our business. mean, we, we try not to always be talking about it. Maybe we'll set up in the morning. We have, you know, nine to noon, we're recording a podcast or we're going to tackle this one specific task instead of.
you because it can, you can really bleed over into every aspect of your life. And I think that is the difficulty is just always talking about it because you're always together. So if you can kind of plan out, yeah, like I said, in the morning, we're going to do this instead of all the time you're talking about it, just like having that discipline over an actual schedule of what you're going to get done. I think we've, that's been very helpful for us not fighting and, and discussing it all the time in the middle of the night, there's nothing.
Marcia Narine Weldon (38:29.146)
I'm going to ask you all individually, what is a song, a book, a movie, a saying that has had a huge impact on your life and why?
Aman And Tom Costigan (38:44.408)
For book, I'll go with The Art of War because it's all about resistance. And I think that's been true. Like I resonated with so much in that book on my journey and really coming to what I think is my next calling in the world and doing this marriage work with couples. So I think The Art of War is the one that I would suggest.
Marcia Narine Weldon (38:48.177)
Okay.
Marcia Narine Weldon (39:07.292)
So what about you?
Aman And Tom Costigan (39:09.775)
My mind went blank when you started asking this question. The only thing I can think of is Psychology of Money by Morgan Halsall and just how we think about money and wealth and our lives in general. So I can't think of something specific about that book, but I just remember really enjoying it and thinking that's really applicable to our daily lives.
Marcia Narine Weldon (39:12.402)
Thank
Marcia Narine Weldon (39:16.466)
Is
Marcia Narine Weldon (39:31.019)
Another question for you individually. What is the best advice you ever received that you did not take and how did that affect your life?
Marcia Narine Weldon (39:44.956)
And for those of you listening in while they're thinking about an answer, you should think about this too.
Marcia Narine Weldon (39:54.642)
Is it the best advice you've ever received that you did not take and how did that affect your life?
Aman And Tom Costigan (40:04.91)
That's a really good question. feel stumped.
Marcia Narine Weldon (40:07.46)
I stumped them!
Aman And Tom Costigan (40:09.368)
Yeah.
Marcia Narine Weldon (40:12.114)
All right, I'll unstump you. What's the best? Like, thank you. Let's move on. What's the best advice?
Aman And Tom Costigan (40:13.61)
Yeah. I know as soon as we get this, I'm going to come up with something, but I can't think of anything right now.
Marcia Narine Weldon (40:21.45)
and you'll have time at the end. What's the best advice that you did receive and that you did take and how did that affect you? Maybe a piece of advice you'd want to pass on to somebody else who's listening.
Aman And Tom Costigan (40:33.486)
Hmm.
Marcia Narine Weldon (40:35.514)
or maybe it's the best advice you give to others.
Aman And Tom Costigan (40:40.46)
Yeah, I mean, I spent a lot of time, what I got enjoyment out of in my career as a lawyer was mentoring younger people. so I think maybe preached as a strong word, but I really tried to instill in them that, you know, you've got to figure out what you want to do and maybe just following the path in front of you is not what you actually want to do. And if that is, if you want to be a lawyer for the rest of life, that's awesome. That's great. But not everybody wants to do that they don't actually think there's another way. I think just
trying to spend some time on realizing what you actually want to get out of life can be very powerful. So I've tried to preach that to people. I think that's something I've taken in my own life instead of just following the rote path in front of me is, you know, try to think a little bit differently and what you actually want to achieve. Yeah. And I think for me, it's been taking care of myself.
Like everyone talks about it, right? Like take care of yourself first before taking care of others. And, you know, that's how you, you know, you make progress in life and you show up in the white as the wife you want to be as the mom you want to be as the business person you want to be. And so there's a lot of talk about it, but I think like doing it actually is different. Like implementation of it is different. And I think it really requires a lot of work because like Tom had mentioned, there's always this to-do list, always so much to do. We always feel like we're behind. haven't done enough.
I should be doing more, like, you how can I do more? And really just having that at the forefront for me has been both life-changing as well as I think is one of the contributing factors to being able to make the pivot that I've made is that I put myself first. I go to retreats, right? Like people found it crazy that with a 10 month old, I left Mateo with Tom and I went on a six day spiritual retreat in Tulum.
Marcia Narine Weldon (42:07.356)
Okay.
Aman And Tom Costigan (42:28.79)
Right? Like doing those things for myself allows me to better show up. But people think like, I can't do that right now. I have to wait till later. And I always challenge, you know, later and what that really means and if later will ever really come.
Marcia Narine Weldon (42:42.812)
Right. You you talk about working together and you guys look really happy. Are there people who should not work together?
How does a couple know, yeah, think this is, I mean, because like they could be all, you know, completely happy and love, we love going to movies, we have date nights, we travel together, we're amazing, let's do business together. Are there some people that you say, yeah, it's probably not gonna be a good idea for you. How would somebody know if they're a good candidate, a couple, and maybe it's not a romantic couple, maybe it's best friends, right? One of the classes I teach is business associations and half the cases are people who are family or friends who started a business together and now they're in a textbook, right? And people are talking about them, so.
So how do you know whether it's a romantic partner or a good friend or a family member that you should not work together?
Aman And Tom Costigan (43:31.81)
Yeah, think boundaries, if you don't have them. If two people want to always be talking about something, that's probably something you don't want to follow. I mean, I'm in business with one of my best friends. own a couple apartment buildings together, but we're friends first and then business partners after. So we're not always talking about the business. And I think if that happened, it would just turn into a different relationship.
I don't want that and he doesn't want that same with Am and I for business partners as a marriage, as a married couple. like I said earlier, just the, the schedule of we're going to speak from nine to 12 about this. If you're a person or if you're in a couple where that's all you want to talk about and that's your passion, but the other person doesn't have that passion or doesn't want to talk about it all the time. Or even if you both share that passion and always want to talk about it, I think that's maybe a recipe for disaster is just never having.
boundaries and the respite of just having something else in your life. So I think that's important. Yeah. And I think like one that I've used both in my law practice with my clients and continue now and even in the yoga teaching is like clear expectations, right? So I know that I'm the driver of our business right now for the QMAR program. I know I'm the driver. Tom gets to show up and we've decided ahead of time. He gets to show up for the podcast because he enjoys that. He loves that.
He has to show up for the one-on-one calls with couples because that's what's most meaningful to him in the work that we do. showing up on social media for him is not a passion of his that he enjoys, right? And then I know he's a really good editor. He can read and distill and he can help me with contract review when people approach us about working with us. like we have skillsets, we have strengths, we play to those, but we also know the clear expectations. So I can't or shouldn't be resentful.
if I'm doing more work in the business than he is, because that was our deal. So just knowing ahead of time what you're walking into to the extent you can. And then my thing is making it fun. If you can't make it fun and it's not enjoyable, then I'm not too sure why you're doing it together. Or maybe you need to reevaluate or check your processes and rituals.
Marcia Narine Weldon (45:38.962)
So now I'm going to ask you a question I want you guys to both answer independently. And I do not want you to build off of each other, even though it might relate to each other. What is this question? It's a question I ask my coaching clients. And it's this, if we were to not speak again for a while, and you happen to run into me at a restaurant, maybe let's, you know, in Paris when you're, you know, but you are walking to me individually.
Aman And Tom Costigan (45:47.864)
Yeah.
Marcia Narine Weldon (46:05.65)
And you walked up and said, my gosh, Marcia, you would not believe what my life has become. And it's 10 years from now. What is that? my gosh, you would not believe what my life has become for you,
Aman And Tom Costigan (46:18.838)
for me, I think it would be that I've got enough, apartment buildings and other businesses that I don't have to, work a, let's say billable job. so that, you know, I've got the freedom to. Yeah.
Marcia Narine Weldon (46:35.442)
That's possible. I want the, my gosh, you would not believe, like I could believe that. So this is, you would not believe, don't censor, Dreamcast, it all.
Aman And Tom Costigan (46:41.09)
Yes.
Aman And Tom Costigan (46:44.622)
You know what, this is kind of building off something Am said earlier, but it did come up in mind in Dream Casting. I said I wanted to write a spy novel. And that was something that when I was a kid, I thought was so cool. I love spy movies and spy novels. And I set it in a Dream Casting session and Am has kind of brought it up with me every once in a while. And I just think it's too big of a thing to do. So I guess it would be
you know, I run into you and I've got a best-selling spy novel. That would be pretty cool.
Marcia Narine Weldon (47:17.2)
which is going to be turned into a major emotion picture and possibly a trilogy. Let's go big.
Aman And Tom Costigan (47:20.93)
See, doesn't sound possible to me, so I guess that's right.
Marcia Narine Weldon (47:24.658)
That's why it's, my gosh, not like, hey, guess what happened? Okay, all right. What's your, my gosh. Like what, yes.
Aman And Tom Costigan (47:27.83)
Yeah. my gosh. I'm a foster mom to five kids. That is one of my future dreams. But I have still you know, a lot of thoughts around like, that's not possible because da da da da. So I have all that mindset work to do. But that is one of my like big, know, 10 years from now, it would be really cool if I was a foster mom to five, five kids.
Marcia Narine Weldon (47:39.09)
Wow.
Marcia Narine Weldon (47:56.504)
So for all of you listening, I want you guys to be thinking about that. my gosh, I cannot believe it. You may not like it's possible and I'm going to plan for it, et cetera. Because I think when you do that, my gosh, right? You really get your mind starting to think about that. And then you kind of reverse engineer backwards. is my, what I have to do five years from now, three years from now, two years from now, one year from now to be able to get to that, my gosh moment. Right. So, so if people wanted to work with you, who are you working with right now?
Aman And Tom Costigan (48:04.109)
you
Marcia Narine Weldon (48:24.114)
And it might be a little bit wrinkled because now you've got another baby on the way, you know, who do you work with? How do they get in touch with you?
Aman And Tom Costigan (48:31.576)
So we are mostly working with driven couples and they are interested in creating a life of intention together.
So essentially doing the quarterly marriage alignment retreats that we do. So we have two offerings. The first one is essentially an online course with videos that you can do at your own time and a workbook that's literally fill in the blanks, but it will walk you through how we've also created the results that we have in our lives and we'll teach you that exact process. So we have that. And then after the baby comes, probably early next year, sometime, we will reopen our one-on-one.
So we have basically the course and then we will meet with couples and we work with couples one-on-one together. Again, probably early next year before the Q and A.
Marcia Narine Weldon (49:14.94)
And that's early 2025 because we're not sure people might be listening to this. So early 2025.
Aman And Tom Costigan (49:19.082)
Yes, yes, thank you for that. Yes, so early 2025, we work with couples before the QMAR weekend to literally make all their decisions with them to make it super easy so they can actually do it and all that resistance we've talked about just kind of melts away. And then we meet with them after their QMAR weekend to goal implement and strategize on their goals that they've set for the quarter and the big visioning that they've done. So we work with them as well on that. So that will reopen next year.
Marcia Narine Weldon (49:46.354)
So somebody that's in the middle of marriage counseling, are they people that you're gonna work with?
Aman And Tom Costigan (49:51.188)
they would not be somebody that I suggest I think is a good fit.
Marcia Narine Weldon (49:56.806)
Okay.
Now for both of you as individuals, if you want people to remember one thing from this podcast episode, or if there's one thing we didn't discuss or something that you really want to get out, what is that one thing?
Aman And Tom Costigan (50:13.25)
Mine would be take time to pause and to think like whether it's for five minutes, two minutes in the shower, a longer shower, just take time to think with yourself without a podcast, without music and just start creating time to be with yourself now versus 20 years from now when you wake up and you realize life isn't the life that you had wanted. So make your decisions now, take that time now rather than, you know, waiting for later.
Marcia Narine Weldon (50:42.48)
I love it. What about you, Tom?
Aman And Tom Costigan (50:42.496)
I love that one. I love that one. I was going to say something similar. would say, take your finances seriously, get them in order. There's a lot of possibilities if you just have some intention on your finances and yeah, just take them seriously.
Marcia Narine Weldon (50:58.99)
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on the podcast. I think this is a great episode. So if you found value in this, please make sure that you all share it with people. And again, whether they are couples, whether they are business partners, whether they're their best friends, because I think there's a lot of actual insights here and as an individual about how you might live your life more intentionally. So thank you very much. Best of luck on the new little one coming soon.
and on the sabbatical and we will continue to follow you and we'll put the links to the things that you've talked about in the show notes that people can reach out to you as well, as well as your podcast too. So thanks again. Have a fantastic day.
Aman And Tom Costigan (51:31.886)
Thank you. Thanks, you too.
