Meet Mel Dorion | Financial Coach & Educator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Mel Dorion and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Mel, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
My business initially started out as a hobby driven by passion. In 2017, I created my blog Modest Millionaires, to document our family’s journey to financial independence.

Five years prior, at the age of 24, I discovered the FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) movement and learned that, in just 10 to 15 years, some people were able to build their investing portfolio to a point where they could use the income from it to cover their cost of living and no longer have to work.

Following this path could lead me to reaching that goal sometime in my late 30s. This had a huge appeal to me mostly because I was in a job that didn’t fulfill me, yet provided me with financial security which is something I value greatly. I also wanted to have a bigger impact on others and, at the time, felt that those career paths weren’t as conducive to earning a living wage.

As such, my initial goal with my blog was that sharing the knowledge I was gaining along the way to reaching my FIRE goal might help other people establish and reach their own financial objectives. It served in some ways to fulfill that desire to have a positive impact on others.

I also felt I had a bit of a different approach than others on this path and this different voice could add value. I didn’t want to be as frugal as possible. I wanted to fit in the things that matter to me on the journey. That involved a lot of processes to review what I value and make sure my spending was aligned with that and my FIRE goal accounted for those things. I felt it was important to share this.

Very soon after starting the blog, I began to mentor friends and some of my readers with their own finances. I had seen some of them receive little assistance when they were in tough spots and asked for help from bank consultants. The services were limited to offering products and did not necessarily dig into the actual process of how to manage your money.

This transformed into a side-hustle where I provided coaching services and eventually built up workshops around relevant subjects to help educate others on how to do this.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
I’m a financial coach and educator. I’m an expert in guiding individuals, couples and families with regards to aligning their finances to support the life they truly want. I have valuable experience working with clients on the design of financial independence roadmaps, transitions into Slow-FI options (mini-retirement, geo-arbitrage, sabbaticals, semi-retirement, etc.), debt payoff and more. I do this in the format of individual coaching, through workshops, courses, speaking engagements and the content I offer on my blog ModestMillionaires.com.

The most important factor behind my success as a financial coach and educator is that I focus on having a compassionate and positive approach to finances. By doing so, my content leads to optimal learning and sustainable progress for my clients and audience.

Encountering financial hardships and difficulty in managing one’s finances is often tied with many negative emotions. People feel discouraged, ashamed and scared when they face financial difficulties. I believe that shame is the last thing they need at that moment. Unfortunately, many financial educators use shame as a tool in their work.

I intuitively always felt like that was not the best approach. Then I began reading up on adult-learning and positive psychology and realized that studies supported my intuition. People learn better in a positive environment and, more importantly, adhere to behavioral changes in a much more sustainable way. As such, I’ve made sure to always aim to create content that guides people towards an approach that leads to hope and positive emotions to create the changes they want in their finances.

That in itself leads to onboarding motivated coaching clients who achieve significant transformation. Those clients get to experience the benefits of this positive process first-hand. They then happily talk to others about my services which continue to contribute to the success of my business by bringing in more motivated clients through word-of-mouth.

As for how I got to where I am at today business-wise, After a few years of running my financial education and coaching business as a side-hustle, I realized I didn’t necessarily need to reach my full FIRE goal before leaving my stable job. I created a three year plan to grow my business to a point where it could cover a good portion of my living costs without necessarily requiring me to work full-time.

This could allow me to leave my job about two years earlier than my original FIRE goal. My objective was to only have to withdraw a very small percentage of my investment portfolio in order to bridge the gap between my business income and spending. As such, my portfolio could continue to grow thanks to the magic of compound interest to reach my full FIRE around 40.

A short year later, the pandemic hit. This completely shifted our work-life balance as our kids were 4 & 5 years old and we found ourselves in lockdown for months. I realized it was not sustainable. Thanks to the plan I had already built, I knew I had options. I decided to take a sabbatical in 2021 and test out this part-time entrepreneurship project.

I haven’t looked back since and officially resigned from my 9 to 5 in the Fall of 2021. I now work about 20 to 30 hours a week on my business during the school year and a lot less in the summer to spend summer break with my kids.

As for the lessons I learned along the way, I believe that some risks need to be taken to succeed as a creative and entrepreneur, as well as to live our best life. So to me, it’s about taking calculated risks in my trajectory. As mentioned previously, I ended up taking the leap to leave my secure 9 to 5 job quite sooner than intended as a result of the pandemic. Working through the risks of making this choice was a difficult yet powerful process.

It was important for me to weigh the risk of one situation vs another. Would staying in my secure yet highly demanding employment have greater risks than the risks of taking the leap into entrepreneurship? The risks of continuing in an imbalanced work-life situation on my mental health and that of our children felt much greater than the financial risks of taking the leap into entrepreneurship.

Furthermore, there were other factors that could help mitigate those financial risks. For example, my partner who also covers 50% of our family’s spending felt he was comfortable remaining in his employment as per our initial plan to reach full FIRE by 2025. Furthermore, our progression towards our financial independence number was going better than initially projected thanks to a long bull market. This gave me an extra security net to leap into the risks of doing this transition sooner than when I had initially wanted.

Finally, I believe that it is incredibly important to allocate time and effort to aligning our finances to support the life we want. My work aims to facilitate this process and to support my clients as they evaluate the impact of their choices on their financial objectives for the future. The mindset work around all of this is very important and being supported by someone who has been there and seen countless of others do the same is incredibly valuable. It’s not easy to take a path that is different from the status quo but it is so worth it if that allows you to get to a better place!

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I live near Ottawa. I’d say the best spots are to enjoy the beautiful hiking trails in the Gatineau Park, a federal park of over 139 sq mi. Then you can visit the quaint town of Chelsea to have a delightful meal and perhaps visit the Nordic spa to soothe your muscles from all the hiking.

I also have a fondness for the Aylmer sector of Gatineau where I grew up. There’s a lovely local economy with great eats and adorable shops. I’d visit the Autre Oeil pub and take some time to enjoy the beautiful Aylmer marina.

Finally I’d allocate a bit of time to exploring downtown Ottawa and the Byward market. If you have kids, I’d encourage you to visit the Canadian Museum of Nature which always has fabulous exhibits.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
My parents came from financially unstable homes and it was highly important for them to provide my brothers and I financial stability. They were both in their early twenties by the time they had the three of us. They worked incredibly hard to provide us financial security and build up their wealth, all the while often helping their own parents out financially.

Contrary to many other families, in our home my mom was the one who managed our family’s finances. She often dealt with discrimination from financial representative. By her early thirties, she began reading books on personal finances and realized she had been badly advised in terms of her first investment decisions. Any proceeds were being eaten up by high management fees. She made drastic changes and made it one of her goals to educate her three kids on this with the goal of building generational wealth. She was always open with me, as her only daughter, about the added hurdles she encountered in this environment as a woman.

As such, my mom taught me so much of what I needed to know to become a financially confident adult. Both of my parents provided us this financially stable and secure environment that could allow me to thrive. These are privileges that they made sure we were aware of. They shared lessons with us on how others are not in similar positions often to no fault of their own and how important it is to use our privilege to help others. They continue to show this to us by example, being caretakers to extended family members who’ve dealt with severe mental illness, addiction and other circumstances beyond their control

All of this provided me with significant privilege, knowledge and confidence to take risks. I believe this is partly what motivated me to help others by sharing my own knowledge around personal finances and living your best life.

Website: http://www.modestmillionaires.com/en/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/modestmillionaires/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ModMillionaires

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/modmillionaires