Meet Laura Lynch, CFP®

We recently connected with Laura Lynch, CFP® and have shared our conversation below.

Laura, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

I love that we are talking about resilience. Now more than ever we all need to be building our adaptability and resources – both inner and outer. The heart of resilience, though isn’t necessarily about always getting bigger, better, stronger. Resilience is simply our ability to live through and change to meet the present moment.
I certainly saw examples of people getting through adversity when I was coming up. Change, though, is my superpower. It is what has allowed me to look at my situation and recognize the bad fit or untenable expectations and simply turn round and go a different direction. By saying no to something that no longer served, I said yes to the possibility of something else. Quitting is resilience. For example, I quit the American Dream to serve a more authentic calling and build a life capable of resilience.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

For two decades I followed the prescribed path: career, education, home ownership with determination. Yet at each step along the way I felt more trapped and less true to myself. 2020 disrupted my viewpoint, and helped me take the time out needed to reassess my values. Were they mine or were they society’s?

In 2021 my husband and I launched a 30 month project plan. We downsized from our 1800 sqft American Dream home in Florida to our 300 sqft Tiny Home in New Mexico. We both pivoted our careers to focus on what we were most passionate about. We became debt and mortgage free in 2024. We now have more time and freedom to focus on being in nature, connecting in our community, and building resilience for what’s to come.

Laura Lynch, CFP® is a tiny & alternative living finance and logistics expert, a student of permaculture and a land steward in NM and CO. She lives and works in-between her tiny home in NM and her off-grid cabin in CO.

Laura believes in a values based, integrative approach to financial wellness, which brings together nine dimensions of wealth for resilience within ourselves, our communities and our Earth.

Laura Lynch, CFP® provides comprehensive financial planning at https://www.thetinyhouseadviser.com/ and financial wellness at https://www.altamericandream.com/

Laura is the host of the podcast Less House More Resilience (formerly Less House More Moola) where she talks about how unsubscribing from the American Dream can free up resources for building freedom and resilience.

Laura holds a Master of Education (M. Ed.) degree and is a Certified Financial Planner professional (CFP®), Accredited Behavioral Financial Professional (ABFP™)

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Follow your curiosity

I used to think that changing course held me back. We have a myth about linear growth that tells us that changing direction starts us back at square one. Now as I look back, I realize that my ability to take up a new idea or job with curious excitement is what got me to where I am today. My career has had 4 chapters. Each played a vital role in my life story and makes my thinking more multi-dimensional and relevant. For example, while I was finishing my undergrad degree, which was paid for by the GI Bill I earned in the service, I completed a simultaneous year of construction trade school. I wanted to feel competent with residential building skills. Then that led to us building our tiny house, the one we live in today, in our back yard.

Move toward serendipity away from striving

In the past I have been called “gritty” in my determination and drive. Over time I have come to realize that though there are definitely things that require grit, if we put ourselves in a position to let things evolve, we may avoid the fixed path that we would have to force. I have forced career chapters that weren’t a good fit. However, now that my career has less responsibility, because we live a lower cost lifestyle, I can work with the clients I really love and take my dogs for a walk in the middle of the day. I still have to be dedicated, ethical and compliant in my work, but I can let opportunities show up rather than chasing them so hard.

Never stop expanding your self-awareness

As part of a college class I had to send out a survey to my coworkers to get feedback about my working style. What I learned was difficult and informs my journey toward self-awareness today. I learned that I was task oriented, unfriendly and hard to approach. At the time I took proactive action to edit my behavior. Today I better understand the why behind my approach and am moving toward acceptance of my qualities and delight when I see them in others. I make less effort to change myself for others as we are all magnetic – attracting some, repelling others.

If I could give advice to those early in their journey it would be to question the assumptions you have about life, career, success and happiness. There is a version given to everyone that looks mostly the same. It is far too convenient to believe what is shown to us. However, that version may not align with your personal values and traits. It is amazing to write your own script – so do it different!

What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Any advice or strategies?

I feel overwhelmed a lot – even in my lower-stress life. I believe there may be both epigenetic and life experience reasons beyond just what is actually happening in real time. I am still working on collecting strategies for dealing with overwhelm. Certainly daily routines/rituals help – things like: yoga stretching in the morning, B vitamins and breathing techniques. The primary improvement I have seen, though, is my growing awareness of “I don’t always feel this way” or “I will feel differently in a couple of days”. This recognition of the cycles of my experience put my feelings in perspective.

Going back to resilience, there may be many conditions in all of our lives yet to come that feel overwhelming. We all can work on learning to accept “what is” as a way to reduce both our anxiety or overwhelm.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

Tiny House photos by Kathryn A. Hayden.
Headshot with dog by Ryan Michelle Scavo

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