We’re back 😎 

I bought a business in May and have been pushing really hard to understand my clients, their financial standings, and how I can best support them.

I’ll talk about that more in future blog posts :) For now, I want to talk more about what’s been on my mind a lot lately: contentment.

I Want What I Want and I Want It Now

If you know me, you know that I push incredibly hard to reach my goals. If you don’t know me, you’ll quickly learn that :) Most of my successes can be attributed to an amazing support system, fabulous resources, and incredible amounts of time and focus.

One of my more farfetched goals was to take the second level of the CFA… with only two months of study time… As you can imagine, it was one of the most professionally difficult things I’ve done. Crazy focus, lots of time, and a ton of support from others helped me pass.

Every day I thought about what it would be like to pass.

Most days I imagined myself posting a LinkedIn post that goes something like “I’m excited to announce that I’ve passed the second level of the CFA…”

I was so ready to have that exam over with and done.

When I finally got the news that I passed, I flipped out in the middle of Vandy’s campus, posted my announcement post on LinkedIn, and then immediately began scheming for when I would take the third level.

Sure, I celebrated with an extremely large meal at Chick-fil-A, but I wasn’t going to be satisfied till I passed the third level and had the whole set of exams checked off. Now that I’ve actually passed, I can tell you that passing that third level was a thrill, but I wasn’t satisfied with it by any means; after a couple of hours, the adrenaline wore off and I was ready for the next thing.

Once I started running a business and had a million different things I needed to do (plus more that I wanted to do), I found that I was doing a lot of tasks and learning a lot, but I wanted to better measure my goals and successes. So I started asking myself this question:

What are my goals and when am I actually going to achieve them?

Motorcycles and Macroeconomics

I’ve wanted a motorcycle for almost three years now.

“Drake, motorcycles are dangerous!”

Yes, I know. I promise to be safe and careful. Plus, motorcycle riding runs in the family. For example, please see below for a (mildly photoshopped) picture of my (extremely cool) father and his bike:

I know the make, model, and brand of the bike I want - I’ve known for some time now.

“Oh my gosh, Drake! What’s stopping you?”

Great question. I bought a business. I’ve invested a lot of resources, both monetary and non-monetary, into the business so that I can promote growth within it.

Based on my personal goals to invest more in the business, have an ample emergency cash fund, and live generously, it hasn’t made a ton of sense to buy a motorcycle. Being content with that is often difficult.

I used to regularly peruse Facebook Marketplace for listings of used motorcycles that I liked and would watch Youtube videos of motorcyclists traveling across the country. I loved the idea of owning a motorcycle, doing multi-day trips, and driving it across the country. Candidly, most of this “research” I was doing was just teasing myself - I wasn’t ready to buy a bike and, at the time, didn’t even have my license (I do now though 😉).

I now understand that I want what I wanted when I wanted it, even if I wasn’t ready for it.

I don’t think I’m the only person who thinks this way.

In Morgan Housel’s book, The Psychology of Money, he describes the story of Jesse Livermore, a professional stock trader. Livermore was born in 1877 and was worth the inflation-adjusted equivalent of $100 million by the time he was thirty. When the Great Depression hit, he had significant short positions that helped him make the modern-day equivalent of more than $3 billion in one day. One day. In comparison, Michael Burry made $850 million in 2008 when he famously made a “big short” against the US housing market. Then, according to Housel, “After his 1929 blowout Livermore, overflowing with confidence, made larger and larger bets. He wound up far over his head, in increasing amounts of debt, and eventually lost everything in the stock market.” He wanted more. In 1940, however, Livermore took his own life.

I think many more people, especially younger people, have a mindset of getting what you want quickly.

Let’s start by looking at average holding periods for investors:

There are lots of potential explanations as to why (greater access to trading platforms, faster trades, lower fees, etc), but the reality is that many are losing out on long-term compounding, the benefits of long-term capital gains tax, and the improved mental sanity from not trading the market regularly.

Let’s go further and explore how people are financing their lifestyles.

Personal consumption has been “remarkably sturdy since the onset of the pandemic, to the surprise of many analysts,” despite continued monetary and fiscal tightening.

There is over $1 trillion in credit card debt outstanding - nearly a 20% increase since COVID (total debt for individuals has increased at a comparable rate jsyk). Interest rates on outstanding credit card amounts have risen at a faster pace, from 15% to over 20%.

It has to be a coincidence that credit card delinquency rates are the highest since 2012… right?

Savings rates are way lower than historical norms.

Finally, auto loan and credit card delinquencies are quickly rising, especially among younger individuals.

There are a lot of good things going on too, specifically the paydown on auto loans, mortgage payments as a percent of net disposable income, and solid consumer savings. I detail in this post my thoughts on the economy at large (it’s a bit older, but my thoughts are roughly the same).

However, from the way I see it, few of us want to wait for what we want, specifically when we don’t know when we’ll actually get what we want, so we take out debt, use credit cards, defer retirement contributions, or overextend ourselves to meet those short-term desires.

We’re only okay waiting for it when we have our goals in mind.

Tell Me What You Want, What You Really, Really Want

Let’s summarize some of my thoughts so far:

• We push really hard to achieve various feats, then turn around to do the next thing.

• It’s really hard to wait for the things we want; they’re typically financial-related things, but they can be relational, emotional, or situational things too.

• Because we’re pushing so hard to reach our goals, we overextend/overleverage ourselves to get what we want even if it’s not in our best interest.

We have a feedback loop of pushing really hard to achieve a goal or objective, with the reward typically being a short-term adrenaline boost and a nudge to go and pursue the next. Instead of pushing, we bring forward our gratification to get what we really, really want - like a motorcycle. I get for all of us it may not be a motorcycle, but I think you understand my point.

Cool… What Are You Going To Do About It?

This has all been on my mind because I’m now a business owner. I actually was on a podcast with my friend BC and we talked a lot about this on a podcast (coming soon).

I’m responsible for managing my company well, as well as the finances of my clients; I think about money almost every day for most of the day. I want to generate strong, recurring, scalable cash flows. I’d prefer that this happens sooner rather than later, but I need to be okay with the fact that it shouldn’t happen sooner rather than later.

My priority is serving my clients well and helping them generate strong cash flow, have financial peace of mind, and live generously. Those are my top business priorities every single day.

Spending most of my time on client work absolutely slows the growth of my company, as that’s time I’m not investing into growing the business; this extends my motorcycle timeline, but it helps me serve them so much more effectively. Once this business becomes just about scaling for the sake of more cash flow, then it’ll be when this business fails. I invest a lot of time and energy in networking, marketing, and growing this business (I think that’s a must for every business), but it can’t take the place of serving my clients well now.

If I chose to spend all my time networking and bringing on new clients now, then my clients would get poor service and I’d be overwhelmed by the influx of new clients from these efforts (a classic issue for a solo-preneur). I’d much rather prefer a long-term, stable growth path as the company begins to reach scale; the client experience will be much better, as will my stress levels.

Here’s why I’m okay with growing slower: I’m going to be doing this for many years. I have zero plans of updating my resume anytime soon. My goal is to figure out the best way to grow this business over the long term and serve my clients in new, unique, impactful ways. I have the 5, 10, and 30-year visions of what this can become and I am stoked for it. If I need to delay my purchase of a motorcycle to make that dream happen, I’m incredibly ok with it.

Let me put it to you another way: I’ve invested a lot of time, energy, and resources into growing this business in a sustainable way. I’m only okay with that because I see where this business is going, what it can become, and the impact it can have on others. I’m content with where I’m at right now despite the stress, long hours, and pressure because I see the vision.

When will I achieve my goals? I’ll talk about that in another blog post :) But they primarily have to do with the impact that I have on my clients, peers, friends, and family.

In Summary…

This isn’t a humble brag, but an encouragement to think about your own mission, vision, and values. Where do you want to go? What impact do you want to have? How do you want to live? Are you okay waiting for those things you really want?

• People want what they want when they want it.

• By getting what they want before they’re ready, they can easily overextend themselves and expose themselves to risk; it also reduces the probability that they meet their true goals.

• This can look like increasing our use of credit cards to buy things we really want, saving less to support our lifestyles, contributing less to retirement, or buying a motorcycle before we have a motorcycle license :)

• I think we often do this because we are constantly chasing a measure of success (comparison perhaps) that is frequently out of reach.

• Growing a business requires a lot of sacrifices; I’m okay with making them because I see the vision for the impact we’ll have. 

For those of you who asked me about the blog over the last 6 months - thank you. It means a lot that you care enough to ask me about it.

More to come soon…

Stay synergized!