Playing the Long, Long....Long Game

As my kids are heading into first grade next week, they are in this sweet spot where they are just getting into reading. They are fascinated with it, but aren't yet fully proficient. Out of sheer curiosity, they try to read just about everything. TV tickers, nutrition labels, shirts in public (this one is dangerous), highway signs.....everything.

The other day, out of the blue, Finn looked over at me and said, "Dad, when I'm bigger, I'm going to read your blog." It was a brief but touching moment for me. The idea he likes to read makes me happy, but the idea he wants to read my writing is profoundly special.

Over the last several years, I've published hundreds of thousands of words, nearly a hundred hours of audio, and countless videos. I create this content for those I wish to serve (including you!). I genuinely want to help people, add value to their lives, and play a positive role in their journeys. However, there's a secondary motive behind what I do. Someday, when I'm buried in the ground, my work will still be here for people to use and enjoy.

I often think about how fast our world is moving. I'm still pretty young, but I grew up in an entirely different technological era. I have a limited amount of grainy home video footage and a few hundred pictures. That's it. When those who came before me pass, I'll still have my memories, but nothing concrete. Several years ago, my paternal grandfather wrote a self-published book about his life. Now that he's gone, that book has become much more special in my life. It's something I can read and re-read for decades to come.

But my kids will have an entirely different future regarding content and memories. Someday, they may stumble upon a blog post, YouTube video, or podcast episode where I talked about them. It's like a digital time capsule that the weather can't destroy. These are memories, stories, wisdom, and tributes, cemented in time.

Someday, when Finn is "bigger," I hope he types my name into whatever search engine runs the world at that time. When he does, oh the treasures he will find! Each written word, snippet of audio, and video clip will be there to meet him where he's at. No matter how much good comes from my work, or if it happens to change the world, there will be no greater joy than to have my kids someday receive what I've left behind. I'm playing the long, long, long game.

If this post made you think about your own life (and those who come after you), let it serve as an inspiration and motivation to create. What you create is up to you, but just create. Put something into the world that you'll be proud of for people to discover and enjoy for decades to come. By the way, if you don't think you have something worth sharing, you're wrong. It matters!

One Bite at a Time

In November 2008, on the heels of just finding out we would soon be forced to move to a new state because of my job situation, my new fiancee (of three days) and I were sitting with $236,000 of debt and a whole lot of stress. To clarify, she had $0 of debt and I had $236,000. Beautiful, I know. Thus began a journey that would forever change our lives.

We didn't know how to pay off $236,000 of debt, so we did the only thing we could think of. We paid off what we could this month. Then we did the same thing next month. Then again the following month. Some months we paid off a ton, while in others, it was far less. But we were committed to making progress.

It reminds me of a famous quote from Desmond Tutu. "There is only one way to eat an elephant: one bite at a time." We couldn't pay off $236,000 in one swoop, so we just took one bite at a time. 4.5 years later, the debt was gone. That final payment happened more than 11 years ago, and that achievement still boggles my mind.

Today, we published the 250th episode of the Meaning Over Money Podcast. That's 71 hours of content, free to the world, which will be archived and available online forever. Wow! Reflecting on that journey feels a lot like my debt payoff story. It's hard to fathom how we did it, but it was really just one bite at a time. Two episodes per week, every week, without fail, for nearly 2.5 years. We've never missed an episode. Every Monday and Wednesday since March 2021.

We didn't just wake up one day and decide to produce 71 hours of content. Rather, we woke up and produced 14 minutes of content, then 18 minutes, then 15 minutes, then 19 minutes. Over and over and over. We didn't do anything special. We just had a very clear mission: record 10-20 minutes of concise, relevant, engaging, and useful content for the people we wished to serve.

This is the power Desmond Tutu's words. We can accomplish anything, no matter the scale, if we simply take one bite at a time. It won't happen overnight, but luckily it doesn't have to. I hope you take your bite today!

A Weird New World

Ok, something a little different today. Check out this poem about my friend, Gary Hoag:

Gary Hoag was a man with a heart of gold

His passion for giving was never old

He dedicated his life to spreading the light

Of Christian generosity with all his might

With a vision to inspire and a mission to lead

Gary Hoag set out to fulfill a great need

In the world of Christian giving, he took the reins

And showed us all the power of charitable gains

His impact was felt far and wide

As people were moved by his generous pride

They followed in his footsteps, each step with care

And together they built a community of givers who'd share

Gary Hoag will be remembered for all he did do

To make the world a better place, through and through

His legacy lives on in the hearts of those he touched

And in the world of Christian generosity, his impact is much

We give thanks for Gary Hoag and the light he brought

And continue to carry on his message of love and thought

For it is through giving that we truly find

The true meaning of Christian generosity in our lives.

Now you may be thinking to yourself, “I never pictured Travis as a poet.” Your gut doesn’t mislead you…..I’m not. You’d have to fact-check this with my Mom, but I’m not sure I’ve written a single poem in my 41 years on this planet. This poem was written in 15 seconds by artificial intelligence (“AI”). Gary and I were spending some time together over Zoom last night when the topic of AI came up. We spent some time messing around with its power of creating, compiling, altering, and expounding on ideas. It’s truly remarkable, and scary, what we’re looking at. To have so much knowledge and computing power available at our fingertips is a wild idea. What does this do to education, writing, research, law, engineering, and a number of other fields? It’s hard to say, honestly.

Here’s one thing I do know. We can’t wish it away. We can’t sit back and say we don’t want it to exist. It’s here…..and it’s probably not going away. Will we wake up one day in a world that looks like Terminator 2? Perhaps. But in the meantime, we’re living in a world where everyone has access to these tools with limited or no cost (the software we were using is 100% free).

And like most other innovations and technologies we as mankind has invented, we can use them for good or for evil. But we each get to pick. The choice is ours and ours alone. I’m not sure how AI will play a role in my life and my business, but I hope whatever it is I will use it for good. With great power comes great responsibility. Welcome to our weird new world!