The Daily Meaning

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Travis Shelton Travis Shelton

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.

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!

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