They Come in Threes, Right?

You know the saying, “Bad things come in threes”, right? I always roll my eyes at this saying, as I’m not a superstitious person. Well, I’m no longer laughing. In the 36 hours leading up to our family trip, we got struck by the trifecta of terrible. First, a tree fell on our house. Then, we randomly had water in our basement, on either side of an interior wall. Just hours after that, the pipes under the kitchen sink burst as Sarah was doing dishes. I was already stressed as I was trying to finish my talks ahead of this hybrid work trip / family vacation, so needless to say the stress level in our house increased dramatically. .

It may have been a bit poetic to get hit by the hat trick of crappy considering I met with three separate families earlier in the week who have been navigating their share of heavy life. All three of these families have their own unique junk that continues to pile up (theirs didn’t stop at three). Though it feels like they are losing, I reminded them how well they are doing considering the circumstances.

There’s one question that tends to change the perspective of the conversation. “How would this have played out in the past?” The answer is usually a combination of fighting, drained savings, credit card debt, an abandonment of priorities, a feeling of hopelessness, and a bit more fighting. These types of situations can be utterly destructive to a couple’s relationship and finances.

In each of these recent cases, however, the consequence was a little stress and a slowdown of financial progress. Night and day difference! What’s the secret sauce? Intentionality, ongoing budgeting, a healthy emergency fund, living with margin, planned savings for foreseeable needs/issues, and a shared vision. It doesn’t make these types of situations fun to deal with, but at least they will live to fight another day…..and not lose their dreams along the way.

So despite each of these families losing ground on their progress, I congratulate each one for amazing work. Even if it feels lousy, these are amazing wins worth celebrating! Winning is fun, but sometimes the win is not losing. It enables us to get back on the horse and keep fighting the good fight. Find those little wins and celebrate the heck out of them. They may not be the wins you’re looking for, but they may be the wins you need.

How Much Lemonade Can You Make?

I’m a big believer that good can always come from bad situations. Turning lemons into lemonade, right? But what happens when there are just too many lemons? I suppose we should keep making lemonade, but how much lemonade can you make?

As I read the ridiculous paragraph I just wrote, I can’t help but think about how overwhelming some seasons are. Sometimes I expect it. Schedules get tight. Travel starts landing on the calendar. Deadlines overlap. You can see it coming from a mile away…..and it lives up to the hype. Other times, they sneak up on you. A few things take longer than you expect. Distractions throw you off your game. You’re exhausted after a busy streak, causing you to lack focus and energy. You’re busy cleaning up messes from other less-than-ideal circumstances. Your kid breaks his arm……

There are times in life when disappointing others seems like my vocation. I whiff on texts, fail to deliver on commitments, and generally feel like a bad friend. This feels like one of those seasons of life. Just yesterday, multiple people told me I let them down. They are right….I did let them down. All I could do was apologize, ask for forgiveness, and commit to doing better.

At the Omaha YP Summit that I spoke at a few weeks ago, I attended a few other talks. One of them was about preventing burnout. It was in the same ballroom I would later be speaking in, so it was a good opportunity to see how the room felt. To be honest, though, I just needed to hear a talk about burnout. In the talk, one thing in particular caught my ear. It was a concept called a Kanban board. Here’s how I understood it (which may or may not be a proper or full definition of its full powers). You make a board with three sections (left to right): To-do, in-progress, and done. Then, you unload every single thing in your brain that needs to get done. Personal, work, ministry…..everything. Drop all these items in the to-do section of the board. Then, each day, decide which items get moved over to the in-progress section, and execute only those items. Attack those items aggressively, and give no thought/stress/worry/energy to the items in the to-do section. Those items will have to wait for another day. Execute, then repeat.

Just the mere act of unloading everything from my brain to the board was a relief. However, I’m still thinking of items I missed, and the execution has been iffy. I’m still working on finding my rhythm, but it’s already starting to feel better. I’ll probably write a follow-up post about how the process is going, so stay tuned. In the meantime, I’d love to hear your thoughts, ideas, and recommendations for keeping the train on the tracks.

I’m tired of making lemonade, and I’m sure some of you are, too. Just know you aren’t alone. Let’s walk this messy road together. Have an awesome day!

“Just Keep Going”

Early last week, I accomplished a big win. Well, it wasn’t actually a huge win, but it felt like it to me. There was a singular moment when I realized I was finally caught up and didn’t feel like I was chasing anymore. It was the first time I had experienced this feeling in more than seven weeks. It felt like a massive weight off my shoulders. I even sent Sarah and text informing her of my win. Being all too familiar with my plight, she was equally happy for me. I was beyond excited, ready to embrace my new status of not feeling the overwhelming weight I normally carry with me.

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Just seven hours later, the party stopped. I opened my laptop to see an odd black thing on the screen. When I went to wipe the debris off my screen, I quickly realized the black thing was actually inside my screen. I frantically rebooted my computer to see if that would help, but it only got worse. The screen has been black ever since. From that moment on, I’ve been navigating logistical, technological, and scheduling issues. Needless to say, I’m back to feeling overwhelmed and frustrated.

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We both call each other “kid”……long story.

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I had a moment with Sarah the next day. I was venting to her about how frustrated and tired I was. We’ve been married long enough that Sarah knows nothing she says at that moment will actually help me. Instead, she gave me a big hug and whispered into my ear, “just keep going.” Oddly enough, it did help. She’s right, I had no other choice. I just need to keep going.

Today’s post may not seem inspirational or encouraging on the surface, but maybe it is. Just keep going! You may be facing something that has two options: 1) give up and quit, or 2) just keep going. I’m encouraging you to keep going. Not despite the fact it’s hard, but especially because it’s hard. When things get difficult, that’s the moment we need to accelerate through it, not let off the gas and putter our way to the other side.

Someone is having a worse week than me. For that, I’m sorry. You deserve better and your better is coming. Just keep going, though. You’ll be on the other side of it soon enough!

One of Those Days

Yesterday was one of those days. You know what I’m talking about. Anything that could go wrong, did go wrong. I didn’t accomplish one single thing I set out to do. Meetings ran long, traffic delayed me every step of the way, two of my clients are dealing with sudden and profound financial emergencies, I let someone down, a few unexpected tasks drained hours of my time, and to top it off, I stopped by the office late in the day to discover water damage from the prior night’s storm. Wow!

I love my life, but some days are just flat-out brutal. It’s enough to make me want to give up at times. I won’t, of course, but the thought does cross my mind from time to time. Perhaps you had one of those days recently. Maybe today is one of them! You aren’t alone. For better or worse, there are countless others also having utterly terrible days. I’m going to handle today like I always try to handle the day after a disaster:

1. Remind myself today is a new day, a fresh start. It doesn’t have to be like yesterday.

2. Turn off my phone to eliminate all distractions…..I need solid focus more than ever right now.

3. Get a quick win on an easy task to create some momentum.

4. Pursue one of my most important tasks to move the needle on progress.

5. Apologize to anyone I might have let down yesterday. This one is critical for me.

6. Find at least one hour to do something with nothing at stake. Watch a ridiculous YouTube video, read an article about the NBA, or maybe listen to a podcast about some random topic I know nothing about.

7. Reflect back on the prior day and identify blessings in disguise. There’s a silver lining in even the worst disaster.

8. Get some quality time with my kids to reset perspectives and priorities.

Is this what I always do? No. Sometimes I just writhe around in a blanket of self-pity with an overwhelming feeling of defeatedness. Is defeatedness even a word? Grammarly is telling me no, but I’m going to go with it. I don’t always rally well, but if someone asked me to help them get through their situation, this is the advice I’d give them. Maybe I should take my own medicine…..

Don't Gut the Good Stuff

Let me lay out a scenario. You go into the month with a solid financial plan. You’ve prioritized your needs, wants, giving, and saving. The plan is set and you’re feeling really good about it. Then, just like that, life hits. Maybe it’s a medical situation. Maybe your income is a little lower than you thought. Maybe the car needs some unexpected work. But in any case, something happens. How do you correct it?

Most people in our culture don’t, unfortunately. Instead, they whip out the credit card, quickly “fix” the problem by dropping the new expenses on the card, then move on with life. Fortunately, most of my clients don’t own credit cards and would not take this route. But the problem still needs to be fixed. What do you do to fix it?

Many times, our gut reaction is to simply rip away some of the money allocated to the fun categories. Personal spending, dining out, entertainment, and travel are likely candidates. It’s easy to steal money from these categories. After all, you don’t “need” it. There are a few problems with this approach:

1) Life happens……then life happens again….then it will probably happen again. It’s something this month, but it may be something else next month. If our gut reaction is to constantly steal from the good categories, these categories will be perpetually abused when life inevitably happens.

2) Wants are important. I’m not going to say our wants are more important than some of the other categories, but I will say they are just as important. We need some fun things in our financial plan. They add richness and act as a release valve. When we constantly cut them from our budget, the tension builds and a future blow-up starts to build.

3) When we simply give up fun things to make the numbers work, we train ourselves to handle all unforeseen situations in this manner instead of preventing them from happening in the future. It becomes a coping mechanism and we’ll perpetually suffer because of it.

Yes, we need to be responsible and address issues as they come up. No, we don’t always need to gut our fun categories in order to make it happen. Give yourself permission to have fun, even when life happens. Strike that……especially when life happens.

The Silent Dream Killer

Cole and I recently recorded the debt section of our upcoming video course, Meaning Over Money. This was some pretty fire content and I can’t wait for the course members to experience it when we launch next month. In it, I refer to debt as the silent dream killer. Debt doesn't quietly sneak into our house when we’re sleeping at night. Rather, we invite it in, roll out the red carpet, welcome it with open arms, and tell it to stay as long as it wants.

Debt is the financial version of instant gratification. I want that car NOW…..so of course I’ll agree to pay $400/month for the next five years. I want that vacation NOW……so I’ll just put it on the credit card and worry about it later. I want that bigger house NOW……sure my mortgage payment will go up, but I can afford it. I want to upgrade my furniture and appliances NOW…….and the store has a really sweet 0% interest offer. Every act of financial instant gratification has one inevitable outcome: tomorrow’s me will have to pay the price for something yesterday’s me enjoyed. This sounds fine until we realize tomorrow will someday be today, and today will turn into yesterday. There will come a time after we get back from that trip, after the new-car smell wears off, after our house fever subsides, when we’ll still have to pay for the decision we made in the past. Over time, decision by decision, it starts to erode our freedom. The tension and pressure slowly builds. Not all at once, but more like the analogy of boiling a frog. Little by little, our dreams start to die. But we don’t make these decisions knowing it’s going to crush our dreams and our freedom. That’s not how it works…….which is why I call it the silent dream killer. It’s sneaky.

As I was writing the content for our Meaning Over Money course, I was reminded of a story I hadn’t thought about in a while. In early 2019, on the heels of making my decision to step away from my career and into my new pursuit, a few people started to take notice. A woman in my life, who was watching some of the decisions I was making and was aware of my expertise in coaching, approached me and asked if we could talk. She confided in me that her husband makes $300,000/year at his job, and she makes another $100,000. They were in their early 40s and have had a stellar income for many, many years. I wasn’t sure where this conversation was headed, but then it turned on a dime and her face started to change. She shared how her dream in life was to stay at home with her kids, but her husband’s $300,000 income alone wasn’t enough to support their family. Think about that! They couldn’t afford to drop from being in the top 1% of income earners in America……all the way down to the top 2% of income earners. They couldn’t pay the bills only making $300,000!!! That’s the negative power of debt, in action! She didn’t hate her job, but she so desperately wanted to live out her purpose of being a stay-at-home mom. She started sobbing. She felt trapped, hopeless, and helpless. On the surface, they were living the dream. Beautiful home, luxury cars, Instagram-worth vacations……they had it all! But every day she woke up sad, unfulfilled, and increasingly resentful. She would have given up all of the stuff and status in a heartbeat, but her husband and the culture around them saw it different.

When I think about her story, I get sad. I remember the look on her face, the desperation in her eyes. I started thinking more about her in the days following our recent recording session. So I reached out to her. I wanted to know how she’s doing. I went into that conversation with a lot of hope and optimism, but it was quickly squashed. One year has gone by since she vented to me about her situation. Since then, it’s only gotten worse. She’s grown to hate her job……and her anger and resentment towards her husband has magnified. On most days, she cries on the drive between daycare drop-off and the office. She says it feels like her dream is slipping away one day at a time. Her and her husband are in counseling, but she said it feels hopeless and divorce appears to be a possible (if not likely) outcome. In her words, her husband cares more about what others think of him (and the title below his name on his business card) than he does about her. He justifies it by saying he’s only trying to provide his family the best life possible, but all the while his marriage is dying and his wife’s spirit is draining.

This story feels heavy to me. It impacts me deeply. I wish I could say it’s an extreme story, or a rare story…..but unfortunately it’s not. I hear different versions of this story every single day. The details are different, the incomes are different, the dreams are different, and the decisions looks different. But one thing is consistent from story, to story, to story: the debt….the silent dream killer.

Here’s the important takeaway. If this particular family wants something better, something different, something awesome, they can have it! The decision is 100% theirs. And they can make that decision today! All they need to do is make one very difficult, very counter-cultural, very impact decision. It’s not easy, but it is simple. You and I also get to make that very same decision! Every one of us has a choice to make, and it’s 100% on us to make that choice. We aren’t victims of our income, or our education, or our circumstances, or the way we were raised, or anything else. Those things may make our journey a little harder or a little easier, but they cannot stop us from walking towards the light.

Some of us need to downsize our house (or apartment). Some of us need to downgrade our car. Some of us need to sell some toys. Some of us need to stop caring what others think. Some of us need to take a few less vacations. Some of us need to stop confusing our identity with our job title. Some of us need to take a step back and realize “providing for my family” does not mean providing them with all the stuff we never had growing up.

So, who’s with me? Who’s ready to make the hard choice? Who’s ready to kick the silent dream killer out of the house and replace it with a life full of meaning and impact?