Three Rules for Investing in Our Dreams
I picked up the keys to my very own office last night! It was a considerable step to sign that lease agreement. For the next year, I will be the owner of an office space in Georgia. I hit a point where my dream required me to go to the next level. My goals were converging in a way that I needed an office space, and I needed to make a more significant commitment.
Everyone will likely hit this point with their dreams. Going back to school requires paying tuition or taking out loans. Starting a business requires investing in supplies, materials, and space. Upgrading almost anything requires full payment. It's all fun and games until we have to put something on the line.
I am fortunate that I grew up in a family that owned their own business. Our mindset around money was always to view things as investments rather than costs. And, while it may not be the healthiest mindset, I've never been scared to float a dream on credit cards if I know the money is coming back. So, making this investment was scary because it's bigger than anything I've done before, but at the same time, it looked the same as everything else. It was more like doubling the recipe than creating something new.
Not everyone has that experience or perspective, and that's ok! There are three big rules that I follow when investing. Often, we know for sure that it's time to take the next step. We are usually pretty aware of when we've reached the peak of what we can do for our dreams at this stage, and we often know what the next step is.
Rule #1– Don't be stupid
If it feels like a get-rich-quick scheme, it probably is. If you don't have the knowledge or skills required for success, then it may be the wrong time to invest. Most importantly, seek council. There are people who have gone before us, in at least some way, on this path, which means there are people who can advise us. Having a mentor is fabulous, but we don't always have someone directly in front of us to guide us. Having a team is even better because we can get a variety of advice from different sources and strength perspectives. The most important thing is not becoming an echo chamber of our thoughts. It's really easy for us to justify almost anything when it's just us in the mirror. At the very least, verbalizing our thoughts to someone else can help us find some clarity.
Rule #2–Do The Math
I'm getting this office for two reasons. First, I am branching out into a different lead source for my insurance and legacy planning work. That move requires me to have an office space for people to come to rather than visiting their houses as I've done in the past. Secondly, this gives me a space to do more focused work on my blog and the growth plans that I have. We hired a nanny to help with that, and having a space to go will allow for even more productive work. That being said, only one of those reasons will provide me income to recoup the cost in the next couple of months.
When I first started my office search, I found a space for $600 a month that would require signing a six-month lease. I could pay an extra $100 for it to be a month-to-month lease, but I knew I wanted to commit to two cycles of this lead system before deciding if it wasn't working for me. Each cycle is about three months, so signing the lease made sense. So that put my out-of-pocket cost at $3,600. The good news was that $600 fit into our monthly budget. It would take away from our fun fund, but we would not be going backward with this investment.
I had some issues with that space, though, and it turned out that I couldn't find a venue in that same city, so I looked closer to the base. There, I found the perfect space at $450 a month. That one required signing a year-long lease, which I had never intended to do. I spoke to the landlord, explaining that we were a military family. I could not guarantee that we would live here a year from now (it is as sure as anything can be in military life that we will be here for another 2.5 years, but I like to put all my cards out to see if they bite). He said they could usually work out a two-month lease buyout. So if I get to the end of the six months and decide this program isn't working for me, then I can buy out of my lease by paying for a total of 8 months of rent. That comes out to $3,600, so it's the same price I was already considering. And if $600 fits into our budget, then $450 certainly does.
Signing a year-long lease was a terrifying proposition, but when I actually did the math, it made just as much sense. Add in the fact that this office has two-fold value, and it was a sound decision. The reality is that I only need to get eight clients off this new program to recoup the cost of my office, which is almost a guarantee by even the most conservative estimates.
We have to do the math, though. We have to have a complete picture of what we are committing to so that we can honestly know what success looks like and when we have it. It may not have been your favorite or strongest subject back in school, but luckily, it's usually pretty simple, middle-school-level math that gives us clarity and accountability to our dreams.
Rule #3–Trust Yourself And Do The Work
All the math in the world won't save us if we aren't willing to do the work. Investing gives us an advantage and takes us to a new level, but it will never buy our way out of doing the work. That's where we earn our dream. Putting money down and then hedging our bets doesn't work. The money is already in play, and the only way we get our investment back (and then some) is to go all out doing what we committed to.
I'm committed to this plan; all that's left is to do the work. It won't be perfect starting out, but I have time to allow myself to grow into it. We've probably all heard the phrase, "Leap, and the net will appear." The net is us. It is our confidence, skill, and belief that makes these bets pay off. Now that I'm committed, I have taken my studying to a whole new level, and I'm in too deep to back out. I needed to back myself into a corner of commitment because I knew I'd pull it out when I had to. Otherwise, I would get caught in a cycle of learning when the reality is I would never know enough to jump perfectly. Go all in when it's the right time (whatever that looks like for you), and then work your butt off because the work is where we earn our dreams.