After a bumpy adolescence, a liberating but poorly focused college career, and a job hunt that landed me with the same job title I had before I began college, I was already feeling a little disheartened by following the advice my family had given me.
“Just finish college, get a good job, buy a house, and you’ll be set for life!”
I wished it was that easy. After a couple of years searching for that perfect job, I landed an entry-level position, working my way up to a better job. Like most top-notch companies, the health benefits, career progression, paid vacation and bonus checks were mesmerizing. I gave it my all.
After over a decade, I climbed the corporate ladder to upper management, bought and sold my first home, drove a fancy sports car and enjoyed a consumer-rich lifestyle. But felt just as poor as I did when I started there as an administrative assistant!
I worked hard, “knowing” that if I got that next raise by working just a few more hours every week, everything would all fall into place. Eventually I came in an hour earlier, stayed an hour or two later. I even logged in on Sunday for a few hours just to get ahead for the work week…
The Wake Up Call
It took losing my dad to cancer to wake me up. Looking back, I realized that I had only seen him during Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays for the past ten years … and that stung.
All the money in the world cannot make up for the time we lose each and every day at the nine-to-five grind. The company where my dad worked for over two decades laid him off without severance (WorldCom bust), and he lost most of his investments in the company. Then a few years later, he got a cancer diagnosis that would take his life nine years later.
He had worked hard for decades to provide for his family, mostly out of state, so we’d only see him four to five days a month. He was lonely, working hard, and not taking care of his health…all in the hope of the retirement dream he was sold…that never came.
The Road Less Traveled… Just One Percent Better
This was not the path for me.
So, in my mid-thirties I started making some changes in my finances, which turned into changes in just about every other aspect of my life. While I planned for a better future, I started making daily decisions to have a better life now.
And I made a ton of mistakes!
I invested in real estate before educating myself on the subject and learned some lessons the hard way. Even after educating myself, the second investment property was probably my worst. I quit my corporate job two years before I had “planned to” due to a pretty horrible boss, but thought I made just enough passive income to pull it off…only to reevaluate said budget and realize I had missed a few things! I bought my first residential multifamily property without understanding my debt-to-income ratio and had to change my “BRRR” timeline from six to twelve months.
But with every mistake and every day that went by, I began focusing on being a little bit better than I was the day before.
- Mistakes were opportunities to learn something new
- The corporate fat was an opportunity to get stronger.
- Personal interactions were opportunities to build relationships
- Every day was an opportunity to create a meaningful memory
So that’s how just one percent better came about.
Happiness > Perfection
I don’t have five perfectly curated pieces of furniture and an impeccable ten-item capsule wardrobe. Definitely not a prodigy with over five million dollars invested in the stock market and paying hefty dividends so I can travel the world staying at five-star hotels. Not yet a jack of all trades who can change the oil in my car, build a tool shed in my backyard in one day, cook a chocolate souffle, knit a blanket, run a marathon or speak five languages.
Nope, just a pretty normal human being who got sick of wasting my time at a job I didn’t really like to buy things I didn’t really want and store them in a house I didn’t really need.
By focusing on becoming just one percent better, I can improve my life in so many ways. I can become a financially independent athlete with a tidy and minimalist home. I can enjoy international travel, cooking delicious meals, and try all kinds of hobbies and experiences…but only holding onto and repeating the ones I want!
So, please, join me on this journey to becoming just one percent better everyday! Let’s make the most of the short amount of time we have on this earth. Since our time here is short, I see no need to waste it on meaningless things, doing meaningless pursuits.
Sure, the path less traveled is risky, but so is a wasted life!