Doubt Kills More Dreams Than Failure Ever Will
The Farmer Who Sold Out to Sow In
There was a farmer who sold all the possessions he had in the market to buy a bag of seed. He came home and worked tirelessly tilling and weeding his land. Eventually, after much sweat, he had cleared a field. He worked hard planting each seed one by one, row after row, day after day. When the field was finally planted, he began to water the seeds. Bucket after bucket, row after row, day after day.
He went on watering his field bucket after bucket, row after row, day after day. He would water the field, he would watch the field, and he slept through the night. He would rise with the sun the next day and recite his routine again. His hands grew sore with calluses from the handles of the buckets. His shoulder grew sore from carrying the buckets up the hill from the river to the field. His bare feet grew sore from climbing over the rocks from the river.
Let the Mockers Mock
After several weeks, nothing grew. Not even a sign of a single sprout. His neighbors ridiculed his efforts. Mocking him for trading all his possessions for a bad bag of stale seed. Yet he continued to haul bucket after bucket, to water row after row, day after day. After a month his neighbors were openly laughing at him each time he passed by to go down to the river. “watering your dirt garden again?” they mocked as he passed by. Discouragement began to wear on him.
Fatigued at the end of another day’s work and still, nothing was growing. Doubt that his seed would ever grow finally overtook his determination. He dropped to his knees in his field of dirt. A puff of dust rose from the dirt as his knees landed. His eyes welled with tears. He wept and wept. All his work had accomplished nothing. He had invested all he had and all of his time in this dusty field which produced nothing. Exhausted from his efforts he cried himself to sleep there in the field that night.
A New Day Dawns
In the morning, he rose to the crack of golden sunlight beams breaking over the tree line and the sounds of voices carried by the cool breeze all around. With sleepy ears, he couldn’t make out the words of the muffled whispers. Perplex why so many neighbors were gathered around him in the field he sat up. He sat up to see thousands of small two-leaf green sprouts which had broken through the surface of the ground overnight. Sprout after sprout, row after row, his crops had begun to grow.
At harvest time he returned to the market with a cart stacked high of overflowing crops. He sold the crops and bought back all he had sold in the spring. He bought three bags more of seed, and for his neighbors, he bought each, an extra bag of seed.
Keep on watering what lies beneath the surface of the ground. Water what is unseen in faith. It may take what feels like an eternity to see results but one morning you will awake to a field of budding green sprouts. What is budding in your life? What field are you patiently hoping to see new growth in?
“Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.”
Netflix and Chill
Last night I was working on my blog again, no surprise there. I was getting tired and all I wanted was to crack open an ice-cold German Hefeweizen beer and slide it into a Refined by FIRE cozy. I imagined watching the condensation bead upon itself as I slid the half-liter bottle down into the cozy. All I wanted to sip that imported beer while watching some mindless TV like Jersey shore: season 36 “How this overly dramatic cast copes with being grandparents.” or whatever the seasonal title is this year.
I wanted to unplug! You know the feeling. After 10 hours of work and commuting, a
Battling Doubt
I found myself asking questions like, “Would anyone notice if I didn’t post?” And telling myself things like, “Compared to some of my ultra-successful blogger friends, not that many people read my blog anyway.” My inter dialog reasoned that; “My blog is not my most lucrative side hustle anyways. It’s not the most effective way for me to spend my time.” But then I remembered that is something I will have, worry-free, every single night once I reach FIRE. If I can only stay motivated. I am a staunch advocate of putting work before play and front-loading your working career.
Sailing Off into the Sunset
My father retired around the age of 45 and one of the things that he did in his lifetime was billed the sailboat and navigate it down the Mississippi River and sail it through the gulf. It has been a lifelong dream of mine to not only beat him in retirement age but also to build a sailboat and sail it around the Caribbean in FIRE with my future wife, God willing. One of my favorite bloggers Michelle Schroeder Gardner over at Making Sense of Cents has bought herself a sailboat and is sailing around as you read this.
I decided to fire up YouTube and pull up a video about sailing life to get me motivated and also admittedly to mix business with pleasure. I found an awesome video about a couple who was making their way around the Caribbean offering to do work like repair sailboats and sow sails as a means of raising cash. The ocean provided most of their food and they traded excess fish and lobster for what else they needed. That was an inspirational lifestyle. That is what I call a life well lived.
And wouldn’t you know it, right beside that video was another one titled How I retired at
FinCon is Coming
Tired and stressed from a late night of work the day before, I was preparing for my speaker role at FinCon the next day. I received an email from an amazing fella named PT who just so happens to plan the most BA events in the realm of media and personal finance. That event goes by the name FinCon, short for Financial Conference. It is an annual expo where over 2500 money nerds (and growing) converge to hone our craft. This event is the intersection of finance and media. This year it is held in Washington DC and it is going down next week, which reminds me, I need to pack since I leave in a couple days.
CNBC Interview
Getting back on point, PT’s email was brief and to the point,
“CNBC would like to interview you at FinCon.”
After wondering if I was making an impact and if I was adding anything of value to readers lives, that news broke at the perfect time. It was exactly the encouragement I needed to know that someone out there in internet land does get value from this site.
That news came shortly after I finished reading the book The 10X Rule by Grant Cardone in which one of his principal tenants is “your problem is a lack of effort or ability, your problem is obscurity.” The best back story or message in the world may get overlooked if it is not noticed and if it does not get out there. In his book, he describes a process of basically always saying yes to opportunity. Personally, I found his book (review coming soon) very motivating and I agreed with his ‘32 Traits of Successful People‘ enough to include them on my list of
Remember, as you work hard on those start-up businesses, side hustles, and savings rates that endurance is required to test if what you want is worth fighting for. Keep watering the fields even when you don’t see the sprouts. Work precedes reward. When others lay down we lean in. The tallest man is the one left standing when the others drop out or get knocked out. Defeat does not happen when you get knocked down. It can only happen when you refuse to get back up. Dig deep on those savings rates. Save until it hurts. Keep fighting the good fight. Reinvest your dividends.
Don’t give up before your break through.
Keep the FIRE burning my friends.
As I read this post, 2 quotes come to mind… “Failure always feels better than regret”, and my favorite… “Nobody ever looks back and regrets the things they DID try”. I wrote these on flash cards and refer back to them often.
Keep up the good work and congrats on the CNBC interview. That’s huge dude.