Doubt Kills More Dreams Than Failure Ever Will

The Farmer Who Sold Out to Sow In

Doubt Kills More Dreams Than Failure Ever Will. The Farmer Who Sold Out to Sow In. Farmer Man in field thinking dreaming looking at sky.
Image credit: Benjamin Davies Jr.

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.

The Farmer Who Sold Out to Sow In. Doubt Kills More Dreams Than Failure Ever Will. Crops sprouting, new green growth, field, farm
Image credit: Maryna Bohucharska

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

Ice-cold German Hefeweizen beer. Refined By FIRE cozy. Doubt Kills More Dreams Than Failure Ever Will.

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 couple hours of super dad single parenting, and then realizing I have a house to take care of. And a second job requiring more laptop time. Unmotivated, I was letting one of my passions become work. I was losing my way and getting comfortable with the path of mediocrity. Thoughts echoed in my mind about how many men around the world were holding their wives and their arms right now sipping on an ice-cold beer watching their favorite TV show together. I have to admit that thought almost made me want to give up and turn in.

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.

Michelle Schroeder Gardner's Sail Boat
Image credit: Michelle Schroeder Gardner

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 36, and spent 20 years sailing. If that was not a sign I don’t know what is. I knew I needed stay committed to my cause of growing the world’s most motivational financial independence blog dedicated to bringing people to financial literacy and teaching advance investments strategies. And so I pulled up the laptop screen and started crunching the keys.

FinCon is Coming

FinCon is coming. John Snow, GOT, Game of Thrones

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 resources page.

Doubt Kills More Dreams Than Failure Ever Will. Diamond mine, never give up, never quite, grit, persistence,

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.

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1 Response

  1. 5 AM Joel says:

    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.

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