DREAMS = FINANCIAL PLANNING
What do dreams have to do with financial planning? Everything.
What’s the point of saving a dime if you haven’t figured out how that dime is going to help fuel your dreams or your dreams as a family.
What good is a big pile of money with no dreams attached to it? (FYI – people with big piles of money with no dreams attached to it, end up investing in other people’s dreams by default – what do you really think all this capital in our world is used for anyways? People’s ideas – people’s dreams! You’ll be lending out your capital for other’s dreams until you finally figure out what yours are – welcome to capitalism.)
The problem is most of us give lip service to our dreams and most are too afraid to even dream a big dream at all.
We (by we I mean I) are too afraid to talk about it. Afraid to fail. Afraid to succeed. Afraid we will be alone or no one will like us when they see the real us. Afraid of what people will think. Afraid people won’t love us.
Dreams push us right out of our comfort zone. They push us out of jobs we don’t like or careers that pay us really well to stick around. They break down the walls we worked so hard to build up not to expose the real us- so the shining part of us can stay hidden in those walls and die within. After all, that’s what our society has tricked most of us into believing.
All retirement really is, is when people have made enough money, have enough money set aside, or have enough cash flow (e.g. pensions or government benefits) to quit their job and actually follow their dreams without the financial risk of putting it all on the line (and that’s if you are lucky!) So they can finally follow their dreams in whatever shape or form they come in and take the financial consideration out of the equation all together. I think as a whole we are turning to careers or jobs we actually love – if not right away, soon after. No one sticks around in a job they don’t like anymore anyways. That would be ludicrous. However, I don’t think that we have swung the pendulum quite the other way yet. I think there are lots of hidden dreams that have yet to bubble to the surface.
Everyone has dreams. Dreams make you an artist in something. You may be an actual artist, a business owner, a musician, a surgeon, a construction worker, a pilot or gardener. It’s what fuels you. It what makes you shine and your eyes light up when you talk about it.
I’m a writer. (WOW! I don’t think I have ever actually wrote those words before about myself!) I’m also a financial coach. And at 4am this morning, I’m doing what I love because I had an idea while I was sleeping that I had to get down into Evernote and literally got me out of bed with no coffee! My blood is pumping. I’m excited to be here, in front of the fireplace, cozy, and writing!
My mom is awesome. I was on the phone with her yesterday and she told me she’s heading to Phoenix next week to spend the next 2.5 months playing her Viola with an 80 piece orchestra and a huge choir and make her art unfold into a beautiful Christmas concert. I love my mom and the passion she has when she says she’s going to do this. I can’t wait to go see her play at Christmas. That is her dream. It’s her art.
My Opa and Oma had a construction company and worked so hard – as immigrants do. I don’t think it was their dream to build apartments, but they built them, rented them out and that afforded them their dream – a hobby farm when they were around 50 years old. I remember growing up on that farm. My grandparents worked harder I bet at their chickens, sheep, tree farming, bee keeping, and vegetable garden than at construction. That second life – that was their dream – and my Opa Georg was famous in his little town, because everyone knew that that man was living his purpose – his passion; you could see it in his eyes, the way he talked, the way he loved everyone. Their money fueled their dreams. It had purpose with passion and it made a difference in that town and to our family – anyone in my family will tell you that.
I’ll tell you my story around following your dreams. The truth is – although I’ve known for years what my passion and dreams were, I finally married the two in my head.
Dreams and Passions are different elements and need to mutually meet for them to create magic!
Mine are financial coaching and writing, and somehow in the last 2 years, my dream is starting to take shape although my passion has always flustered below in my belly.
I believe passion stirs deep within, while dreams whirl around us in a playful game waiting to be caught!
Honestly, nothing is more fun to me than writing or working – because I LOVE MY WORK. I like it more than wake surfing or golf or wine tasting. And that is like swearing in my family.
This is how it happened for me: true story.
It was October 2012, I was driving home Friday afternoon from the Delta Kananaskis after my work conference. The motivational speaker had struck a chord within me. I knew what I wanted to do with my life, but I actually didn’t know what my specific dream was.
I was stuck.
I’ve known for many years I have something great to share with the world. But finding my voice in this jungle with my own self-doubt yelling back at me – much stronger than my own voice (and for those that know me know I’m no shrinking violet – I’m loud!)
I remember driving down highway 40 asking God to give me a sign. He literally responded with this. A sign I had seen many times before. A simple road sign.
“Lisa, What’s holding you back?”
Somehow that sign – that moment – changed my life (Anytime God talks to you directly typically does!) I pondered that sign at so many cross-roads in my life when the question needed to be asked and I’m sure that sign will keep cropping up when I need it to.
So last Friday afternoon, October 9, 2015 (co-incidentally my daughter’s 8th birthday) on my way home from the same convention out in Kananaskis, I saw the sign again. Actually, I asked to see the sign again. So I looked for it. And there it was.
I pulled my car over and looking like a full-out tourist with my iPhone, I took a picture of this sign. It’s my Thanksgiving blessing.
I finally know my next step because I finally know my destination or at least what road I’m supposed to be on to get there.
I’ve ran out of excuses this year. Although fear will come along for the ride, I have nothing holding me back from my dreams and a purpose to my financial plan. I have nothing holding me back.
And it finally feels good to say that.
What’s holding you back?
