#31 Priceless
The Look On Her Face
The Look On Her Face
...Priceless
A couple of years ago, Laurel Portie, had her eye on a beach house.
She asked me if I thought it was reasonable for her to afford a beach house in the next five years or something like that.
She closed on her beach house like three weeks later.
Also, it still hasn't been five years and I'm pretty sure she just bought another dream home in NO.
I could on for hours about how Laurel has earned her way into the position she has - instead, I’ll wait for her book to published and recommend that you read it.
This post is not about Laurel.
It's about the paradigm shift and the process of getting the things that you want.
Here's an over-the-shoulder example from yesterday:
A couple weeks ago I gave a group of people homework.
It was just basic “recapture and reallocate”1 which is basically:
"Do this, this, and this and I know you will recapture cash hidden in plain sight. If you do the work and submit this form to prove it, I'll jump on a call and discuss the best ways to reallocate that cash"
One person did it.
She has a full-time academic job and runs a seven-figure agency.
By following the basic recapture steps, she found $132,000 a year in profit( which is right around the average for her revenue)
...And then she made time to get on the call to see what I had to say about where to reallocate the recaptured capital.
I could see it in her face and hear it in her voice
She didn't want to be there.
To her credit, she went through the motions to see if maybe, just maybe, I had something to say she hadn't heard a thousand times already.
I told her that I could only help her if she was honest with me about what was most important to her - and that most people don't actually know what's important to them, so it's okay if she needed a minute to think.
She didn't need a minute to think.
It rolled right off her tongue:
"I want to son to go to school in Switzerland. I want to pay for it and I want to live there with him through the experience"
Okay, when does he go off to school?
"In exactly three years, fall of 2026"
Alright, can you ballpark how much that whole experience will cost?
"I've done math. I would need an extra $400,000 to comfortably do that."
Excellent.
**silence, waiting to see if it had clicked, yet**
It hadn’t. And that’s okay.
"Okay, so where should I reallocate this capital?"
[Name]... You need $400,000 in three years to lock in the most important thing to you, correct?
...you just found $132,000 a year in profit, correct?
...
...
...
...$132,000 x 3 years = $396,000…
**Pause while it sinks in**
...You're already there.
The Look on Her Face
...priceless.
The priceless look…
It's the look of someone that just went from feeling hopeless and powerless, to hopeful to certain - in a matter of minutes.
It's the look of someone who realizes it, whatever it is, is right in front of them.
… And that everything they were planning on doing was actually going to get them further away from what they wanted.
And the look of... okay, now that I can see that I'm already on track, what do I do?
So we had that conversation.
Bullets for brevity:
• If you are on track, identify the things that can knock you off track. Focus on mitigating risk
We looked at insurance coverage. Her academic job has her well covered. Check.
We looked at payment processors. Swapped out Stripe for something that underwrites upfront (meaning they're far less likely to freeze your account). Check.
Introduced her to a better CPA. She will probably end up finding more cash but the purpose was to remove the risk of error or unexpected tax bills. Check.
Encouraged her to learn to appreciate when bad things don't happen and audit all of the things that could potentially knock her off track - and address them. In process.
• If you want to continue to grow your business or net worth focus on lower-cost, lower-risk, growth.
This is the focus for her because she is on track to fund the most important thing in three years, already.
Look at improving retention.
Look at referral strategies.
Look at things that have quick turnarounds, because anything that might take more than three years to return a profit is getting her further away from her goals on her timeline.
Real estate, for example, might be a great buy right now.
But real estate is not likely yo turn profit in three years, so it doesn’t matter if “it’s a great deal” - it would actually get you further away from the most important thing.
Once you have the most important thing locked in (in this case, $400k tucked away), any overage can be put back into higher-risk, speculative, or long-play business development or wealth strategies.
• If her goal was a ten-year goal, my suggestion would be different.
• If she wasn't already on track, she would have to take more risks out of necessity - my suggestion would be different.
It's all about increasing the probability that you get the things that matter most.
That's it.
Growing your business should not decrease the probability of you getting what you want.
...just one man's opinion, anyway.
Everyone has their own methodology, set of preferences and beliefs. Mine is to help people get the things that matter most to them.
To be clear, I am not saying it’s easy. It’s not supposed to be easy. I’m saying you’re going to through hell and back, regardless. That’s how life works. I’m just suggesting that since you’re on this ride whether you like it or not - you should consider making sure it’s worth it.
Speaking of making sure it’s worth it; that’s the point of The Letter, which you can learn more about at…
Onward.
Nic
PS. The Basic Recapture exercise is in the footnotes below. It’s free. It’s basic, it’s boring and probably seems overly simplistic. Try it anyway.
This is priceless. Thank you.