NFA Finance

There was probably a time in my life when a picture like this would have represented everything I thought success looked like.

A Ferrari sitting in the driveway.

A nice place.

A few toys.

Freedom.

The kind of stuff you look at when you’re younger and think, “Man, one day.”

And then one day comes.

That’s the strange thing about life.

If you keep working long enough, stay in the game long enough, take enough chances, survive enough bad decisions, make enough good ones, and refuse to quit when things get ugly… some of the things you used to dream about eventually become normal.

They become the background.

I looked at this picture and that’s what hit me.

Most people are going to see the Ferrari first.

I don’t.

I see the years.

I see businesses that worked and businesses that didn’t.

I see deals I made money on and deals I should have never touched.

I see long days, short nights, mistakes, restarts, relationships, road trips, cars bought and sold, risks taken, and thousands of ordinary days when absolutely nobody was watching.

That’s what success actually looks like.

It isn’t one giant moment where suddenly you’ve “made it.”

It’s accumulation.

One day stacked on another.

One workout.

One phone call.

One customer.

One deal.

One video.

One blog post.

One more day where you did what you said you were going to do.

Do that long enough and your life starts changing almost without you noticing it.

That’s why I’ve become so obsessed with documenting the journey.

Because the Ferrari isn’t really the story.

The story is everything that happened before the picture was taken.

And here’s the other thing I’ve learned:

You better enjoy it while you’re building it.

When I was younger, I was always trying to get somewhere.

More money.

More cars.

Bigger business.

Next deal.

Next level.

I thought happiness was waiting somewhere out in front of me.

It wasn’t.

The good part was happening the whole time.

It was the ride.

The late nights.

The ridiculous ideas.

The failures that became funny stories later.

The people you met.

The cars you built.

The businesses you started.

The times you were almost broke and somehow figured it out.

The mornings when you woke up and decided to take another swing.

That’s life.

The Ferrari is cool.

Trust me, I’m a car guy. I’ll never pretend it isn’t.

But the older I get, the more I understand that the machine sitting in the driveway isn’t the flex.

Having control of your time is.

Being able to chase an idea because you’re curious about it is.

Building something from nothing is.

Waking up excited about what you’re working on is.

Still having another mountain you want to climb is.

And being able to look backward and appreciate how far you’ve already traveled is.

That’s wealth.

So chase the Ferrari if you want the Ferrari.

Build the business.

Buy the house.

Take the trip.

Set ridiculous goals.

I still do.

But don’t make the mistake of believing your life starts when you finally get those things.

Your life is happening today.

This ordinary Friday.

This random road trip.

This workout you don’t feel like doing.

This customer you’re trying to close.

This little business idea scribbled down somewhere that nobody else understands yet.

Those are the days that eventually create the picture.

And someday you might find yourself standing in front of something you dreamed about 20 years earlier.

When that happens, take the picture.

Smile.

Enjoy the hell out of it.

Then get back to work.

Because the goal was never really the Ferrari.

The goal was becoming the person capable of building the life around it.

— Modern Day Dealer