NFA Finance

This question today that stopped me for a minute:

I thought about it.

It would be easy to make the answer about success.

“You made it.”

“You built the empire.”

“The money worked out.”

“You accomplished everything you said you were going to accomplish.”

But I don’t think that’s what I’d want to hear.

I think I’d want my future self to tell me:

“Keep going. Everything you’re doing right now mattered more than you realized.”

Because that’s the part that’s hard to see when you’re living it.

We tend to think the big moments are what change our lives.

They’re usually not.

It’s the random Tuesday when you’re tired and still get the work done.

It’s making the phone call you’ve been putting off.

It’s fixing something instead of replacing it.

It’s posting the video when hardly anybody is watching.

It’s writing another blog when you don’t know where any of it is going.

It’s putting another dollar back into the business.

It’s taking care of your body.

It’s having the difficult conversation.

It’s getting up the next morning after yesterday didn’t go the way you wanted.

None of those things feel historic while they’re happening.

They just feel like Tuesday.

But stack enough Tuesdays together and suddenly you’ve built a completely different life.

That’s what I’ve become obsessed with lately.

Compounding.

Not just money.

Everything compounds.

Knowledge compounds.

Relationships compound.

Reputation compounds.

Content compounds.

Discipline compounds.

Health compounds.

Confidence compounds.

Even the way you think compounds.

You don’t wake up one morning with a completely different life.

You build it quietly while everybody else is waiting for something big to happen.

And that’s probably what my future self understands that I can’t fully see yet.

He knows which video opened a door.

Which conversation changed a relationship.

Which person I met that eventually became important.

Which business idea turned into something enormous.

Which failure forced me in a better direction.

Which ordinary morning ended up being the beginning of something I couldn’t possibly see at the time.

I’d be tempted to ask him for answers.

What should I invest in?

Which business should I build?

What should I stop doing?

Who should I trust?

What opportunity should I chase?

But maybe knowing all of that would ruin the entire thing.

Maybe the struggle, uncertainty, mistakes and course corrections are exactly what create the person capable of handling whatever comes next.

So I don’t need tomorrow’s answers today.

I just need to keep moving.

Keep building.

Keep learning.

Keep creating.

Keep stacking wins.

And when something doesn’t work, adjust and keep going.

I’m 47 years old.

If I’m fortunate enough to sit somewhere at 77 and look back at this chapter of my life, I don’t want to remember a guy who was waiting for everything to line up perfectly.

I want to remember a guy who was in the middle of the chaos and kept building anyway.

Because maybe thirty years from now, I’ll finally understand something I can only believe today:

These weren’t the years before the story started.

This was the story.

And if that future version of me could reach backward through time and give me one sentence tonight, I hope it would be:

“Keep going. Everything you’re doing right now mattered more than you realized.”

— Nicholas Francis
Modern Day Dealer