NFA Finance

Share a hobby you’ve picked up recently — what got you into it?

My answer is content creation.

Filming videos. Writing blog posts. Going live every week. Taking whatever is happening in my life that day and turning it into a story.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized this isn’t really a hobby anymore.

It started like one. Now it’s becoming an entire media business.

I Had 25 Years of Stories and Nowhere to Put Them

I’ve spent more than 25 years in the car business.

I’ve bought cars, sold cars, fixed cars, financed cars, built dealerships, lost deals, made money, lost money, and learned more lessons the hard way than I could ever fit into one book.

For years, all of that knowledge lived in my head.

I could sit across the desk from somebody and explain how a real car deal works. I could walk through a shop and tell you what was wrong. I could look at a piece of property or a business opportunity and see angles most people would miss.

But if I wasn’t in the room, none of it existed.

That is what finally clicked for me.

I didn’t need to invent a personality. I didn’t need to become some polished internet expert. I already had the experience. I already had the stories. I already had strong opinions.

I just needed to turn the camera on.

The Camera Changed the Way I Look at My Own Life

At first, making content felt like marketing.

You post a video so people learn your name. You write an article so Google can find you. You build an audience so you can sell something later.

That is still part of it. Attention is the new currency, and anybody running a business who ignores that fact is going to get left behind.

But something else happened.

The camera made me pay closer attention to my own life.

A drive in the Escalade became a story. A problem with a car became a lesson. Grilling bacon while taking calls on a waterfront property became a piece of content. A conversation at the valet stand became an episode of Valet Notes.

Nothing had to be manufactured. The content was already there.

The business. The cars. The house. The wins. The pressure. The mistakes. The comeback.

My life was producing the material every day. I had simply never documented it.

I Stopped Waiting for Everything to Look Perfect

This may be the biggest lesson I’ve learned from creating every day: perfection is one hell of a hiding place.

People wait for the better camera. The cleaner office. The finished car. The perfect business plan. The moment when they finally feel qualified.

Meanwhile, somebody with half their experience hits publish 500 times and becomes the authority.

I decided I wasn’t waiting anymore.

I started the Modern Day Dealer YouTube channel. I committed to publishing every day. I built a weekly live show. I started NFAFinance.com and began turning my experience, thoughts, and real-time decisions into articles.

Some videos work. Some flop. Some posts get immediate attention. Others sit quietly until the right person searches for exactly what I wrote.

That no longer bothers me.

Every upload is another brick. Every blog post is another asset. Every live show makes me sharper. Every day I publish, the entire machine gets a little stronger.

The Hobby Became a Multiplier

Content doesn’t replace the work. It multiplies the work.

If I buy one interesting car, I don’t just have one car to sell. I have the hunt, the inspection, the negotiation, the repair, the first drive, the story behind it, and the final sale.

One transaction can produce a dozen pieces of content.

One lesson from the dealership can become a video, a Short, a blog post, a live discussion, and a conversation with somebody I may never have reached otherwise.

That changes the economics of everything.

The shop feeds the content. The content feeds the shop. The cars create the stories. The stories build the audience. The audience creates opportunities I cannot even see yet.

That is the part most people still underestimate.

You are not merely posting on social media. You are building distribution.

And distribution is leverage.

I’m Building a Record of the Comeback

There is another reason this matters to me.

I spent too much time standing still.

Life got noisy. Family problems, business setbacks, a divorce, money pressure—all of it can pull you away from the person you know you are.

But I didn’t lose who I am.

I’m still a car dealer. I’m still a builder. I’m still the guy who loves real shops, real businesses, big-block cars, road trips, and taking something neglected and bringing it back to life.

Now I’m documenting that process in real time.

Not after everything works out.

Not once the shop is full, the cars are finished, and the bank account looks good.

Right now—while it is still being built.

That is what makes the story worth following.

Anybody can tell you the comeback story after the victory. I want to show the days when it was uncertain, the days when the numbers were ugly, and the days when the only thing I had complete control over was whether I hit publish again.

The Real Answer

So yes, content creation is the hobby I picked up.

What got me into it?

I realized I had spent 25 years accumulating experience and almost none of that experience was searchable, shareable, or working for me while I slept.

I realized attention is the new currency.

I realized the internet rewards people who are willing to show the work consistently.

And I realized I don’t need anybody’s permission to build the next chapter of my life in public.

What began as marketing has become something much bigger.

It is a business asset. A creative outlet. A personal record. A source of accountability. And a way to make every car, every lesson, every deal, and every mile of the road ahead matter more.

Maybe it started as a hobby.

But I have a feeling this will become one of the most important things I’ve ever built.

If you want to follow the story while it is happening, subscribe to Modern Day Dealer on YouTube and keep reading NFAFinance.com.

We are building the cars, the business, and the comeback in real time.

—Nicholas Francis
Modern Day Dealer
NFAFinance.com