NFA Finance

I don’t.

Seriously.

I really don’t give a shit what people want to read.

That probably sounds like a terrible strategy for somebody who owns a blog, but it’s the truth.

I don’t sit down and ask myself what’s trending. I don’t wonder what everybody is going to agree with. I don’t try to manufacture some perfect story that’s going to make me look smarter, richer, happier, or more successful than I really am.

I just write about real life.

My life.

Things I’ve experienced.

Things I’ve learned.

Things I’ve fucked up.

Cars I’ve bought. Cars I shouldn’t have bought. Businesses I’ve built. Money I’ve made. Money I’ve lost. Ideas I’m chasing. People I’ve met. Relationships. Family. Getting older. Starting over. Taking chances. And occasionally just whatever the hell happens to be on my mind that morning.

Some days there’s a lesson.

Some days there isn’t.

Sometimes I’m probably writing this stuff more for myself than anybody else.

And I think that might actually be the secret.

Because somewhere along the way, everybody started trying to become a brand.

Everybody wants the perfect picture.

The perfect caption.

The perfect story.

The perfect life.

Everything gets cleaned up before anybody else gets to see it.

But real life isn’t clean.

Real life is complicated.

You can be winning in one part of your life and getting your ass kicked in another.

You can make a great decision Monday and a terrible one Tuesday.

You can have a plan for the next five years and completely change your mind by Friday.

That’s life.

And that’s what I want to document.

I’m not interested in pretending I already know how the story ends.

I’d rather write it while I’m living it.

Maybe five years from now I’ll look back at something I wrote today and realize I was completely wrong.

Good.

At least I’ll know what I actually thought at the time.

That’s worth something to me.

I’ve lived enough life to know that the polished version usually isn’t the interesting version anyway.

The interesting part is the struggle.

The bad deal.

The crazy idea.

The comeback.

The mistake you swore you’d never make again — and somehow made again.

The moment when everybody else thought you were nuts but you did it anyway.

That’s where the story is.

And I think that’s what people actually connect with.

Not perfection.

Character.

Truth.

Something real enough that somebody reads it and thinks:

“Fuck. I’ve felt that too.”

So I’m not going to start writing for an audience now.

I’m going to keep doing exactly what I’ve been doing.

Living.

Building.

Screwing things up.

Figuring things out.

And documenting the whole damn thing along the way.

Some people will like it.

Some people won’t.

Some people will agree with me.

Some people will think I’m completely full of shit.

That’s fine.

Because this isn’t supposed to be everybody’s story.

It’s mine.

And maybe the best way to write something people actually want to read…

is to stop trying so damn hard to write something people want to read.

Just tell the truth.

— Nicholas Francis
NFAFinance.com