1/3 Through the Race
Today marks the 20th anniversary of starting my career: June 6th, 2005. Just a few days after graduating with a finance degree from Iowa State University, I packed up my dumpy little apartment and moved into an equally dumpy little apartment in suburban Kansas City.
I spent the next four years growing my career in institutional commercial real estate investing before being involuntarily relocated to Des Moines, Iowa, during the Great Financial Crisis. It was a scary and frustrating time, but I was so grateful for the opportunity to keep a job when everyone around me was losing theirs. I was hurt, but blessed.
I spent the next ten years continuing my commercial real estate journey, eventually leading me to work primarily with European and Middle Eastern clients. Those were some special years, and I grew tremendously through them.
However, during the back half of that decade, I felt this lingering pull to make a dramatic shift and dedicate my life to something different. That was a hard decision, though, as I was making more money than I ever imagined I would. Ultimately, I had to choose meaning over money, and in June 2019, I started my financial coaching business.
These last six years have been absolutely wild. It started as financial coaching for families, but quickly grew to include business consulting, podcasting, writing, speaking, and Northern Vessel. I'm so grateful for all of it. It's been the honor of a lifetime.
Today, I'm almost 44 years old. As I reflect on the past 20 years, I realize I'm about 1/3 through my career. So much has happened already, but I can't even fathom what's about to happen in the next 40 years of this career. Here's one thing I do know, though. Whatever happens in the next chapter will dwarf the impact I had in the first 20 years of my career. No matter how much good happened in the past, the future will surely be brighter.
How do I know that? Here's how. 44-year-old Travis has more experience, skills, insights, relationships, influence, and resources than the Travis who existed over the prior 20 years. As such, there's almost zero chance I don't make a bigger impact this next season than the last. Everything builds on everything.
The irony of this situation is that our culture will soon cheer me on to retire and ride off into the sunset. It will tell me that I can afford to quit work and start "enjoying life." So many people I know are leaving the game before even reaching their peak impact years. They raced to this made-up 21st-century concept called retirement, where they will now coast out the remainder of their lives in comfort. Instead, they could literally be changing the world by engaging in the world with everything they have to offer.
Don't get me wrong; I'm all for freedom of choice. Everyone has the right to do whatever they want with their life. I don't have a right to tell people what they should or shouldn't do. However, I'm going to use whatever influence I have, and the example I have the opportunity to model, to show that each of us has so much more to offer this world than the world is giving us credit for.
Whatever impact you made in the past pales in comparison to what you can do from here on out. Prove it.
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