Full-Circle Dinners
I began doing financial coaching about 10 years ago, starting as a personal ministry. I knew I could help people, and I knew people needed help, so I used whatever giftings God gave me to serve people in that area of life.
During one of my first coaching sessions, I told the couple that when they got out of debt, we would go out for a celebratory dinner at any restaurant in the metro they wanted, my treat. I thought it was a great little impulsive idea, so I repeated the same line to every couple I coached. These couples had tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of consumer debt. Student loans, car loans, credit cards, medical debt….so much debt! Over the years, I've had dozens of debt-free dinners, my treat. We've done fancy steakhouses, old-school Italian, swanky French, and countless others. Those dinners are so much fun, and they're a great way to memorialize the hard counter-cultural work people have done on this financial journey. Dozens of times, I've been able to raise a glass and toast these couples' beautiful achievements.
During one of those earliest coaching meetings, I also said something else, tongue-in-cheek. The debt-free dinner is at any restaurant they choose, my treat. Then, someday, when they become millionaires, we'll go to any restaurant I want, their treat. It was more of a half-joke than anything; my attempt to bring humor and optimism to the otherwise heavy conversation. Think of it as a seed planted. After all, these were often couples buried in debt, struggling with finances, and feeling the tension in their marriage because of it. The mere idea of becoming millionaires felt far-fetched......but what if? I don’t actually think reaching this arbitrary status is some important endeavor, but it grounds people in optimism. What if?
Years later, I'm starting to receive phone calls from current and former clients:
"It's time to schedule our millionaire dinner. Where are we going, Travis?"
"Travis, what's your favorite restaurant? It's almost time for our million-dollar dinner?"
Or this text I recently received: "I'm not sure how it happened, but we did it! This doesn't even feel real, but it looks like we owe you a fancy dinner."
Progress often feels slow in the moment. However, after a while, we'll have that little moment where we look down the mountain from which we climbed, only to realize that we've made far more progress than we ever thought possible.
Step by step, day by day, decision by decision, sacrifice by sacrifice. Nothing is easy, but it can be simple. The key is stepping back far enough to recognize that small steps (eventually) yield profound progress. These full-circle dinners are a beautiful reminder of that for me. What once was full of pain, tension, and suffering can slowly blossom into something that never seemed fathomable. We ought not forget that, especially on the hard days when success feels anything but possible.
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