Happy day to you. This is Ken Kaufman, and I am thrilled you’re here for episode number 73, New Perspectives.
Now, you’re gonna probably hear, in the background, a little more echo than normal, and this is on purpose. I’m sitting in a very unique place, and I felt like we could sacrifice some sound quality for me to be able to bring this podcast episode to you from a unique and a special place. And it really is the theme of today’s episode, which is, new perspectives.
About 18 months ago, so it was March, and I’m recording this in the middle of August, so it was almost 18 months ago, my family and I made a move that, looking from the outside in, would have been considered ill-advised. We didn’t have a great place to go, we were leaving one state and going to another state and kind of trusting that some things would work out. And it has been a very rocky road with lots of challenges and things in the process, and in all honesty, lots of great lessons learned in the process and new perspectives gained.
We had some ideas of what might work out and then those didn’t come through. We ultimately ended up buying some land and then building a house. And that’s where I’m sitting right now is our brand new house. Just today, we received the certificate of occupancy and we’re officially allowed to move in and start living here. And this was 18 months ago when door number one or option number one, option number two didn’t work out. We bought land and we built a house and it’s taken a long time — design process, getting approvals, and just the long construction process. Not to mention COVID-19 has slowed things down. Things got slowed down because there were material shortages. Also, the entire painting crew came down with COVID-19 before they came to paint our house and so there’s a lot of shuffling around to try to find a new subcontractor that could step in and do that. And so plenty of challenges. Not to mention the fact that where we’re living, not a lot of places to rent and we wanted to move close to the area so we ended up having to rent a townhome with eight kids, two adults, about a 1,400 square foot townhome that’s kind of three small bedrooms.
Now I don’t say this to complain. We lived a blessed life, but this has been a challenge and it’s been a struggle. And I just wanted to pass along a few, I think, perspective as I’m sitting here. Now, I can look back. The first one is that I now have a completely new concept about how work can be done and how it can be accomplished. I moved away from the business that I’m a partner in and have been working remotely with a little bit of travel to and from, but I have all new perspective about how to run and manage and lead a team remotely, even to the extent that some of our last hires, we’ve hired remotely. In fact, we now have employees that work underneath my part of the organization on three different continents and that… I never would have gotten to this place, I never would have understood how to do it without going through this process. And I think it’s gonna forever change the way I think about work and the way I think about leading my teams and the way I think about creating value inside of a company. That has been really valuable.
Another one that sticks out to me, another kind of lesson learned, a new perspective gained in this process is that when you stick to something, everything ends up working out. Now, I know that that sounds trite, but let me explain my perspective here. What has happened for us and where I’m sitting today in this house, again, we just got our certificate of occupancy and we’re allowed to now start moving in and taking advantage of what we’ve been working on and iterating ourselves toward for this last 18 months. What I’ve learned in this process is that everything ends up working out, but a lot of times, it is not what our original plans are or even what the second and third and fourth and fifth draft and versions of our plans are.
But looking back now, I can see that in a hundred years, I would not have chosen this outcome, but looking back now and seeing our experience through this whole process, I can see that this is exactly the outcome that we needed. And so my perspective on this is that whatever challenge you’re facing, whatever difficult times and whatever you’re looking forward to, stay open to the fact that the best outcome is ultimately gonna find its way to you, especially if you stick to it, especially if you keep moving forward and you keep pushing. And there’s tons of application of this to building that worth and trying to succeed from a personal finance and investing perspective.
And then I think the last perspective I want to share, well, and I need to just add that sometimes, you just have to trust the process, even when it just doesn’t look like it’s going to work out and even when it’s frustrating. I’ve had many, many frustrating moments and days and weeks with being away from the business, with being kind in a really difficult, awkward living circumstance while we’re waiting to get this house done and be able to move in. Anyways, I just wanted to say that that building net worth and succeeding financially, it takes time and you’ve got to keep pushing and you’ve got to keep moving forward. And ultimately, if you stick to it, things are gonna work out and it’s gonna create a good outcome because of your effort, because of your focus, because of your diligence in that process. If you don’t take that perspective, and if you don’t keep pushing forward, then you will not create a good outcome. At that point, you’re just going to let the outcome be driven by everything else around you as opposed to your will to push forward and make things happen.
The final perspective I have, and again, just sitting here from this perspective and I’m pretty reflective right now in this moment, is continually working toward creating alignment with your spouse in all areas of life. As human beings in a marriage relationship, our momentum in life is so dramatically impacted by the alignment we have with our spouse and the success we have in marriage.
Now, by no means, am I saying, like, if somebody is in a bad marriage and there’s abuse and boundaries are being crossed and those things, I’m not saying that everybody should stay in a marriage and make it work. I know that in some circumstances, that is absolutely the wrong thing and there are better ways to handle a situation. But to the degree you’ve got, you know, a healthy relationship and yet, you know, you see things differently and you approach things differently and you process and think about things differently and you’re committed to each other and there’s healthy boundaries between each other and things like that.
The power that comes from being aligned in your marriage and being aligned in your home is so powerful because when you’re not… And through this process, my wife and I have had to keep working to stay aligned because this has been a hard time. It’s been a frustrating time. And there’ve been times where the two of us have not seen eye to eye at all on how we should proceed or how we should move forward and where I’ve done things very reluctantly or she’s done things very reluctantly because I was wanting to go a certain direction.
And the perspective here is that when you keep working at that and you keep trying to drive toward alignment, it brings momentum in all areas of your life. It enables and empowers you to accomplish so many other things. And I really do believe that it’s God-driven and God-designed, the concept of being married and learning from each other and going through the hard times and having the great, you know, really amazing times. And then a lot of just the mundane, in the middle times, together, you know, with raising a family and all those sorts of things. And so, you know, sitting here, I just think my new perspective is, and I had this before, but I don’t know that I had to work as hard. I don’t know that I appreciated enough the value that came to my life when I was consistently working toward having alignment in my marriage and with my spouse.
And so, again, those are just three perspectives. I’m sure I could sit down and write a longer list. I actually didn’t even prepare for this podcast, I just literally plugged the microphone into my phone and just started recording this. So hopefully, there’s something of value here. Hopefully, there’s a nugget that you can take from this podcast called New Perspectives.
And again, pretty rough last 18 months on many, many fronts. Not to mention a pandemic, a global pandemic that’s created a lot of angst and concern and worry and lots of economic challenges in the world. And then the civil unrest and the social injustice that we see around us and the outcomes of some of those people being very highly impacted by the anxiety and concern and fear in a global pandemic, we have all of these things going on. I just really want to come back and say, “Look, if you stick to it, if you stick to your plan, if you keep pushing forward, it is gonna work out. You’re gonna create great outcomes. You’re gonna be able to overcome the challenges in front of you no matter how hard they seem.” And I don’t mean to say that the challenges I’ve had in front of me are that hard or that difficult. Certainly live a blessed life and I know there are many who have many greater challenges and worries and fears and concerns than I have, but hopefully, there’s just a little bit, a little sliver of perspective you can take away. If you keep moving forward, keep doing your best and pushing through the challenges and the hard times and the fears and the anxieties, things are gonna work out.
Well, that’s it, that’s all I’ve got for today. I will be signing off from our new house. We’re gonna be moving in. Things are going to be busy here for the next little bit. Many, many thanks to you for joining today. This is a wrap for episode 73. Happy day.
