The Outsiders:
For many of us, we live the life that we want to live on the outside because we have always known what that looks like on the outside, but we were never taught how to actually build the infrastructure to support it from the inside and we find ourselves struggling to sustain it. The life we worked so hard to create feels fragile, heavy, and like it is never fully ours. And you are right, it is not supposed to feel this hard. Not when you have done what you were supposed to do.
That is where the Do Over comes in.
A Do Over is about reinforcing the place you are standing so that freedom is built in. Freedom from that constant bracing and from that feeling that something could upend everything at any moment.
I grew up in subsidized housing in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn, NY. (Brooklyn stand up!)
There, you mainly find high-rise apartment buildings. Mine was an oceanfront, 24-story building with about 330 residential units (that circle is my living room). I can honestly say that I knew the names and faces of at least 90% of the people who lived there.
About 2 miles away from my building was an area called Seagate. No high rises. There you found these large, private, single-family houses. I mean the most elaborate houses I’d ever seen.
My friends and I would walk there and peer through the gate, fantasizing about which house we would buy, arguing over whose house was better. We would stand outside, hoping someone would let us in so we could look in the windows.
We never got inside, but I didn’t need to. I could imagine how phenomenal it was in there.
I was 17 years old before I ever stepped one foot inside a private, detached home.
Like my friends and I standing outside that gate, what we saw was the outcome, not the infrastructure. Not what made the house sustainable. Not what actually made it all possible. Getting inside is just the first step. Once we are in, we have to build.
Now, before we open the gate and really walk in, I want to pause for a moment.
It is important to give yourself permission to take a Do-Over.
You do not have to fight your past to move forward. You just have to be willing to build differently from here.
Deep breath.
First, give yourself permission to release the belief that it should have gone differently. That if you had invested earlier, married someone else, saved more, or not taken on so much student debt, your financial life would have been better.
Make peace with having done your best with what you knew. That was your first go at it.
There is more for you.
Come inside.
Welcome.
Developing Infrastructure is an integral part of your Financial Do Over. Infrastructure gives us the clarity and a framework by which we make financial decisions. It allows you to buy something without wondering what it broke. It is what allows you to earn more without immediately needing more.
Our infrastructure gives us a framework to answer questions like:
How much house can we really afford? Should we renovate this one or move? What should I do with my bonus this year? Should we get a 15 or 30 year mortgage? Is this the right time to leave my job? Can we afford for one of us to stay home? Do we send our children to private school? Or do we buy in a slightly more expensive area and use public schools?
These are not solely income-based questions. They are also infrastructure-based questions. Remember this, your income is a part of your infrastructure. It is not THE infrastructure.
Six Figures, We Up!
I remember going from making about 89K as an advisor to about 102K and I can tell you, I barely noticed a difference in what hit my bank account that week. It can be disorienting to go from making very little money to making six figures all at once. But one can completely miss it if you climbed your way there over time. Many of us missed it.
For many of us, we missed it because we do not necessarily know what it means to make six figures a year. Yes, we understand the number, but what does that mean in terms of how you can live, and what you can afford, and how much you can save. Without a good point of reference, we go about the business of creating the life that we associate with making that much money from the outside.
The end result is that we start taking on more before we have built the support for it.
Your income is what gives you the option to buy things. The infrastructure is what sustains you and keeps you financially sound after you buy things.
The Financial Infrastructure
Building infrastructure is not sexy. It actually looks a little chaotic at first. Nobody posts about it and there is not much to show.
It is head down, quiet, disciplined, slow work.
This is a pivotal point, because it moves us beyond the question of how much do I make and toward something far more telling.
Not five years from now. Not when the bonus hits. Not when the next promotion comes.
Today. Right now.
If you stripped away the momentum, the projections, the optimism, what would actually be there?
If we are going to take a real Do Over, this is where we have to look.
So here are your infrastructure questions:
How much money do you truly have access to right now?
How easy would it be to significantly lower your monthly expenses if you wanted to or had to?
Discipline is often overlooked, but it is a critical part of infrastructure. When it comes to your money, do your actions match your intentions?
Are you actively building toward clear financial goals?
How dependent are you on the next deposit?
If something unexpected happened, is there someone you could call for financial help? If the answer is no, does your financial life reflect that?
If these questions made you feel anxious or overwhelmed, I want you to pause, no really pause, take another deep breath. We are going to get there. The point of these questions is not to overwhelm you.
It is to help you see clearly where you are actually standing.
Infrastructure is what determines whether your money brings pressure or peace. Whether decisions feel tense or steady. Whether opportunity feels exciting or risky.
These questions expose the difference between income and stability.
They show you whether you are operating on momentum or on structure.
Financial freedom is less about how much you make and more about how you have used that money to build.
This is the work.
I will leave you with this today.
No matter where you are standing right now, no matter how messy it feels, no matter how late or behind you think you are, you still have time.
The point of building infrastructure is not to hurry up and get to freedom.
Building the infrastructure is its own reward.
Building the infrastructure for the life you want is not separate from creating the life.
Building the infrastructure is the life.
In the next article, we’ll talk about what you can do to start BUILDING YOUR INFRASTRUCTURE.
Thank you for being here. Come again.
Kahlilah Dowe, CFP®