Invest in Your Dreams: The Compound Interest of Thriving Relationships

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Episode Transcription

Welcome back to the Road of Life podcast with McKay and Bennett. What are we talking about today MacKay? Today we're talking about paying the price for our dreams. Paying whatever price our dream asks. Because what we're learning is that you pay either way. 100 percent you pay either way. You can either Pay now, meaning do the work, do the work, sacrifice.

Yeah. Learn all the skills you need to learn. Do all the things you need to do to have your dream. Push through discomfort or you cannot pay the price now and you cannot achieve your dream and then you pay the lost opportunity costs for that later. You pay, you pay later by not having your dream, by not living the life you wanna live by not traveling business class, by not going to Peru, by not doing the things you wanna do, the things you wanna do.

And it's kind of like those, like payday loans. You can either, you know, you know what I mean? Like the high interest. Yeah. Like, it's like you can. Find a way to figure out how to do it now, struggle through, and, or you can go and get a high interest loan and pay through the nose later. If you don't go after your dream and you live someone else's version of your life, it's like paying so much in it's compound interest.

Oh, totally. So compound interest. We were listening to this the other day in a book and I thought it was so cool. I think it's. Albert Einstein, who said something to the effect of "Compound interest is like the eighth wonder of the world. If you understand it, you'll earn it. If you don't understand it, you'll pay it."

And we were listening to this in a book called "Be Your Future Self Now". And he was talking about it from the sense of, there's basically the, the, the concept of compound interest in everything, good or bad. And it made me think of compound interest through the lens of a relationship and It goes back to you know, sort of starting to feel like a bit of a drum we're beating over and over again, but compound interest in a relationship through the lens of I can Invest early and have that moment of discomfort when I have to have a difficult conversation. I have to be brave. I have to be vulnerable. I have to be honest. It's it's it's It's uncomfortable for a few minutes.

We've got to work something out, or we've got to Give me shit for something in the moment, so that I don't do it again down the road. And you can deal with it later. Right? Is that where we're going? Ish. But you know, you know, sharing something really vulnerable and really personal with you can be difficult in the moment.

Yeah. But it's an investment, early, that will pay dividends later. As opposed to avoiding that uncomfortable or vulnerable conversation, so I'm shying away from a few minutes of bravery, a few minutes of discomfort, for the sake of short term comfort, I can be a little bit comfortable in the moment. But I built a wall now because I've got something I didn't share with you.

So I built a wall and that wall is going to compound and make it thicker and thicker. We're going to put more bricks in that wall over time because I've sacrificed a few minutes of discomfort for the rest of my life. You have not looked out for the best interest of your future self. Totally. Exactly. He also talked about that concept in everything you do today is either an investment in, Or a cost to your future self.

So, by being vulnerable and having that conversation with you today, I'm investing in my future self, so that we can have a better relationship tomorrow, and next year, and 50 years. Or, you avoid the conversation, and it's a cost to our future selves, because we now have a wall built, and we're going to now be Drifting further and further apart as we grow older and eventually to the point where we no longer want to be together Totally, which is that long term dysfunction, which is the result of avoiding the short term discomfort. I think it was Marla who said yeah, I'll take a few minutes of being uncomfortable right now So I can be a lot more comfortable later. Dale and Marla are very They're experts in this. Mm hmm this this Pay pay now So that you get the benefit later. Totally. Yeah, and I think when we're when we're setting goals and we're imagining our dreams, We're not always Picturing the price we pay for those dreams. We've heard Greg and Cayla say when they dreamed of having Konrad, when they dreamed of having a baby, that means they also dreamed for the dirty diapers for the sleepless nights for the potty training for the two year old tantrums. It's hard in the moment to remember that I signed up for this.

This, this is the price I'm paying for my dream. I dreamed of having this kid and that means I dreamed of paying this price. And I think of it the same way when I was single and I dreamed of meeting someone like you. I also, you know, the price I'm paying for that now Yeah, go ahead what's the price? Is you know like making sure I try and get in the shower before you because when you come out of the shower you bring Like all the shower water out with you so like the bathmat is just like soaking wet and I hate getting it I'm soaking my bathmat.

So like that's just one that's you know, one example just one example or like Keep going. Okay. Or like when somehow the hand towel in the bathroom just always ends up in a heap on the vanity instead of hung up where it can actually be dry so that when I dry my hands with the towel, the towel is dry. So you know, it's just one of the little prices I pay.

My bathroom etiquette is not where it needs to be at this point in time. I guess I'm probably still struggling with the PTSD of every time you leave the house and the house rattles because you slam the door. Could be. That's a price you pay. It's a price we pay. I get PTSD every time you leave the house.

And I think like in, in, in a more serious sense, The price you pay for finding your person is exactly what we talked about. It's short term discomfort on the regular. It's being brave. It's being vulnerable. It's having difficult conversations at times. It's in the name of compromising. You know, I don't want to do that, but she does.

So we're going to do it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's compromising. Yeah. So there's, there's all these prices that you pay and you can either, like we said, pay them up front and have your dream. You can pay in advance, earn the compound interest of being vulnerable, building that trust and then reaping the benefit of that for years to come and having a very strong and connected relationship.

Or, you can not pay the price now and not have that difficult conversation and then tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, probably not much beyond that because if we build enough walls, it's gonna all come crumbling down pretty quickly. You're either paying now as an investment in your future self or you're not paying now, and it's a cost to your future self.

Every choice you make in life is going to have pros and cons. And I think it's really important to remember that When you wish for something or you want something you are taking the bad with the good you don't get to have All of the benefit with none of the cost, that's not how the universe works. You're always going to have to pay a price for it.

Whatever you choose in anything you do So it's remembering that if it's your dream and the problems come up the little things that you don't Necessarily want to do in the moment you wished for those you wanted those things So embrace them, learn, I'll be and be not only willing to do it, But enthusiastic about paying the cost because you know that when you do on the other side of that is the thing that you wanted. Well, it's like I think we talked about this before at some point maybe but if you knew in advance That you had to pay all these prices, you had to do all these things, learn these lessons, learn these skills, whatever it is, you know, pay these ten things.

If you knew you had to step out on a wet bath mat every day, or try to dry your hands in a wet towel every day, but you knew that at the end of that, you would have this amazing relationship, you get to go shoulder to shoulder with someone through life, Achieving your dream life, would you pay that? Every day of the week?

Every, literally every single day of the week. Literally. You take the cost with the benefit. That's right. And I think, you know, we've talked about it through the lens of relationships. It applies in all areas of your life. Totally. Right? Like, we went for a run yesterday. Yeah. There is a cost. There is a cost to that.

My legs are sore today. My legs are very sore today. We're just getting back into the running season. So that was run number two. But the compound interest on that when you do that regularly is that we can do that for a long time. Yeah, you're gonna have a healthy body. Plus you're gonna, you know, you're gonna.

Have a personal best here in a couple months. You're going to run 30 kilometers. 29 kilometers It's important to be exact 29 kilometers Personal best that's going to be a really cool moment. That's going to be something that you're going to be whoo proud of and excited that you finished, right? So i'm paying the cost now i'm paying the price for it now, So I don't have to pay the cost for it later.

I can reap the reward of that later You're going to pay the you're you're going to pay a price on that day, too Just to be very, very clear. There is going to be a price on the day. Fair, fair, very fair. But at the end there will be a very cool reward. But, you know, all the prices we pay today for our health, you know, drinking all the water and making sure we get sleep and not eating sugar.

All the bathroom trips. All those things, those are the prices that we're paying today so that we can reap the compound interest in 20 years and 40 years and 60 years. We're extending our life. So that we get to enjoy this ride for longer. Yeah, so we get to spend more time together. Exactly. Picking up bathmats.

More wet bathmats in your future. So I think a good way to summarize the whole concept is something I just read in the Almanac by Naval Ravikant. And it's, what he says is "hard decisions, easy life, or easy decisions, hard life".

I think that's a good way to summarize that you pay now or you pay later. The harder the decisions you make today, the easier your life's going to be in the end. The more you shy away from the hard decisions and stick to the easy stuff, the harder life's going to be in the end. Pay now. Make your life as easy as possible in the future.

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