If you’re like me, you’re a little bit lazy.  I want someone to make life easy for me.  And I'm also easily discouraged.  When something isn’t working out, I'm prone to give up.  But I’ve learned something the hard way that’s made my life easier.

I used to say I didn’t care about money.  I never saved because I never wanted to retire.  Retiring was for lazy people.  I didn’t want to play golf.  I wanted to work, be productive and create until the day I died.  Then I learned that retiring didn’t just mean playing golf (which I actually don’t know how to do).  And I also learned that money wasn’t about stuff, it was about time.  Money buys time, and I care a lot about my time.

I’ll know we’re good friends when we can talk about these kinds of questions:

• What would you do if you weren’t afraid?
• What would you do if you weren’t worried about money?
• What are you enthusiastic about?
• What is your dream job?
• What is stopping you from doing that?
• What would it take to do that?
• How can I help?

We met Jayne and York and their four kids while camping a few years ago.  We became quick friends and soon thereafter convinced York and Jayne to go sailing with us in the British Virgin Islands.  Emily and I were chartering a boat for the first time.  The trip was one of our self-created training runs in our ramp-up to buying and sailing our own boat.  Jayne and York trusted us and came along.  They took a chance with us.  We became even better friends.  In the following years, we continued to get together and talk about the above questions.  And we started to figure out the answers. 

Please don’t punch me in the face, but yes, I’m going to be that guy that talks about fitness at the holidays, because I’ve learned the secret. 

For probably 10 years we didn’t have a scale in our home.  We didn’t have one on principle.  I hated them.  I wasn’t concerned about my weight, or anyone else’s for that matter.  I cared about health and well being, not an arbitrary number.  However, after we’d been sailing for nine months, I was at my parents house and they did own a scale.  I decided to weigh myself.  The last time I weighed my self was nine months prior when I was at their house right before we sailed. 

I’ve always taught my kids:  encouragement is the greatest gift we can give each other.  In fact I’ve already written about this previously when two of my mentors passed away while we were sailing. But I wanted to share how my daughter Karina took this idea literally and gave me the greatest gift for Christmas one year. I have kept these cards in my desk, and every now and then I pull them out and look through the stack.  I feel more confident and competent every time I do.