A friend of mine quite his job on a whim.

Photo courtesy of banspy

No planning, no fall back, no safety net. He worked for a boss he hated and one day he walked in and was tired of it and he quit. He is 40 years old and he quit. He isn’t some silver spoon boy from a well-healed family. He didn’t have a job making a ton of money. He was just a normal guy that was tired of it. So he quit.

I went to high school with a pretty neat guy, Dan McLaughlin. While I haven’t spoken to Dan in years I have been inspired by his story. A couple years ago he quit his job to prove a point. With 10,000 hours of diligent practice you can become an expert at anything (almost). According to his website Thedanplan.com :

On April 5th, 2010, Dan quit his day job as a commercial photographer and began The Dan Plan. Having never played 18 holes of golf in his life, Dan started the 10,000 hour journey with just a putter.  After five months of putting, he received his second club, a pitching wedge. Just before the first anniversary of The Dan Plan dan took his first full-swing lesson.  After 18 months he swung a driver for the first time.  On December 28, 2011 he played his first full round with a full set of clubs.  Since then it has been off to the races.

Logging in 30-plus hours a week he will hit the 10,000 hour milestone by December 2016. During this time, Dan plans to develop his skills through deliberate practice, eventually winning amateur events and obtaining his PGA Tour card through a successful appearance in the PGA Tour’s Qualifying School, or “Q-School”.

I realized a few years ago that my political science background really wasn’t that marketable during the “great recession” and the skills I had learned in real estate development and finance weren’t in high demand since banks were going out of business and failed developments were everywhere. Dusting off my resume wasn’t really a winning strategy for me. What was in high demand was an income from me to support my family. 

In my early 20’s it was so easy to get out of college and enter the working world and start earning money in amounts (even small ones) that were greater than the tips I got from waiting tables or tending bar and thought I could do anything I wanted to do within my new found (small) wealth. So what did I do? I began spending money as quickly as it came in. Thankfully for a variety of reasons this did not last long for me.

What I do see as epidemic though is the amount of college grads that get out of school and begin living a lifestyle that spends every dime that comes in the door because “i’m young, right? I’ve got all the time in the world to save”.

Unfortunately that lifestyle begins to be something that increases as your pay does, and unknowingly you have a pair of golden handcuffs on you forever and your ability to take risk, follow your dreams, or pursue your passion is hamstrung by the salary that you must have to pay your bills.

So what do these three stories have in common?

The concept of “margin”.

Had my friend not been diligent to live below his means, had Dan not saved since high school, and had I not consistently put money away none of us would have been free to pursue our dreams, or take advantage of an opportunity.

For me, my dream was to build a company and because, through the grace of God, I was able to stay in the game MountainSeed was born.

This has become my number one piece of advice for recent college grads. Create Margin. As much as you can.

So,  to the recent college grad, to the millennial, to the entrepreneur in disguise; create margin for yourself in your personal finances. Live (well) below your means. Store away while you are young so that when you want to (if you want to) you are free to take a leap to something new.

I love the quote from Dave Ramsey “Live like no one else so one day you can live like no one else”

Have you ever taken a risk because of your margin, or wished you had? Let me know your experiences below.