How To Know When An Opportunity is Right For You (#45) — Transcript
Updated: Oct 26
THE PICTURE OF WEALTH · EPISODE 45
Dustin Serviss reflects on skydiving, parenthood and how fear can change the way an opportunity looks. He explores the questions behind deciding whether a risk or a new direction is right for you.
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This transcript was generated from the episode audio and lightly edited for readability. It may contain transcription or speaker-attribution errors. Refer to the recording for exact wording.
Chapters
[00:00:23] Old photographs and a question about risk
[00:01:38] Circular logic and fear
[00:02:45] Reducing financial unknowns
[00:03:49] Being ready for opportunity
[00:04:55] Checking an opportunity against your values
[00:06:07] Noticing luck
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Transcript
[00:00:01] Show announcer: Welcome to the Picture of Wealth, a podcast all about living more of your life now yet being responsible for your future. Lifestyle experimenter, wealth scientist, and financial coach, Dustin Service, shares life hacks, wealth tips, and interviews successful entrepreneurs on how they're thriving in happiness, purpose, and prosperity.
[00:00:23] Dustin Serviss: Alright. Informal podcast. I am in a house that is quiet. Kids are at preschool. I've got the cat nicely resting beside me. And, we recently moved, and I was moving some old photo albums and came across some pictures of, an activity that Jody and I did a number of years ago, which was skydiving. And I asked her, I said, you know, is skydiving as a parent different than skydiving not as a parent? And, obviously, you know, there's obvious, reasons that it is different, but at the same time, I was debating that the reality of of us going skydiving now, again, with kids is not any different of a risk than it used to be.
[00:01:02] Dustin Serviss: And, you know, she had quite a a a good stance on why we shouldn't as parents. But fear makes us see the world differently. To the man who is afraid, everything rustles is a quote that I can't remember what came or where that book came from. But, you know, she said she'd never do it, you know, now as we have kids. And I say, the risk is the same, and if not, the the odds, you know, are probably better that we'd have a a more, successful jump because the... You know, there's probably more regulation and the technology's gotten better. But now any debate that, you know, mixes spouse and children
[00:01:38] Dustin Serviss: and life and death, is probably a recipe for what we call circular logic. And, you know, if you throw money and the cost of something like that, into the mix, you've got a potential for, you know, basically, a box of fireworks going off in your garage, you know, with with the door closed. But, if you've not heard about circular logic, I'll save that for a whole new podcast. But it's a real thing that happens, usually between spouses or hard to deal with employees, where, you know, if you find yourself in a a conversation with someone, you're having trouble winning the debate, I'll say,
[00:02:09] Dustin Serviss: and you find yourself, you know, spinning your tires and, you know, the conversation is becoming confused, circular logic is usually in the conversation and is probably hanging out in the room. But, again, it's just a a twist on the the the logic of the story and keep moving, you know, sort of around, you know, the concept that's being talked about, and nothing ever gets done. But back on track, you know, how to fix living in a state of fear, and more importantly, how do we act on opportunity faster? I'm talking specific about money and business opportunity, and and, really, I I view it as being quite simple.
[00:02:45] Dustin Serviss: It's limit the amount of unknowns in your financial life. And we're talking about, you know, capturing opportunity. One needs to act quickly, usually. So knowing your numbers, either have your adviser track and give you updates, in a format that resonates with you. I know many of my clients like written plans, but most, have gravitated towards, you know, a visual picture of one page. You know? What do I have? Where am I going? And what are the risks that are present? We call that a dashboard document. And you could make one yourself, you know, just fast summarize what you have, investments. You know?
[00:03:20] Dustin Serviss: What's your company value if you're a business owner? What debts do you have? What life insurance do you have and the values of your real estate and put beside the values of your real estate, your mortgage number. And from there, you could then take that to an accountant and, you know, ask him or her if, you know, you're you're missing anything. And that is your financial dashboard. And now you're armed to make quick decisions. You know, when you need to buy a dip in the market, you know exactly where you're at financially, where your risks are, and say, hey. There's a dip in the market. Let's buy.
[00:03:49] Dustin Serviss: Or if you're gonna buy a real estate asset, you know, maybe your neighbor just came to you and said, hey. We're thinking about selling. Well, before they got to a realtor and said something, you know, maybe you could come up with an idea. Or, you know, if you've got, you know, real estate listings that you're seeing, there's a lot of other people with cash out there. You need to be able to act quickly. Well, come back to your dashboard. Yeah. We're in good shape. We understand the risks. We're gonna move forward. Now, you know, when in doubt, you know, if you're feeling overwhelmed
[00:04:18] Dustin Serviss: with trying to make these decisions, it sounds, you know, very basic, but three long deep breaths, actually does change the chemistry, and and and may help you change a fear situation into a positive experience of excitement, alertness, a place of learning. You're gonna learn things. You're gonna meet new people of... You know, maybe it's pleasure and discovery. You know? And if you're looking for for readable books or what I would call, you know, digestible books and not deep into the weeds of of psychology, but, you know, readable books that help you focus on what's important to you,
[00:04:55] Dustin Serviss: which then helps you identify if an opportunity is actually an opportunity. We all hear people at cocktail parties that bought stock or bought a piece of real estate. Oh, man. I wish I would have done that. But if your values aren't aligned or or what you wanna focus on or what's important to you is not connected to that opportunity, then you don't even need to think about it or worry about it. But here are the books that I that I itemized. You know, think and grow rich by Napoleon Hill, the happiness project, IKIGAI, the happiness trap. And I... A book I just finished is called conscious luck.
[00:05:30] Dustin Serviss: And, you know, I was sitting the other day thinking of some of my top clients and I I saw similarity, luck. You know, they've been in the right place, the right time. And I thought, wow, what if we could all be a little more lucky? Would that help or could that help get us to our goals? And I literally... The moment I started reading the book, you know, into the first chapter in the next couple days, I saw three examples of luck happen in my own life. So relatively short time, call it woo woo, call it whatever you want. But when you put it out to the universe that, you know, you say,
[00:06:07] Dustin Serviss: I'm gonna be more conscious to seeing luck in my life, it's easier to see, and then it happens more and more in your life. So if you got any questions about those books, I'm happy to answer them. But, you know, there's always lots of resources online. And, hopefully, you got a nugget there that pushes you forward in pursuing what's important in your life.
[00:06:29] Show announcer: If you found this episode valuable, share it with a friend. If you found this episode super valuable, leave us a review on iTunes. It will help us continue to bring you top quality content. For more information on anything discussed on this show, visit w w w dot servicewealth dot com. That's service spelled s e r v I s s. Any investment topics covered on the show are not investment recommendations, and you should seek professional advice before making any investment decisions. This show was produced by Podgy podcast. Thanks for listening.