Hi iza,

Big news! We're buying a house. Not just any house – a legacy house. The kind where grandkids will cannonball into the saltwater pool 30 years from now.

Mike and I have been renters since we moved to Miami “by accident” in 2021.

The conventional wisdom says renting is throwing money down the toilet.

But I firmly disagree.

As renters for the past 5 years, we’ve been able to allocate the capital we would have tied up in a down payment and maintenance into a diversified portfolio that returned 18.8% last year alone.

The home you live in is not a cash-flowing asset. It takes money out of your pocket every month and doesn’t make you money unless you sell it. And even when you sell, you still need somewhere to live.

Buying a house to build wealth isn’t a bad idea. But it’s a mistake to think it’s the only way, or even the best way, for you.

If we’d bought a house in 2021, the likelihood that it would have gotten us an 18.8% return per year since then is slim to none. So we paid rent and allocated capital across stocks and bonds, real estate syndicates and consortiums, crypto, silver and gold, and our first cash-flowing short-term rental property.

Each of those allocations had a role in our overall strategy – liquidity, growth, cash flow, and long-term appreciation.

But now?

We’re ready to buy a house. Not to build wealth, but to build roots.

We’re well aware that buying this home is primarily an emotional move – and we’re not pretending otherwise.

  

There’s a difference between wanting to write a book and becoming the person who writes it.

So many high-capacity leaders have the ideas, the experience, and the depth – yet something keeps them from crossing the internal line into authorship. It’s rarely about strategy. It’s about identity.

That’s why I’m introducing you to Keira Brinton, founder of JOA Publishing and our Presenting Sponsor for the Relaxed Money Live event we hosted in February. Keira helps entrepreneurs and leaders make the identity shift required to finally write and publish the book that has been circling them.

Her free 90-minute workshop, Author Threshold, focuses on the internal shift that turns “someday” into done. She breaks down why books stall before they begin, the energetic and practical shifts required to move forward, and the three pillars that collapse time so the book actually gets written.

If you know there’s a book inside you, this may be your threshold.

 Join the Author Threshold Workshop now.

But just because it’s motivated by how we want to feel doesn’t mean we’re going hazy on the numbers. In fact, quite the opposite.


This is the biggest investment Mike and I will have ever made. It’s more than twice what our house sold for in 2021.

And while our risk tolerance is robust and we’re experienced capital allocators, we’re going through this decision-making process with sobriety.

Did my eyes well up with tears as I zoomed out 30 years and imagined harvesting veggies for dinner with my grandchildren in the backyard? Yes, they did. 

But are we being disciplined about the math, our monthly carrying costs, the down payment, our cash runway, comps in the area and price per square foot, buyer concessions, and all the t’s and i’s that need dotting and crossing?

You better believe we are.

I let my heart initiate. I let logic lead the follow-through.

I’m not sourcing my future wellbeing from whether or not our offer is accepted. I know our house is out there, and if it’s not this one, it will be something even better.

I used to get so lost in the vision and the desire that I’d avoid looking at the actual numbers. That got me in a lot of debt (for me) and a long season of looking successful on the outside, but privately scrambling around with my money.

Becoming intimate with my numbers while upgrading my relationship with money helped me pay off my debt in 6 months, triple my income, and double my savings. I didn’t marry a rich guy, get an inheritance, or get a high-paying job.

I transformed what was invisible – and my visible financial life expanded exponentially.

Everything I did and learned became the foundation for Relaxed Money (doors open in the spring -  get on the waitlist to be the first to know when it’s time.  ) 

This is the exact framework I now use for every major financial decision:

  • Stay in expansion and abundance with money.
  • Learn how to feel safe and secure in your body regardless of what’s going on with your finances.
  • Install an elegant, delightful-to-maintain architecture in your financial stewardship so that the systems and structures hold you, instead of you trying to hold everything.
  • Infuse the practice of being in relationship with the reality and possibility of your numbers with pleasure, fun, and joy. You might even find erotic aliveness there when you let yourself go all the way in.

And now I’m using this exact same framework that’s helped thousands of students increase their net worth on average by 166.38% in less than 6 months (