The only thing standing between you and your goal is the bullshit story you keep telling yourself as to why you can’t achieve it. – Jordan Belfort

Life

Buying a house in Toronto with Amanda has always been a dream of ours.  It was something we talked about during university.  We set a goal to do it before we turned 25.

Everyone thought we were crazy including friends and family.  It was easy to get discouraged and give up.  There were a lot of reasons to think it wouldn’t be possible.  We were talking about this before we even graduated, before we landed full time jobs, and before we paid off our student loans.

In June of 2016, when we were still 24, we met this goal and bought our first home.  We had enough down payment to buy a house between $600 – $700k without mortgage insurance (20% of the purchase price or greater) without the help of mom and dad.

We got to this stage because we didn’t give ourselves any excuses.  We focused our energy on what we could control – the amount of money we saved.  We did not let the things we couldn’t control affect us – rising home prices, low interest rates on savings accounts, news articles on a housing bubble, etc.

School

I used to blame a bad grade in university on the professor.   I didn’t take responsibility for my own marks.  I met a mature student in the same class that got an A+.  He worked full time, was born outside of Canada, was a single parent to two children, and had little time to study.  I had no excuses – I had all the time in the world to study and get help from the professor and I chose not to take advantage of it.

Job Searching

I went to Ryerson University.  It used to be a college and is arguably a less prestigious university.  I blamed my university for making it harder for me to find employment.  After working 8 different jobs in finance and accounting, going to 50+ interviews, and talking to different hiring managers, I can say that employers are more interested on how I can help the company than the school I went to.

What are your excuses?