I’ll admit it. I have been fully, completely, unapologetically consumed by this World Cup.
Multiple games a day. Alarm set for early morning kickoffs. Strong opinions on teams I knew nothing about three weeks ago. My family has been very patient.
I was lucky enough to get to a few live games this tournament — including France vs Paraguay in Philadelphia last weekend with my brother. Round of 16.
Incredible atmosphere. Wouldn’t trade it.
But honestly? The best part of this World Cup has been at home.
Watching it with my wife and kids. The TV on basically 24 hours a day. The whole family getting swept up in last minute goals, underdog upsets, moments you can’t script.
Seeing my kids genuinely amazed by what they were watching.
And Team Canada. They were all in. We all were.
It’s been one of those rare stretches where something pulls the whole family together around the same thing at the same time. Those don’t come around often enough.
Sadly Canada’s journey ended in the Round of 16. So did mine — I was in Philadelphia when it happened, which felt appropriate somehow. We went out together.
But what a ride. For a program that spent decades being the punchline of international soccer, this tournament was a genuine statement. The future is bright.
Nothing about the world right now feels particularly comfortable.
Politics. Trade. The economy. The cost of everything. Uncertainty has become the default setting and most people I talk to — at every stage of life, every stage of their financial journey — are trying to figure out how to navigate it rather than wait for it to pass.
Here’s the thing I keep coming back to.
Discomfort is not the problem. Avoiding it is.
You don’t get better at anything by staying inside what already feels familiar. You get better by doing the thing that feels uncomfortable until it doesn’t anymore.
That’s true in sport. It’s true in business. And it’s absolutely true in how people approach their finances.
The mistake most people make — whether they’re just starting to build or have been building for decades — is mistaking familiarity for safety. Sticking with what they know not because it’s the best option, but because the alternatives feel uncertain. Unfamiliar. A little uncomfortable.
I see it at every level.
Someone early in their financial journey who has never invested outside of a savings account because the markets feel unpredictable.
Someone further along who has built real wealth in real estate but has never looked sideways at another asset class because it’s outside their experience.
Someone who has always used their own capital to fund projects because carrying debt makes them uncomfortable — even when the math says leverage makes sense.
That last one comes up more than you’d think. I work with clients who have the means to fund projects entirely on their own — and historically did, because they didn’t love the idea of interest expense.
What some of them have started to realize is that keeping capital flexible has become more valuable than avoiding debt.
Programs like CMHC MLI Select, for example, allow for significantly higher loan-to-value ratios and longer amortizations on qualifying multi-unit properties.
Some clients are using that not out of necessity, but as a deliberate strategy to keep their own capital free and working elsewhere. The mindset shift came before the financing decision.
The discomfort is the same regardless of where you are. The asset amounts are just different.
What I’ve watched the most intentional people do — at every stage — is sit with that discomfort long enough to understand it. To figure out whether it’s telling them something real or whether it’s just the feeling of doing something new.
Sometimes the discomfort is a signal. Pay attention to it.
More often it’s just friction. And friction is what you push through.
The people who build something — and keep building — are rarely the ones who had it all figured out from the beginning.
They’re the ones who got comfortable doing things that were once uncomfortable.
That’s available to everyone. Regardless of where you’re starting from.
Until next week,
Vince
P.S. My family has requested I find a new obsession now that the World Cup is wrapping up. I told them the 2030 World Cup is only four years away. They were not comforted by this.
