Benjamin Adams: Most people are terrified of making the wrong financial decision. They're worried about buying the wrong time, investing the wrong thing or starting something that might fail. But what if the real risk isn't making a mistake? It's waiting too long to make a move because a lot of people spend years trying to time things perfectly. They're waiting for the market to crash. They're waiting for interest rates to drop. They're waiting until they're waiting until they feel ready. waiting for the perfect business idea. And while they're waiting, something important is happening. Time is passing. Opportunities are moving. And the cost of that delay quietly keeps growing. Welcome back to the Pursuit of Progress podcast. I'm Ben Adams with my co-host Adam Lang. And this is season three of the show where we talk about money, mindset, and the decisions that shape your financial future. And in today's episode, we're breaking down a concept that doesn't get talked about nearly enough, the cost of waiting. Because the biggest financial mistake most people make isn't a bad investment, it's waiting too long to make the decision. Adam? Adam: What is going on guys? Hope everybody's having a great week. Excited to be back on another brand new episode of season three. What's going on? Benjamin Adams: I love it. Another important topic and so excited for you to ⁓ share today your experience and why you wanted to have this conversation and put this together. So ⁓ let's go ahead and jump right in and ⁓ talk to us. Adam: Yeah. Yeah. Well, depending on when you guys are watching or listening to this, as we record this, we're in about the middle of March, 2026, and we're just, you know, coming into the end of the first quarter of 2026. And I bet there's a lot of you out there. I know there's, you know, aspects of both Ben's in my life as well, that maybe you had higher aspirations going into the new year, you know, new things that you're going to try and get done. Well, this episode is about the cost of waiting. And hopefully if maybe there's a few things that you have been still putting off that you thought you were gonna, you know, tackle full speed ahead and the beginning of the year and you still haven't gotten to that place. Hopefully this episode today gives you guys a little kick in the butt and maybe motivates you to finally take that first step forward because the first thing we're gonna talk about is how waiting feels safe, but it's often an illusion. Now waiting, often feels like the responsible thing to do. You know, it feels cautious. It feels patient. feels like you're protecting yourself from making a mistake. But financially, waiting is often one of the most expensive choices that a person can make. Because when people delay a decision, they think that they're avoiding risk, but really what they're doing is trading one type of risk for another. And the risk they're taking on is, unfortunately, it's the risk of lost time. Most people, they wait because of a few common fears, fear of making the wrong move, maybe of buying or investing at the wrong time. Benjamin Adams: Mm-hmm. Adam: maybe fear of uncertainty about just what this market might do next. Pretty crazy right now. But here's the part that a lot of people I think miss, doing nothing still has consequences. Inflation is still moving. Assets continue to rise. Opportunities, they keep moving forward. And the market definitely does not pause while we try to decide. So waiting is not neutral, you guys. It's actually still a decision. And like any decision, it comes with a cost. Ben, what do you think about that? Benjamin Adams: It's really, really powerful. It's so true. Right now I'm reading Ulysses S. Grant, his biography. It's 900 pages long. It's very, very fascinating. And what a life he had with incredible highs. But also incredible lows and failures right now where I'm at in the book. It's the middle of the Civil War is about 41 years old and actually read this last night. That's why that's why I'm glad that we're having this conversation when he was in battle. He didn't always know if he was making the right decision, but he made a decision and by knowing or by making the decision, he would soon find out. if he made the right decision or not, because he would be able to analyze, see how the battle unfolded. He was a general that was known for his command and his planning and preparation and just an incredible general. and went undefeated in the Civil War. That's how he really rose to prominence. But he talked about that at length in his biography, how how important it was. There were so many generals during that time that wouldn't make a decision. They were afraid to act. They didn't know if they were making the right move. They had thousands or in some cases hundreds of thousands of men that were reporting to them. So that was really one thing that made him stand out from a leadership perspective. And that is why Lincoln came to trust him is because he was always taking action, making plans, ⁓ doing instead of thinking or waiting. Adam: Mm hmm. My ⁓ you know, I talked a lot about Andy for sell somebody that I've looked up to for years and years, just incredible entrepreneur, but he actually ⁓ his awesome his mansion that he has in St. Louis, it actually was ⁓ Ulysses S. Grant's house back in the day. It's a real historical home. Yep. Benjamin Adams: ⁓ really? Okay, yeah, it's interesting, because I'm reading the book, as I mentioned, and ⁓ he talks about constantly going back to St. Louis, because that's where the family roots were. And so even though he was traveling all throughout the south, engaging in different battles, a lot of his family was back in St. Louis. And one thing I didn't know is in the Civil War, I thought it was just like northern and southern states, but there were a string of states that were border states. Adam: St. Louis. Benjamin Adams: that weren't really supporting the North or the South. They were just kind of like ⁓ neutral, at least for a time. And so Missouri was one of those states, ⁓ you know, and so it's been a fascinating read, but he was known for that making decisions and he didn't always make the right decision, but when he didn't make the right decision, it then allowed him to course correct. Because if he didn't make the right decision, he would realize that he'd recognize it and then he could pivot or he could course correct or do something else. But if he wasn't making the decisions, then that's where there was no progress at all. And I think that's so true today because so many of us are afraid of making the wrong decision. I know I have been at times. Adam: Hmm, interesting. Benjamin Adams: And I think when you can get over that hump where I'm going to make the best decision available with the facts that I have, I don't know if it's going to be 100 % right. I'm going to put all of my energy and my heart into this. But then at some point, if I feel like I made the wrong decision, then let's keep that door open and reevaluate. Adam: Definitely. Benjamin Adams: Well, let's talk about point number two here. ⁓ Opportunity cost and how it's the silent wealth killer. The concept most people underestimate is opportunity cost. Opportunity cost is the price you pay for not acting sooner. It's not just about the decision that you make. It's about the results that you miss while you're waiting. So let's take a, let's take a simple real estate strategy here. ⁓ Imagine someone that applies, imagine someone planning to buy an investment property. They decide to wait for five years. Why are they waiting? Because they're trying to time the market. They're waiting until interest rates come down to property values come down. They want to wait until it makes sense for them or what they're hoping for. But here's the thing. ⁓ They sit on the sidelines and during those five years, values didn't come down. They kept rising. Rents didn't go down. They kept rising. They're paying more in rent and equity keeps compounding. If they had bought earlier, they would have owned an asset growing in value, but instead they're still waiting. There's still opportunity cost and the reality is simple. Time multiplies results. The earlier you start, the longer compounding works for you. But when you wait, you remove the multiplier. This is something that Warren Buffett talks about at length. One of his most famous quotes is that it's most people try and time the market. So it's not timing the market, it's time in the market. Adam: Absolutely. Another quote similar to that one that I love is don't don't wait to buy real estate, buy real estate and wait. Benjamin Adams: Yeah, it's so true. It's so simple, but it's so impactful and so powerful. When I started building my real estate portfolio back in like 2017, 2018, 2019, at the time, it felt very scary. I'd never owned an investment property. I didn't know what I was doing, but I jumped anyways. The payment scared me very, very afraid of the payment, but I knew it was something that I had to do to our point here though, just a short seven or eight years later. values have just gone through the roof during that time. And so now there's, you know, equity in these properties. ⁓ I was able to reduce rates, refinance into lower rates when rates came down during that same period. And I was just having a conversation with my brother a couple of weeks ago, how radically different my life would look if we had not done, taken some of those steps and made some of those decisions seven or eight years ago. Adam: Yeah. And that leads me into kind of a piggyback topic here, which is how you're talking about how compounding really only works when you have time as your, as your friend, ⁓ you know, compounding only works if you start early. And I definitely agree with that, but I don't want anybody that's watching or listening today to feel defeated. If maybe you are in your forties or fifties or whatever age really doesn't matter. You know, compounding is one of the most powerful forces in finance, but it only works if you give it time, which is true, but there's still always that opportunity. You're still better off. Benjamin Adams: Yeah. Adam: doing it today instead of not doing it at all. An example of this would be, lots of examples, but a few would be things like investing, maybe just business growth, actually getting started, taking that first step to whatever that dream is that you have, maybe starting a business or creating a product, whatever it may be. Also real estate, just like you were saying a second ago, rents are going up, so are property values. You might as well be on the side of property values, not on the side of rent. Benjamin Adams: Yeah. Adam: Skill development, just every year that you delay starting something, that compounding window just gets smaller and smaller. you really the key idea here is just that the biggest advantage successful people have, it's not perfection. It's just time in the game. You know, everybody that you meet that, you know, acts as if they were just an overnight success, very unlikely. You know, it's much more likely that they've just been quietly doing a lot of things consistently in the background and you're just not even aware of it. Benjamin Adams: Yeah, I wanted to comment in two points there that you brought up. ⁓ And so don't let me forget the second one, which is more financial related. The first though is, you you mentioned skill development and that's one of the things I don't think it's talked about a lot when people are talking about compounding. A lot of times they're talking about compounding interest or real estate or stock appreciation. They're talking about all these different things, ⁓ doubling your net worth every seven years, 10 years, reinvesting the dividends. But one thing people rarely talk about is the compounding in self-development. And if you're constantly developing yourself, you're taking some of these strategies that we talk about, and we're not perfect, we're not the experts in every single thing, we're learning together. Last week we talked about improving sleep. And if you're someone that has become a reader, you're educating yourself, you are exercising, you're starting to eat healthy, you're making better decisions, you're being more intentional with the people that you're hanging out with. You are learning new skills. One thing that you and I, try to do every year is, you know, I have a little budget for myself where I'm going to go invest in myself. Last year did some coaching with Dan Martell. I know that you have done seminars, you've even traveled to places to go to different things. And doing that stuff is so important because you're gonna wake up five years from now and you're gonna be in a radically different place and you're gonna be an entirely different person. And that's why that skill development personally is so important. Adam: Mm-hmm, definitely. And I think in addition to that, though, also though, just taking this back to real estate, just kind of go through, just like a real life example for everybody to just help them understand some of this. Benjamin Adams: Yeah. The example that I love chatting about is, ⁓ just when I bought my first home in Phoenix, Arizona at the time, all's I could afford, ⁓ was a $3,000 down payment. And I love sharing this story because it focuses and it proves your point exactly what you're talking about. So this is back in 2010. I was a first time home buyer only had $3,000 for a down payment. And about half of that came from my mom. So that was my total investment. bought a primary residence with an FHA three and a half percent down. It was barely over a hundred thousand. That's all that it was barely over a hundred thousand, but it wasn't my dream home. It wasn't in the best area. And I knew that, but I also knew that I needed to start playing the real estate game. I knew that was very important. I knew that was more important than buying my dream home. I wasn't ready for that. I just wanted to start playing the game, building equity. And so I invested that $3,000. I ended up selling that property. in 2015, about four and half years later, and I netted around $70,000 initial investment in 2010, $3,000 netted 70,000 from the sale. I then took that 70,000 and used it for a down payment in my property in Golden, Colorado in 2015. Now that property has now doubled in value over the last 10 years. So that tiny $3,000 investment in 2010, Adam, is now worth over $600,000 16 short years later. Adam: That's awesome. Give it another five years and I'll bet you'll be in ⁓ seven digits. It'll be over a million, I bet. Benjamin Adams: And like you're saying, though, it's the time you have to let time do the heavy lifting. It's not because I was some genius and I did something that no one else is doing. One thing that I was able to do is stay disciplined. I didn't take that equity and go buy a car, do other things with it. I've kept it invested in my primary residence the entire time. And so that is an example of what can happen now. This isn't me high on my horse. Like, please hear me. I've done. plenty of stupid things. Personally, when it comes to money, I've had to learn some things the hard way. One of the biggest mistakes that I've made since since I'm sharing a win, Adam, let me share a loss really quick. Do mind? So that's my win. Now, here's a loss. So I had a really good friend of mine, and he didn't qualify for a mortgage. And so he convinced me to co sign on a $500,000 mortgage with him. And said he had this great idea. He was moving to another state and how important it was for him and how much this was going to do for our relationship. And I knew it was a bad idea because I have always said that co-signing or for friends or family members is one of the worst things that you can do because it ruins the relationship. So he convinced me that none of that was going to happen. And I turned him down like literally probably 50 times. ⁓ And he finally convinced me to to do this. I said, you know what? Fine, I'll do it. We're great friends. I will co-sign for you. will help you get qualified. So I did that, a $500,000 loan. And then guess what? COVID hits. And then all of a sudden he's having a difficult time making payments. He's sending me these nasty text messages talking about how I took advantage of him and convinced him to go buy this property in this other state. And man, I lost a really good friendship out of it. And guess what? to this day, to this day, eight years later, I am still on the hook for this half million dollar mortgage, still on the hook. And so that's my big loss. Adam: Yeah, that's the gift that keeps on giving, you know, hopefully maybe he'll decide to sell it here one of these days and get out from underneath that. Benjamin Adams: Yeah, it's still on my credit though. you know, now when I apply for a loan or have my credit pulled, this shows up and I have to qualify with this. It's not it's not a small mortgage. It's like a $3,000 mortgage payment that is on my credit now. So Adam: Damn. Well, I think I want to go back now for a second when you were talking about just the timing. I think right now, especially we went from covid to then when it comes to real estate, very high interest rates compared to what people are used to. And it's at a point now where a lot of people are just sitting on the sidelines and the the easy way out, or at least the more comfortable solution to this is them just saying, you know what? This is not the right time. This is bad timing. We're just going to wait it out. We're going to weather the storm. We're going to wait until things improve. Benjamin Adams: Yeah. Adam: And yes, I do agree that in certain scenarios, in certain circumstances, that probably is the best decision. But I think that's such a blanket statement that unfortunately keeps a lot of people from getting in the game, letting the time then become their friend and have that compound and then start to really see this massive wealth appreciation like you did with your place in Applewood. So I want to talk a little bit about perfect timing and how it's a myth. know, a lot of people, believe successful investors are great at timing markets, but Benjamin Adams: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Adam: That's actually not the case. Usually, you most successful investors, aren't experts at predicting the perfect moment. Oftentimes they don't even perfectly time the market cycle. They don't buy at the exact bottom and they don't sell the exact top, but what they do very, very well is they participate. They get in the game because over long periods of time, broken record here, you guys, assets tend to move upward and the people who build wealth aren't the ones waiting for perfect timing. They're the ones who started early and then they stayed consistent. Benjamin Adams: Mm-hmm. Adam: and that participation is always going to beat perfection and waiting for these perfect conditions. Like maybe people are right now with the interest rates that usually means that you're missing the move entirely. You know, it's been a great buyer's market recently in Denver, Colorado. And I think a lot of people that maybe still could qualify to buy a home haven't been just because of this, you know, they're, waiting for the perfect rates. They're waiting for that perfect opportunity. And, know, with real estate, oftentimes you make the most money on the buy, not the sell. So right now with having a lot of buyer leverage, buyers have the opportunity to get really good deals on homes, but a lot of people aren't even taking advantage because they're scared and they're just a little bit, you know, skeptical and waiting for that perfect time that probably will never come. Benjamin Adams: Yeah, it's such a great point and it's a conversation worth having. know, renting can be appropriate in the short term, as you mentioned, there can be a variety of different reasons for that. Long term though, owning a home is gonna win every time. And here's one of the things that I've just realized over the last five years. You know, there's a lot that's changing in America right now. Inflation is going to be a continued issue just going forward. And the reason for that is because the amount of national debt that we have that's getting worse, it's not getting better. You've probably heard about this wealth gap that's happening. And it's real. There is a real wealth gap that is happening. And the middle class is getting torn apart right now. And the reason that's happening is because assets are going up in value. Real estate prices are going up. If you look at the stock market, which I was doing today, the Dow is, you it's not right at the all time high, but it's very close. ⁓ And even the last five years, it's up 100 percent. Back in the year 2000, when you look at where we're at today compared to the year 2000, we're up four or five or six fold during that time. And the same is true with property values. People are trying to make up that wealth gap with their income. And it's not about income as we talk about all the time on this program. It's about, you an owner? Do you own assets? Because when you own assets, you allow the assets to do the heavy lifting for you and go up in value. And so this is something that people don't talk about a lot either is that they have this mentality that the first home they buy has to be their dream home. And it's wrong. You have to get into the game like you were mentioning. If you don't get into the game or real estate, you're never going to allow yourself to start building that equity appreciation. Yes, your first home is probably not going to be your dream home, but it can be a starter home that can then be flipped to an investment property. that can then allow you to go buy your next property. Another thing that I talk about a lot is maybe it makes more sense to rent your primary and go straight into investing out of market. There are opportunities right now in other markets outside of where you live. If you live in a high cost market where you can go buy a duplex for 200,000, that's a real thing. And it is gonna require some connections and some relationships and educating yourself, people are doing that though. It's a real, I've done that. Adam: Mm-hmm. Benjamin Adams: You know, it is possible. And so you have to, you have to take on the identity of I need to be an owner. I need to own assets. I need to own things that go up in value. I need to stop being a consumer. Adam: Mm-hmm. Love that very well said. Let's just kind of piggyback off of that and talk a little bit more about waiting and how it comes from that sense of fear rather than logic. Benjamin Adams: Yeah, when you really dig into the why, you know, when you're really asking yourself, why do people delay decisions? And I've been there myself. A lot of times it just comes down to fear. It's not about the math. It's more about the fear of buying at the wrong time or the fear that prices might drop. you know, I like this home, but you know, values have come down a little bit. What if they continue to come down? Or, you what if I buy right now, interest rates are to three year low, but then what if you, if they come down a little bit further and then, you know, I have to look at refinancing. There's going to be costs involved for that. ⁓ know, fears that they might fail and, and we've all been there when you don't know. what you're doing or you're doing something for the first time, can be very afraid. Think about things that you've done for the first time, even like jumping off the high dive. Adam: Definitely. Well, and with real estate, sorry to interrupt you, with real estate, it's such a rare thing to even come across other people that are doing real estate investing. I think for a lot of people, it's just a, it's so far out of reach in their head. You know, they've never been exposed to people that are doing this kind of thing. And, you know, they're maybe going to be the first one to break the cycle, you know, the, the family cycle of just kind of always being at a certain, maybe income level or to certain net worth level. Benjamin Adams: Yeah. Mmm, yum. Yum. Adam: very difficult for people, think, to see the reality of this as even actually being something they can do and achieve. Benjamin Adams: My brother and I talk about this exact thing a lot in our daily and weekly conversations and we call that person the pioneer. So the pioneer is the person in their family that is gonna change the trajectory of their entire family. I always think of like American settlers when they were coming out west in covered wagons. Think about how difficult that was. coming out west in a covered wagon and how dangerous those were the pioneers. They were risking their life. But then once they got there, the next generation already had that foundation built so they could then prosper later in life. And this is the same way. And the other thing people have to realize is that the storm is coming. things are going to happen. Things are going to go wrong. You have to accept that. It's not about things being perfect all the time. There are going to be problems. ⁓ The economy could recede. ⁓ Interest rates can go up. There could be a lot of different things. But when you prepare, when you own assets, Adam: War. Benjamin Adams: you're gonna have more opportunities, more flexibility. You're gonna be able to deal with those problems. And then it allows you to accept those problems and those challenges and those adversities into your life instead of hoping that they never happened because then you can use them as a platform for personal growth, financial growth. We've talked about this before, but a lot of these companies that we know today, that are really successful Airbnb and there's so many others were started during recessions. And so a lot of times it's those down times where the opportunity is and you look at real estate right now going back, circling back, a lot of people are very kind of down or negative on real estate. They're talking about the record breaking inventory, how many more sellers there are than buyers. And the question that I would ask you if you're someone that's interested in buying is you have to know how to play the game. ⁓ There is tremendous opportunity and you can make these factors work for you, but you have to be working with a competent real estate professional that knows how to structure these deals. So what I'm seeing in my life, in my world right now, I'm seeing price reductions, I'm seeing sellers paying for closing costs, I'm seeing sellers contribute towards interest rate buy downs, either permanent buy downs or temporary buy downs. So there's lots of opportunities, but you have to get over that fear. And you have to surround yourself with a team of people that are real professionals and know what they're doing. Adam: Definitely. And just guys really quick, I'll do a quick plug. You know, if you guys are just feeling overwhelmed on this specific topic every single month, Ben and I are doing live Denver home buyer webinars. They're free and online. Go to denverwebinar.com. Grab a seat to the next one. Again, we're doing these every single month. They fill up fast. So make sure you grab a seat. And a lot of people are getting a lot of value out of kind of going a little bit deeper into some of these specific strategies and techniques, how to create a winning offer, how to really stand out. and still find success in a challenging market like we have right now in 2026. Benjamin Adams: You know, kind of just putting a final thought on this. ⁓ When I lived in Phoenix, Arizona, this was right after the housing crash in 2008. And this is something that I personally have never forgotten. During that time, I bought my first home for one hundred and thirty thousand, which sounds insane now. And at the time, that home was only a couple of years old. It was three thousand square feet and had never been lived in longer than like six months because the person that bought it went into foreclosure. And in Phoenix at the time, it was one of the worst markets as far as foreclosures in 2008, 2009. There were homes on the block that were like for sale for like $50,000, $60,000. And this was a newer subdivision. So these homes were all less than five or six years old. I would go walk my dog and every other home would be listed for sale. And I just kept asking myself, Like how can you go wrong buying a home for 50,000? Like you can go buy a car, a car for more than 50,000. At the time I had a credit card limit that had a higher limit than what I could go buy with some of these homes. But I was afraid though. I was afraid to take action because the news was so negative and you know there was such a bloodbath happening in real estate and now looking back I'm like oh my gosh, I could have bought 10 homes. 50 or 60 thousand each and you could have had a portfolio of homes for the price of one home now Adam: Shoulda, coulda, woulda. Always looks better in the rear view mirror. Well, I'd love to just kind of close us out with one final note before, Ben, I'll let you have the last word on this one, but just wanna talk for a second about momentum, because I think this is something that is super important, can really change everything. You the hardest step in almost every single journey is the first one. But once that momentum starts, everything changes. Think about somebody buying their first home. Benjamin Adams: Yep. Yeah. Adam: you maybe you're buying their first rental property or, starting that first business at the beginning, every single thing feels uncertain. But once you take that first step, perspective starts to change a little bit, start learning, start improving, start seeing opportunities that maybe you haven't noticed before. That momentum starts building confidence and that confidence is really what makes the next step easier. And waiting on the other hand is keeping people stuck in just theory, just conceptual ideas. instead of taking action and moving people towards reality. So once that momentum begins, just remember that progress becomes much, much easier to sustain. Just take that first step forward and just stick with it because the only way you can fail is if you give up and you stop trying. Benjamin Adams: Momentum, when you have it, don't ever let it go. Don't ever lose it. You think about the sports analogies. You know, these teams will go on streaks, they'll go on a hot streak or they'll go on a cold streak. But when you have the momentum, you want to do everything in your power to hold on to it. And don't get cocky either. Adam: And it's a lot easier to keep momentum than it is to get started. You think about an airplane, burns the most fuel at takeoff. Once you get to that cruising altitude, it's a much more efficient airplane. Think about that when you're going through different ways to do this in your personal lives. Benjamin Adams: Yeah. Yeah, that's great, man. I appreciate you sharing that. Well, let's go ahead and wrap this up. If there's one idea we want you to take from this episode, it's this the biggest financial mistake most people make isn't the bad investment. It's waiting too long to make one. So remember, you don't need perfect timing. You don't need perfect conditions. You do need a long enough runway for progress to compound. And the only way compounding starts is by getting in the game. Thanks for listening to another episode of the Pursuit of Progress podcast. And until next week, I'm Ben Adams for Adam Lang. Keep moving forward and we'll see you guys next week. Love you. Adam: Catch you guys next time.