Driving a Porsche in Your 30s

When I was 8 years old, I had a poster of a Porsche on my wall. I wanted my dad to buy one so bad, but I hadn’t yet acquired a sales skill set to persuade him. “Besides,” he said, “we can’t afford that.”

Later that year, my dad was offered a job transfer to Texas. He seemed excited, as it would come with a nice pay raise. But neither my mom nor my brother wanted to move.

Before my vote was counted, I had a question about the pay raise. “Dad, if we move, do you think we can buy a Porsche?” He said, “We’re not getting a Porsche.”

Then, yeah, that’s gonna be a no from me, dawg. 

Warren Buffett’s Spending Rule

When I began my own career and started getting pay raises, I made a rule for myself: No luxury cars til 30 years old. And even then, only if I could pay cash.

I didn’t view luxury cars bought by twenty-somethings as status symbols so much as signaling stupidity. In an age of easy credit, a Range Rover doesn’t tell us whether you’re making $70k or $700k.

Warren Buffett can buy anything he wants; yet, when it comes to car purchases, he has said, “I’m not interested in cars and my goal is not to make people envious. Don’t confuse the cost of living with the standard of living.” I’m with Buffett on this.

He would tell you that every $1,000 you spend is like spending over $10,000 future dollars because of compound interest. Here’s how that works:

• Invest $1,000 in a stock market index mutual fund that tracks the S&P 500
• Assume an annualized return of 10% per year
• Do nothing for 28 years until the average retirement age
• Your investment would be worth more than $10,000

As Albert Einstein said, “Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world!”

Income Won’t Far Exceed Self-Improvement

I turned 30 in June 2010. My income had gone up every year despite the biggest recession since The Great Depression of the 1930s. It wasn’t hard to do. I just had to work two jobs, maximize my energy levels and get hyperefficient. Here’s how I did that:

• Reduced alcohol to nearly zero
• Exercised 6 days a week
• Got 7-8 hours sleep
• Learned to ask better questions
• Improved listening & communication skills
• Improved ability to qualify deals & forecast
• “replayed the tapes” (reviewed my performances, good or bad)

Shortly after my thirtieth birthday, I logged into my bank account to check the balance, and bam!

As if by some miracle, law of attraction or act of God, there was precisely the amount of money I needed to buy a new Porsche sitting in liquid savings. $80,000 in all its digitized glory.

It was time to fulfill a dream I’d had since I was a little boy, Buffett be damned. Besides, if the Oracle of Omaha were in my shoes, he might be rewarding himself with a Cayman or Carrera, too, I rationalized.

Thinking While Driving (to the Porsche Dealership)

As you can see above, I needed all sorts of justifications to buy the Porsche. It didn’t matter that I’d dreamt about the car as a kid, planned for it as an adult, and waited till I could pay cash as a 30-year old man.

I drove in muted silence to the dealership. No radio, no CDs or audiobooks. Just me and the open road, for what I figured to be the last time in my Nissan.

Thoughts came to me like clouds passing in the sky. Each cloud containing a different person in my life who told me I wouldn’t amount to anything. There was the ex-girlfriend’s mom who said I wouldn’t make a good salesman because I wasn’t outgoing enough. Another cloud was a guy who told me that my life was going to suck long-term because I got the athleticism in my family and not the brains.

Up next [in my head] was an ornery former client who tried to intimidate me. He said that he could see through my bullshit and that I wasn’t looking out for his best interests. He couldn’t have been a more cynical prick.

[He apologized after the deal closed and handed me a check.

He said, “Go ahead, say it.”

I said, “Say what?”

He said, “Say, ‘I told you so.’

“That’s not something I say.”

I was 24 at the time; he was 50. If I found him on fire tomorrow, I’d get stage fright (out of intimidation, of course).]   

Any anxiousness I felt about buying the car was tempered by the onslaught of a seemingly never-ending stream of thought-clouds; I sat in my car entertained by them for thirty minutes after I arrived at the dealership. As one cloud would vanish, another would appear. It was all past conversations.

I remembered declining invites to places like Thailand & Greece because I “had to work” (I had chosen to work). Friends returned home with stories of full moon parties and cute Argentine girls. But I prided myself on a Protestant-like work ethic without vacations.

I had only taken one weeklong holiday since I started my career. And even that was tacked on to the end of a work trip to San Francisco [so that my employer could pay for the flight]. Incidentally, that was the final thought I needed before walking into the showroom. The thought that I’d never taken a weeklong vacation served to reinforce that my hard work and sacrifice meant that I deserved a Porsche. If Buffett were sitting next to me, I would have told him so.

The Showdown in the Showroom

I walked into the dealership like I owned the place; at least, I assume that I did. Friends have said I walk into every room that way. That’s because I have an upright ass-and-chest-out sort of walk that says I own the room. [I finally saw how I walk when my buddy showed me a “live photo” of myself. It was hilarious! Even I had to ask, “Who does that guy think he is?”] 

It only took a few seconds to find her. Glimmering on the showroom floor, as if trying to stick its own ass and chest out, was the car I’d waited over 30 years for—a sleek Porsche 911 GT Carrera—most beautiful car I’d ever seen.

A salesman walked up. He overtly mimicked my body language and said, “That’s a beautiful car.” And I politely refrained from calling him “Sherlock.”

As I walked around the Porsche, a car nobody needs, and everybody wants, it occurred to me that car salesmen are the opposite. We started the engine. Oh that sweet sound—something I’d never get used to. It was like the reward for grit and determination had acoustics.

Meanwhile, the sales guy continued to give me wordy evidence of why I’m the first salesperson my dad ever liked.

He Who Hesitates

The upside of being a well-traveled salesperson is that I can relate to people from anywhere in the world; downside is that poor salesmanship stands out more than my walk in a Tokyo mall.

Sherlock was the type of guy my college baseball coach would’ve called a “two-peckered puppy.” That’s how he described hitters so anxious to get in the batter’s box that they would forget to get signals from the third-base coach. Even though I hadn’t given Sherlock any “buy” signals, he would say things like: “This car won’t last through the weekend!” You want me to get the paperwork started?” or “What did you want your payments to look like on this one?”

He was unknowingly giving me reasons not to pull the trigger. Because first and foremost, I prefer not to deal with overly anxious people. Second, those who succumb to manufactured pressure are almost always d-bags. And since he wouldn’t be using time-limit sales tactics unless they consistently worked, it told me there were lots of DBs driving Porsches around Houston. Lastly, I didn’t like the idea of ‘Slimy Sherl’ getting a fat commission check if I bought the car.

I left the dealership that Saturday afternoon saying that I would sleep on it.

A Decision that Changed My Life

I stopped to get gas on the way home because, well, they don’t give you an extra $50 on your trade-in with a full tank. As I was filling up, I noticed an email from the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), which meant a property matching my rental property criteria was fresh on the market.

It was exactly what I looked for in a house: 3 Bedroom, 2 Bath, single story, needing minimal work. I grabbed the back of an envelope and ran some numbers. I decided if I could get that house for $74,000, it’d be a good buy. I made an appointment to see it that day.

By Monday night, we had agreed to a sales price of $70,500 for the house. Together with the discount for representing myself in the deal, the final number came in just over $68,000. We closed in 25 days; it was leased within a week.

As of May 1, 2019, that one property has added $183,651 to my wealth: $100,036 in cash flow from 108 rent payments + $83,615 equity (house is now worth $152,000).

If driven conservatively, that Porsche is now worth a whopping $9,600.

Some lessons can’t be explained to a kid—he must learn them in his own time.

If you’re in a situation where you just got a big bonus or fat commission check, and you’re tempted to buy the car that was hung on your wall as a kid, I encourage you to borrow Randy Jackson’s words, “That’s gonna be a no from me, dawg.”