Luke Murray got a $514,702 IRS refund after months of financial strain, nearly missing payroll and maxing credit cards. He deposits it, pays off debt, and moves on. The money doesn't change his goals, lifestyle, or stress level, just the numbers in his account.
This is a check for $514,702.28. And I just want to capture this. I probably shouldn't post it because it's like the douchiest flex ever to be like some— whatever. I have a lot of judgment for people that are like, look at how much money's in my bank account. But I want to record this moment. Um, I just got it like 10 minutes ago and I want to record it to remind myself, and I want to record it to remind any other entrepreneur or, or person out there that thinks that like, if they got that kind of money, they would change things. So a little bit of backstory. I have been expecting that money. It's from the IRS, as you can tell, for probably 6 months. I thought it was going to be here literally in March, and it is October, and I have been like just days away from not being able to make payroll. I mean, back in April, I was like 8 days away potentially from running out of money. I put things on credit cards. I've talked to my employees about potentially like, hey, would you open a 0% card? I have borrowed from my company. I have done so much to like, because I thought this money was coming in and I was just, there's so much fear and stress and shuffling shit around. So there was this moment, again, it's been 10 or 15 minutes where I was like, yes, awesome. And then I immediately, immediately in a matter of 15 minutes, I went and told one of my CEOs, but I am now, I'm still excited, but two things have happened. Number one, like my, I pretty quickly have just got into like, okay, back down to before I was operating with this particular objective and I had these constraints around finances. Now my objective hasn't changed. I just need to take this new bit of information and just keep going. So I'm going to go down to the bank, I'm going to deposit it, I'm going to shuffle some money around and pay off credit cards and all that stuff. So the first realization is like the— it went up, And I was like, yes. And then within 15 minutes, I recognized the happiness, you know, like the feeling, the emotion of yes. And then I am just, you know, coming quickly down to like, okay, I still have a mission to accomplish. The missions don't change, just the factors on the battlefield, the playing field are now updated. And the second thing I realized Um, is that like my goals have not changed. Like, as soon as I drop this off at the bank, I'm going to come right back here. I've been up since 5, 4:30 in the morning working, and I'm going to get right back to work on the same exact shit I was working on. Um, I'll shuffle some money around tomorrow during, again, my set aside block for administrative financial planning, um, that I was already going to do. I just act different. Data or information. And that is the fact that I realized like, I'm not going to do anything different because of this money. I'm not going to hang out with anybody different. I'm not going to buy anything different or whatever. Like I'm going to live the exact same life. That I think is the— I think of like a deeper form of happiness. No, just like, yeah, but like, The grounded feeling of realizing that I have built a life that is so freaking aligned that half a million dollars is not going to change my trajectory, not going to change my course, not going to change what I'm doing. It'll change my priorities a little bit because I have to shuffle money around, but I'm going to live. My character isn't going to change. My values aren't going to change. My friends aren't going to change. Yeah, that's the second thing I realized. The third thing I realized, or the, that I'm experiencing is like the stress hasn't just melted. Like you would think that I would get that and like, oh, now you're fine. And to be honest, if I didn't want to do anything epic, it would, I'd be like, sure, I can coast now. I don't need to do anything. Um, but I've been through cycles like this. I've made money in the past. I've gotten checks that were twice that big or even larger. And so I know that I don't want a life where I could just lay back, take, put that in some kind of, I don't know, safe investment thing and make, if I made 10%, that'd be $50,000. That's about the average income for someone in the state of Kentucky. I don't want to live that life. I want to take that money. Money, and I want to use it to keep furthering the mission, the goals, the growth of the companies that I have, the message, the impact, which means the stress comes along with it. So if you are ambitious, then money is going to definitely— it's going to be really, really cool. It felt great to get that. But like, if you are ambitious, you are mission-driven, like, stuff's not going to change nearly as much as you think.
