Author: AlexLerma

A bad habit on the tennis court revealed something uncomfortable about investing: we often look where we want the ball to go before we’ve really seen the ball.

What if the Fed cuts rates and your cost of money doesn’t get much cheaper? That’s why I’m focused less on predicting rates—and more on liquidity, cash flow, leverage, duration, and preserving optionality.

Most practice owners know how to grow. More patients. More associates. More production. The harder question is whether any of that is moving you closer to the life you actually want. Growth is useful—but only when it has a job to do.

For roughly a decade, from about 2012 through 2022, business owners and investors were rewarded for a particular set of behaviors. But I’m increasingly convinced that the those experiences have taught us the wrong lessons.

Our lives often revolve around focusing on a number. Top-line revenue in practice. Percentage of EBITDA. X millions to retire. But life doesn’t happen inside a financial vacuum. The problem with pursuing these metrics is that the goalposts always move.

The same habits that helped you build a successful practice, business, or portfolio can eventually keep you trapped inside it. How to break free of the owner’s paradox—and why true stewardship is measured not by how much depends upon you, but by how much thrives because of you.

Most owners know how to take responsibility. The harder question is how to become less necessary without becoming less responsible. How do you avoid holding too tightly to the wrong things—without abandoning the ones that matter most?

You will not know every answer before you begin. Clarity comes through movement, and freedom comes through the responsibility to take the next step.

Being ready to leave is not the same as being exit ready. Here’s how to evaluate your practice through a buyer’s eyes—and decide what the next chapter needs to look like for you.

For years, I believed control was the pathway to freedom. But in a different season of life, the same instinct that helped build wealth can begin to limit the freedom it was meant to create.