I like to talk about money with the aim of educating and inspiring you. Today, I’m sharing three stories from my life that illustrate how extra money can come in handy. They’ll inspire you to raise your standards and shoot for something higher.

The first ties into generosity. Recently, our friend’s dog came down with cancer. They started a GoFundMe campaign to help raise money to give the dog a fighting chance. We didn’t have to debate our budget or weigh the pros and cons. We were able to instantly react and be generous without thinking twice.

There have also been some severe storms where we are in Wisconsin, and they caused a ton of personal damage: my mom’s yard was wrecked, our boat was totaled. Our financial situation allowed us to quickly salvage our trip, clear up the yard, and not have to wait for the insurance to pay out.

Just today, after our morning run, we realized that Cirque du Soleil was in town. We were able to jump on the situation, buy out front row tickets, and then worry about who we were going to invite without concern about making sure we had the right number of tickets or coordinate schedules. It was all available and flexible to us.

These are small examples of the benefits of going for more. Stop just getting by. Dream bigger and create the plan on how to get there.