Episode 7 what does it take to be financially successful

This episode discusses fundementals that are critical to long term financial success.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Discussions on this show should not be construed as specific recommendations or investment advice. Always consult with your financial investment professional before making important investment decisions. Securities offered through registered representatives of Cambridge Investment Research Inc., a broker dealer, a member, FENRA, SIPC, Advisory Services through Cambridge Investment Research Advisors, Inc., a registered investment advisor. Cambridge and Innovative Financial Solutions Consulting Group LLC are not affiliated.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

When it comes to money, there is no limit to the advice you get from family.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

So today we're going to embark upon a very common question. And that question is what does it take to be financially successful? I get these questions often when I talk to clients and I do seminars and I work with young people. And that's really a good question. Now, depending on who you talk to, you'll get a lot of different answers. And what I'm going to do is give you my perspective based on some fundamental things that I've employed over my lifetime, and due to some trials and tribulations and some challenges and experiences that I've had, things that helped me to get to where I am, which at this point I would consider myself to be pretty successful financially. And but not just me, but other people who I know who are way more successful than I am from a financial perspective, and the principles and practices and things that I've learned that I believe are appropriate to answer this question. So, what does it take to be financially successful? Well, the first thing I believe, and if you get a copy of my book, Money Ain't the Problem, what we do with it is how to live your best financial life. That's the title of my book. And I talk about this in my book. Okay, so the first thing that I believe is important to understand about being uh financially successful is having the proper beliefs about money. You know, we don't talk about that a lot, and people don't talk about that a lot in conversations about finances and money and what it takes to be successful, but at the very root, at the core, at the foundation of your ability or anybody's ability to be financially successful is your beliefs about money. What do you believe about money? Now, I did a podcast episode a week or so ago that dedicated to this question. What are your money beliefs? Right? But in this particular episode, I'm just highlighting it as one of the things that need to be dealt with and understood to be successful financially. Understand what your money belief is, and you must have the proper money beliefs. If you don't have the proper beliefs about money, then the decisions that you make are going to be bad decisions. So understand what money is. I identify money as a resource. Some people identify money as a source. There are two different things. A resource doesn't solve your problem. Many people think that if you got enough money, money will solve any problem. That's not a true statement. I told a story about Walter Payton, one of the greatest athletes in the history of the NFL. He was the leading rusher in NFL history when he retired. The NFL has an award named after him called the Walter Payton Award, which is an award for uh exemplary and outstanding uh character and integrity and commitment to the community and service. So he wasn't just a great athlete, he was a great human being. He was never in the news for anything negative or anything like that as it relates to his character and his behavior. I watched Walter Payton get on television back uh during the time when he was requesting a donor because he had some kind of a kidney disease and he needed a donor for a transplant. Walter Payton was a multimillionaire. Walter Payton died because he didn't get a kidney transplant. Money did not solve his problem. I use that as an example, and I could go on and on and on with other examples, but the point that I'm making is money is a resource. It doesn't solve your problem. You have to have the proper mentality and thought processes and decision-making ability to identify the solution to solve your problem. Money may be a resource to aid in the solution of solving your problem, but money isn't going to be the solution for every problem. And so, no matter how much money you have, there are some problems money's not going to solve. If you got problems in your marriage with your spouse, money ain't gonna solve that problem. If it did, multimillionaires wouldn't get divorced all the time. So I believe understanding what money is is an important component of the proper beliefs about money. Then understanding the primary purpose of money. What is the primary purpose of money? Again, I hear people talk about how difficult it is. You know, I live in the DMV area, so obviously this is one of those areas where the cost of living is higher than maybe somewhere like you know, Des Moines, Iowa, for example, right? Or small town USA. But I hear people have discussions about money issues, but then I listen to the things that they do with their money. And what they don't understand is they they haven't prioritized what the purpose of money is. The purpose of money is to protect and preserve our quality of life. That is the primary purpose of money, to protect and preserve our quality of life, not our standard of living. I'll get into that a little bit more. But if your quality of life is taken care of, then everything else is icing. Okay? You need quality shelter, quality, you know, uh clothing and food to eat, uh, your quality access to health care, right? So these are things that are directly impacting your quality of life. If you have enough money to address those things, the luxuries are luxuries. Now we live in a society where luxuries have become necessities, like a cell phone is a luxury, but we consider it a necessity. You know, driving around in fancy cars is not a luxury, it's a necessity uh for a lot of people. But, you know, there are a lot of things that are not necessities, but we treat them as their necessities, and they impact our financial situation. But if we have the proper beliefs about money and understand what money is and understand the primary purpose of money, then we will make decisions that will allow us to leverage our money more effectively so that the main things are addressed effectively, and then we can work and utilize the proper strategies and um and and and and other avenues to make our money work for us, to allow us to enjoy other benefits and the things that we want and the things that we desire and the things that are extra in life. Okay, so we go from understanding what money is to understanding the primary purpose of money to this third thing, which I think is as critical as the other two. The proper beliefs about money is I do not let money define my value nor the value of others in relation to me, and that's a big one. Many people define who they are based on money, and they also define others based on money. So if a person is wealthy, is a celebrity or entertainer or athlete or something like that, or or or you know, a corporate giant, people regard those people as being more important than they are because of their money status. No other reason. Likewise, if you see someone or people who think that way, see someone who is in a destitute state, they're homeless, they low income, they live in poverty, they look down on those people and don't regard them as being as valuable or having as much value as themselves. That's not a proper mindset about money. Because if people think that way, then they will do things in life to try to measure up to what they believe is the status or the value that they think they should have based on comparing themselves to somebody else. And those money beliefs impact how people make decisions. Now we go from the proper beliefs about money to the proper attitude about money because again, we're talking about what does it take to be financially successful? So having the proper money beliefs is one thing, having a proper attitude is another thing. Now, attitude speaks more to motivation, okay? So beliefs are one thing, their foundational, their core, but attitude is really the motivation that sustains this. So one of the proper attitudes to have when we're talking about money is patience. Many people, most people probably, when it comes to money and the things that they want and want to do, are not very patient. And that oftentimes causes people to put themselves in financial deficits because they want what they want and they don't want to wait for it. The other uh attitude that is, I believe, pivotal, again, to be successful financially, is contentment, not complacency, two different things. Contentment. Contentment is I need a new car, but I'm not going to rush unless it's a you know dire situation where the car just won't operate, won't run, you know, it's costing you a thousand dollars every month to keep it on the road. Okay, there's an exception, but under the normal circumstances, people get tired of their cars, cars five years, six years old, seven years old. They, you know, have a maintenance repair here or maintenance repair there. But the ongoing cost of maintenance does not exceed the cost of getting a new car. People just get impatient and and and and lose contentment and go out and make impromptu decisions financially because they're not content. Contentment means I will be at rest in the current state that I'm in while I am working to put myself in position to get to whatever that next state is. Whatever it is that I'm trying to achieve, whatever it is I'm trying to accomplish, I'm not gonna be at unrest while I'm working towards getting to that next level. Okay, that's the difference between contentment and complacency. Complacency is a whole different thing where people just don't have any motivation to do better or get better. That's not contentment. So having patience, contentment, and then the third thing I believe is very important as it relates to being successful financially, under to have the proper attitude is sacrifice. You gotta have a sacrificial mentality. That means I can't always get what I want when I want it. I can't always do what I want to do when I want to do it. I can't always have things my way. And I have to be able to evaluate what is the greater good that I am trying to accomplish. Am I able to exchange the lesser, or should I say the greater, for the lesser? Because the lesser oftentimes is the thing that I want right now that I don't want to wait for. Okay, the greater is what is the long-term benefit that I'm going to gain if I save an extra $500 a month versus saving $350 a month and going out and buying this 60-inch screen TV right now. Okay, I'm just using frivolous examples. But the point is sacrifice. If I want my child to get a quality college education, am I willing to sacrifice driving around in a $60,000 car and get a $20,000 car so that I can make sure I'm putting money away for my child's college education? And while they're in these early years of their educational growth and development, I sacrifice the level of standard that I want to drive around in instead of driving around in a Mercedes, I'm driving around in a you know, a Toyota or an Acra. Okay, just calling out some names. But am I able to have a sacrificial mentality? And then thirdly, after having the proper money beliefs, having the right attitude, the proper attitude. Now, I'm going to designate an episode that talks just about financial systems because I think it's that important. But a financial system is imperative, in my opinion, to be successful financially and to stay successful financially. And a sound financial system is a system where you must have goals, you must establish priorities, and there must be a plan. Now, your system doesn't have to be my system, and uh there are different ways in which a system can be implemented based on who you are, how you live, your talents, your skill set, your mentality, but the system needs to be sound and it needs to be based on some sound fundamental things. And again, I will designate an episode specifically to a financial system to get more in detail about that. But what I want to do real quick is just give you a definition of a system and then um give you a little uh exercise that I do oftentimes at seminars. But what is a system? By definition, a system is a regular method or order, it's a way of doing things in a prescribed manner by using a consistent process, and that uh is a consistent process is a process of operation which is designed to produce predictable results on a consistent basis, and those predictable results are able to be achieved without regard to the individual, their talent, their ability, their skill sets. In other words, if I have a system, I can plug and play anybody into it and get predictable results. Will the results be identical? Not necessarily, but whatever the results that I want to create, the system allows me to create results that are consistent and that are predictable. So let me give you an example of what I mean by this. What I want you to do if you're listening to me is to pick a number. Now, once you pick this number, what I want you to do is double the number. Okay, multiply by two. Now, after you pick the number and multiply by two, I want you to add ten to the number. Okay, now after you add 10 to that number, what I want you to do is actually cut that number in half. So you you pick a number, you multiply by two, you add ten to it, and then you cut it in half or divide it by two. Same thing. Okay? Now what I want you to do is I want you to subtract the original number you started with from the answer you got after you divide it by two. Now the answer is five. How do you do that? System by using a system, I am able to consistently, I can do this regardless of what the number is. Okay. If you didn't come out with five, I promise you, you made a mistake. There's nothing wrong with my system. Okay, so give you an example. I usually tell people to pick a number between zero and ten to make the math easy, okay? But I'm gonna use a little number and a big number. So let's say eight. Start with eight. First instruction was to double the number. So eight becomes sixteen. Okay, second instruction was to add ten to that number. So now sixteen becomes twenty six. The third instruction was to cut the number in half or divide it by two. So now twenty sicomes thirteen. The last instruction was to take the original. Number that you started with, in my case, it was eight. Subtract the eight from the number you got after you divided by two, okay, which was 13. Okay, 13 minus 8 gives you 5. There's nothing wrong with the system. If you didn't come out with the right answer, you did something wrong. The great thing about the system is it makes it easy to identify where the mistake is. Was the mistake in your addition? Was it in your multiplication? Was it in your division? Was it in your subtraction? Because that's all I use was the four basic mathematical operations. Okay. You can pick a number 1,530,000, and the results will be the same. Okay. Now I'm not going to do that because I need to pull out my calculator because as sharp as I am, I don't, you know, uh uh uh compute those numbers at that range in the time span that I have to do this. Okay. But use your calculator if you made a mistake and see where you made your mistake at. So the point is if you have a system, that system puts you in a position to be successful along with the other things that I mentioned. Because it allows you to be able to develop consistent, predictable results. And if you want to be financially successful, doesn't matter how much money you earn. Somebody's probably thinking, okay, well, you need to earn a lot of money. No, you don't need to earn a lot of money. Okay, you can be a janitor and be successful. Because a part of your money beliefs is understanding that you need to work. Okay, a part of the money beliefs is understanding how to leverage money and make money work for you, right? These are all a part of money beliefs. So I didn't go into intricate detail about everything, I just kind of gave you the main points. But if you have the proper money beliefs and the proper attitudes, right, and you implement a financial system, then you will use your money and organize your money to protect and preserve your quality of life, and then learn how to save and be patient. And as you save and as you are patient, and as you accumulate money, you learn how to invest that money and leverage that money to go to work for you so that that money can grow, so that money can help you build wealth, so that money can help you become financially successful, and ultimately get to a place where you can become financially independent. But it is a process, that's why there must be patience. That's why there must be an understanding of what money is, it's a resource. That's why we must have goals and priorities. All of these things work together. But I assure you, if these things are in place, you and anybody you know can be financially successful. So until next time, when we're going to talk about financial system. Hope you got something out of this, and I'll see you next time on money, investments, and finances with Mr. Will.

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This has been another episode of Money, Finance, and Investments with Mr. Will. For more information, check out his book, Money Ain't the Problem. What we do with it is so that you can learn how to live your best financial life. In the meantime, be sure to check out our next episode of Money, Finance, and Investment with Mr. Will.