I am finishing a ground-breaking book called, The Psychology of Money. This book will challenge you and your belief about money and your ability to grow it in many ways. It will support you in challenging what you thought you knew and create in you a willingness to look at money for yourself, learn for yourself, decide for yourself, earn for yourself, invest for yourself, and create a financial legacy that exceeds your lifespan, for yourself and of course the loved ones who will survive you.
I always tell my staff, children, and people close to me that there are two things they must master in this world: money and sales. Sales, because no matter your stage or station in life, you will have to sell someone on you and there are a million examples of how we do that every day. But sales is not my topic today. Money is just as important, if not more so. Until you master money, you will always use conscious resources to do money. Doing money is saving, allocating your money to bills, paying yourself, retirement, investments, growing money, etc. In November of 2019, CBS News reported that 70% of Americans were struggling financially. Since then, we’ve had a HUGE health pandemic that has crossed into a financial crisis. What do you think those numbers are now? Probably much higher right? Even without major shifts that cause your life to change drastically on a day-to-day basis, you have to do money right. Doing so frees up the part of your brain that worrying about money takes hostage and allows you to find out what you’re born to do and who you’re born to serve.
In the last couple of chapters of the book, we learn that you cannot take financial advice from people with different motives and modalities than you. This puts the ball back in your court for you to take responsibility for your own investments or lack thereof. Growth is compounded and benefits from time. We also learn that if you look at the money trends of the last couple hundred years, while there have been pandemics, depressions, stock market crashes, bubbles bursting, and everything else we could not have anticipated, we are still richer, have more resources available to us, more financially stable and living longer than ever. We’re doing something right. But many of us cannot see that we’re doing something right because we are surviving off a high dose of economic doom and gloom. We so easily forget that necessity is the mother of invention. That we adapt to drastic and dramatic changes as does our economy. Whatever humanity needs, we are graced to create. The idea is for us to walk away from the dramatic report and create a solution not become paralyzed by it.
Jordan Raynor wrote an incredible book, Called to Create. In it, he details how we were created to create in God’s image. The first attribute God showed us about Himself in His word was creativity. That to me prioritizes our use of our talents and gifts to create a better world to improve upon what He already did above all else. This as you know is where Purpose comes into the conversation. We were born to leave an indelible mark on this world. This is our Purpose. That said, how can you take the often overly, pessimistic reports about our economy’s instability (or whatever it is you are passionate about) and create a new narrative?
Before this conversation usually starts, fear rears its ugly head and begins to make you feel that you are incapable of making a difference. As if you are not qualified or worthy. But if it bothers you to see people living beneath their privilege, then do something about it. It is your responsibility to create something that causes ease for your purpose community (this is a phrase I came up with in my book Avenue of Purpose, to describe the people you are born to serve).
Fear stops us from realizing our wildest dreams. Much of our fear shows up in our self-talk. Be careful what you say to yourself, about yourself, and about the economy of our country. Fear stops us from using our gifts to help someone else. It is a thief that will always be there. I am scared too. But I look fear right in its ugly face and say, “C’mon. Let’s go!” I take it with me to every speaking engagement, every coaching session, every creative session, every meeting, everywhere! Fear used to render me powerless and cause me to procrastinate or just not do anything. But when I realized that even the smartest, toughest and most successful people deal with fear, I made the decision to not let it stop me anymore.
You’ll likely never eradicate fear. And it is the collective fear of a nation that sways the economy and even fuels a health pandemic. But you can greatly diminish the power of fear by doing the very thing fear wants to keep you from doing. Do it ANYWAY! The more you do that, the less effective fear is. You could be the answer to someone’s prayers. But you won’t know until you fully embrace Purpose and do what you were born to do, create something bigger in service to your Purpose community.
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