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How Do You Want to Feel About Money? Embracing Personal Agency

George Grombacher June 2, 2023


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How Do You Want to Feel About Money? Embracing Personal Agency

You have personal agency which means you have the ability to choose how you think, feel, and respond to the circumstances of your life. When it comes to money, you get to decide how you think and feel about it. 

 

George talks about how to actually make that happen in your life. 

 

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Episode Transcript

So I want to talk about how you feel about money how you think and feel about money. And while going to focus on the money piece, it’s true of any aspect of of your life, anything you have feelings about, which is obviously, a lot of things you have feelings about, I assume kind of everything. And the personal agency aspect of it, the reality that you get to choose, you have control over your feelings, and nobody else does. Now, that’s not to say that you have control over the circumstances of your life, because for the most part, we have very little control over the things that happened to us. But we do have absolute control over how we think, how we feel, and how we respond to those things. And that personal agency, that ability to make that decision, that ability to choose, is one of the most important things that we have. Again, I don’t have control over a lot of the things that happen the circumstances, but I have absolute control over how I think, feel and respond to those circumstances. So your ability to step into that to really embrace it, to put it to work in your life will, I think result in greater satisfaction, more enjoyment, a better life, or, or the opposite is, you’ll feel like, you know, life is just happening to you. You’re just getting carried along by the current keep getting shit on whatever it is, you feel, however it is that you’re feeling to feel like there are forces that are far beyond your control that are keeping you stuck or holding you down, or it’s the government or the man or the woman or the patriarchy or this, that and the other thing. And I tell you what, when we allow ourselves to believe that there is some invisible force or some boogey man or woman or whatever that is out to get us or preventing us from what we want pursuing the what we want feeling a certain way. Well, then, I don’t know you’ve totally lost but you are without question. hamstringing or slowing yourself down precluding you from getting the life that you want, getting the things that you want, pursuing the things that you want. So personal agency is such an important thing. Because it is the recognition that I have control over such a really important huge aspect of my life, which is how I think, feel and respond to things. So such a massively important thing. Now this isn’t easy. It’s not obvious. Maybe once you start thinking about it, it’s pretty obvious that who is who is in control of my thoughts? Well, I am losing control of my feelings. I am. Now when somebody asked me a question, to a degree, they’re controlling the direction of my brain and my thinking, when somebody says or does something to me, which is enraging, or irritating or triggering to me, that is influencing and momentarily controlling the direction of my thinking and my feeling. But the thing is, the question is, how long are you going to allow that external thing to control your thinking and your feeling? That’s kind of that that’s kind of the trick right there. And for me, I know that I was pretty bad at this for a long time. I’m still not awesome at it, but I am trying, I am working to get much better at it. I’m working to improve my ability to recognize my state recognize the state of thinking recognize my state of feeling and being and say, Okay, how do I really want to be feeling about this right now? How do I want to be thinking about this right now? What, what, what actions can I be taking that would get me closer to what I want to be my reality, versus further away from it or just staying stuck? For example, for the longest time when things didn’t go my way, or I felt like I was getting screwed, which there’s somebody who cares, right, a chip on your shoulder like me. That’s, that’s not an uncommon experience. Feel like I can’t believe this happen to me or F that guy or that gal or whatever. You know, these people are so stupid, whatever it might be. And for me that would really, it would cause my day to just kind of spiral and I just get stuck there. My whole I would be, you know, cruising along, making great progress that the bad would happen and it would just Totally sidetrack all of my progress all my activity, and cloud cloud, maybe not the rest of the day, certainly extended amount of time. And somebody sort of pointed that out to me. And I started to learn about, again, it’s pretty basic. But I learned that I have the ability to choose how it has, I want to be thinking and feeling and responding, I’m going to keep hammering that because it is so important. And again, it’s obvious, but it’s not. And this is very much aligned with the idea of, we need to be reminded more than we need to be instructed. When I tell you, you have control over the way you think about things, the way you feel about things, like of course I do, but do you. So you actually exercise, that ability to control your thinking and feeling. And just speaking for myself again, for the longest time I wasn’t, I was allowing the tail to wag the proverbial dog versus the dog wagging the tail, which is what we want. You want to take in information, and to filter it through your values and your priorities, and your goals and your beliefs, and then make a good educated decision. And the faster we can make that and get thinking and feeling and acting in a way that is serving us versus keeping us stuck or pulling us further away from what we really want. That’s the trick. So we want to limit the amount of time that we’re feeling and ruminating and just getting stuck in that one spot. So we need to decide, we need to embrace the reality that we have choice. Because you and I are 100% worthy of living the life that we want, the lives that we want, you are even deserving of the lives that you want, but you’re not entitled to it. And that’s, I think one of the real linchpins here, when it comes to personal agency is, you know, once you accept that responsibility, I’m responsible for my thinking, I’m responsible for my feeling, nobody else is responsible, nobody else has the ability to influence or control my thinking or my feelings, certainly my actions, it’s on me and me alone, then that is just a super empowering thing. It puts you in a different, it puts you in a different frame of mind. It’s a really valuable perspective. So so it’s really, really possible. So going back to the original question is, how do you want to feel about money? How do you want to feel about money? Have you ever thought about that? Have you ever taken five minutes, sat down and said, Okay, how do I want to feel about money? How do I want to feel about my personal finances? If you haven’t done that, you’re in the vast, vast majority. And this was me, again, everything I talked about, it’s because you know, I made these mistakes. I didn’t ever spend a lot of time thinking about how I want to feel about money or how I want to think about money. And just to found that most people haven’t done that. So encourage you to spend that that little bit amount of time just spend five minutes, sit down, turn everything off, eliminate a distraction, and say, Okay, how do I want to think and feel about money. And I encourage you to get a pen and paper out and write it down. But even if you just spend a little bit of time to be thinking about it, how do I want to think about money? And whatever comes out, you know, write down your first instincts write down that that initial fast response. But then dig deeper into it like, Okay, that’s interesting. Why is it? Do I want to feel that way? Why did I think I want to be rich, or I just want to stop worrying about it? Or I just want to not think about it really ever. Those are all fine. Those are all fine. There’s not a right answer to this question. I don’t want to think about money all the time. I don’t want to think about investing all the time. I don’t want to think about all the different aspects of money all the time. But I do want to make sure that I’m doing all the things that I need to be doing to be financially successful. I do want to make sure that I’m on track to meet or exceed all of my most important financial goals that my family is going to be taking care of. Now imagine that a lot of that is is what you’re interested in as well. So once you kind of figure out what is it how is it that I want to think about money? How is it that I want to feel about money? The next question is Is that possible? Is it possible for me to be able to get to the point where I am actually thinking and feeling that way about my money? I think that the answer is yes. But it may or may not be I think that is of course

And again, going back to the idea of you’re worthy and you’re, you’re deserving of being able to feel that way, but you’re not entitled to it. So what do you need to do? In order to make that happen? What would what are the prerequisites that are necessary for you to feel and have financial peace of mind? Or to feel like you’re rich? Whatever it might be. So figure that out. Okay, what do I need to do. And there are just to give you my sort of two cents on what needs to happen in order for you to be positioned to feel however you want about it, is we need financial security first, that’s the first step to it. And if you don’t have that, we’re going to have a really hard time ever moving towards financial prosperity. So financial security, then puts me in position to pursue financial prosperity. So first things first is you need to get a handle on your cash flow, you need to understand where you’re spending your money, how much money is coming in how much money is going out how much you earn, how much debt you have the value of your assets, just get a proper accounting of all of your money. And however long it’s been since you’ve gone through and reviewed all of your cash flow, go back through it, it’s been a year, we’ll go back through every transaction that you’ve gone through over the course of a year, because you’re gonna find some stuff that just, it’s not serving anymore, or you’re not even using it, you’re still paying for it, you get the idea, it’s important to have a budget. And that’s simply a plan for your money. I’ve written extensively and talked extensively about how to put a budget together and a lot of great resources for doing it. But it doesn’t need to be overcomplicated. And that’s an important thing, too, is none of this stuff. All this stuff is within your comprehension, you’re smart enough to get on and download a podcast or get on YouTube and watch video, you’re perfectly capable of figuring everything you need out from personal financial standpoint to become financially successful. And I talk a lot about this because it’s so important is that you need to get really clear on what it is that you want. So you need to write down your what what your goals are, for your financial life, we have a free goals course that I encourage you to to check out, I’ll put that in the in the notes, we also add, it’s also really important to understand what your values and your beliefs are about money and have a values course as well, which is free, you can access that. And from there, it’s a matter of figuring out what habits, what things you need to start doing, what things you need to stop doing, that will then get you closer or will get you on the track to whatever it is that you want. So once you know, here’s how I want to be feeling about money, here’s how I want to be thinking about money, then now, now, you know, you have decided this is how I want to think and feel about money. And then it’s you pay attention to how you’re currently thinking and you’re feeling. And then you notice, oh, I’m feeling a sense of anxiety or stress about money, or I’m feeling I’m feeling guilty about spending money on a certain thing, or whatever it is, you just start paying attention. And you notice how your thinking and your feeling when it comes to your money. And then you catch it. Say, Okay, recognize the way that I’m feeling, I recognize that I’m feeling anxious, and that I never have enough money. So it’s a sense of scarcity, whatever it might be, I’m terrified of this, then you replace that feeling. Instead of feeling anxious about this, I’m going to start feeling like I am in control. I’m going to start feeling like I have more than enough, like I have financial abundance. So if you wait until you have financial abundance to start feeling financially abundant, you may find that you never get there. So we need to kind of kind of we need to not kind of we need to invert that. It’s like if Michael Phelps waited to start training really hard until he won a gold medal. Well, he probably will never, he wouldn’t have never won gold medals if he hadn’t trained hard. So if you want to feel financially prosperous, start feeling that way. Now. When you start feeling financially scarce, or freaking out about it, just change your thinking, change your feeling to what you want. And then you start taking action in service of that, see figure out okay, these are the things I need to be doing to actually get to the place where I do feel and think this way about money and that desired future is my actual current reality. So it could be getting out of debt. Credit card debt is the worst. So whatever you need to do to get out of credit card debt. Now that would be a top priority from my perspective, and you can access our get out of debt course for free as well. So we have those free three free courses. Golf Course values course and get out of debt course. Notice, I am exceptional, that naming things, unique ability of mine. And then from there, it’s getting your emergency fund set up. And I encourage people to get to six months worth of expenses saved up. And once you are out of credit card debt, you’ve got six months worth of cash. Well, that’s financial peace of mind right there. And then you need to let the chips fall where they may, then you start really proactively going after your really important financial goals and objectives. We really overcomplicate stuff. We live in a wonderful time where there’s just amazing technology everywhere and apps for everything and this that the other thing but if you just did the things I just laid out, you worked on that until you got there till you were out of debt, till you had six months worth of cash saved up. That might take you a year or two or even longer. But when you get there, you would have developed you will have developed self confidence discipline, know how you’ll learn so much along the way. It’ll just be you’ll you’ll you’ll have created great routines and patterns and beliefs and it’ll be a virtuous cycle for you instead of a vicious cycle where so many of us are trapped. So first things first, recognize that you have choice. You have the ability to control how you think, feel and respond to the circumstances of your life. Recognize that you are the only person who can decide you’re the only person who ought to or should decide how it is the feel and think about money. So make that decision. Think about where you want to be. Think about what’s most important to you. Examine your habits, how you’re interacting with money, review your cash flow, put a budget together, and then start making some plans. You’re perfectly capable of all these things. As always, do your part but doing your best

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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