Money Mindset in Tough Times

Your beliefs, feelings, and thoughts about money are never more critical than right now. My 30 years of experience as an investment advisor taught me that how we think about our money is THE most important aspect of creating wealth.

Your money mindset is more important than investment information, experience, and your advisor. Unless you've deprogrammed yourself, the way you were taught to think about money growing up will be your base motivation in most of your decisions. Most all of us have at least one underlying motive we don't recognize.

Are you afraid when it comes to money, or does money, its status, and recognition drive you?
Are you a success because of money?
Maybe money means security, which really means we are insecure, or maybe it leaves a bad taste all together.
Are you afraid to take a loss because of pride or always wanting more?

Don't be ashamed to look deeply at this. I had several of these mindset obstacles to overcome. Discovering your money mindset will only help you to move towards being exceptional with finances. And if you are unwilling to do so, that may be a "red flag" to your financial challenges.

The list goes on, but the point is to try and recognize these foundational beliefs and do it now.

In extremely uncertain times like these with all of the drama and news headlines wherever we turn, our tendency is to be more controlled by our emotions than anything else. These emotions will to some extent be driven by your childhood programming.

Do everything you can to keep your emotions out of the money decisions - especially now. It doesn't matter if you have a loss or that the financial sector is a mess. How you feel has nothing to do with good investment decisions. You won't know until after whether you are right or not.

Make the decision to stay put, buy or sell based on sound reasoning alone. Get your ego out of the way. It's usually a very profitable strategy.

Keep your mind set on being smart not being right. You'll never be financially successful if you need to be right. Your money mindset matters most.

Why is Your Mindset So Critical?

We all see the world through filters that have been programmed into our mindset through our upbringing, our experiences, our values and everything that has molded and shaped our lives.

So our filtered perspectives become they way our mind-is-set over the years and from which all of our decisions, opinions, and assumptions are derived. Our thinking habits are developed and our world is as we see it; just as we are.

But that is not the world, only our view of it. Our box. We all see the same world differently. We must get out of our box to grow and move forward in ways we don't know.

If you want different results in your business, profession, and life, you must do things differently. Since what you do is derived from your mindset, doesn’t it make sense to transform your mindset before you do anything else?

It is absolutely critical. It’s also invigorating, inspiring, fun and very powerful.

But nowhere are we taught how our mindset influences everything in our lives, and that we can learn to make choices about what we believe, how we think, to respond rather than react, and to manage our feelings and emotions.

How powerful is that? And Brad Denham Life Coaching is where you begin.

Our mindset drives everything in our lives; what we do, how we act and respond, our attitudes and outlooks, our feelings, assumptions, rules and the list goes on. There may be nothing you can do that is more life-changing than improving your mindset.

The Destination Myth

I had the distinct pleasure of hearing Peyton Manning, quarterback of the Super Bowl champion Indianapolis Colts, talk about enjoying the journey each day. He told us he was able to take in Super Bowl week without getting caught up in the hype. He enjoyed the bus ride to the stadium, and lived the excitement of being in the pre-game stadium tunnel. He convinced us how important it had become for him to live life each day rather than focusing on some destination.

 

We've all heard it before, focus on the journey not the destination. But are you really doing it? Peyton talked about the destination myth – reaching the destination appears to hold some reward or magic change for our lives. Believing that is precisely how we lose a significant amount of our joy and happiness in life. Real joy is only created daily in the journey itself.

 

Pastor Gary Lewis calls destination seekers the "when and then people;" whenI arrive at my destination then life will be different, better, glorious, etc. Or when I'm finally successful, then I will enjoy life and work more or everything will be significantly better. What a hoax. Manning framed it in football context; no matter what game you finally win, there's always another one to prepare for and more learning and growing to do. You're never ever done. So why not just enjoy the heck out of the daily journey.

 

A driving force behind destination focus is our desire to attach ourselves to the success upon arriving. We want to live in that success and enjoy the glory of that victory. In doing so, the victory starts to define us, and we lose our sense of authentic identity. We also tend to stop growing at this point, because we think we have already arrived. We are finally “a somebody.”

 

A real revelation to me was Manning’s discussion of the stop, learn, and let go of your failures as well as your victories. Letting go of failure is something most of us have heard before. Failure is only failure if we give up, rather than learn from it and move on. Don't let failure to define you. Don't become your failure by taking it personally and all that great wisdom.

 

But Manning says the same thing about success; don't become your success either. Don't define yourself by your arrival at the destination. Stop, learn, and let go of success just like failure. Only then can you maintain your authentic identity and grow to be the best you can be rather than basking in your success.

 

Peyton said moment the Indianapolis Colts officially start next season, the Super Bowl and everything about it is behind them. They aren’t attached to it or still living in the glory of the huge victory. The success and achievement of this lifetime goal for becomes just another step on the ladder to the next destination. Peyton will be enjoying each day along the way and living life in its fullness.

 

We all need destinations, goals, and something to move toward to focus our direction, but not our attention. We must stop being "when and then" people by identifying ourselves with our destinations. Reaching a destination does not provide lasting fulfillment. So be like a Super Bowl quarterback and live for today and enjoy the journey.

 

Oh by the way, Go Colts!