How do your beliefs about money affect your results?
Now that we’re halfway into 2016, how have you done on your financial goals?
What common beliefs hold us back, causing us to work harder for little results?
Join us today as our host and Cash Flow Expert, Chris Miles, will address the common money stories that hold people back, and they don’t even know it!
Tune in now!
Chris Miles Bio:
Chris Miles, the “Cash Flow Expert,” is a leading authority on how to quickly free up and create cash flow for thousands of his clients, entrepreneurs, and others internationally! He’s an author, speaker, and radio host that has been featured in US News, CNN Money, Bankrate, Entrepreneur on Fire, and has spoken to thousands getting them fast financial results.
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What’s Your Money Story?
As a reminder, be sure to check out our website, www.MoneyRipples.com. We’ve got blogs and an event coming up, and it’s the last one of the year. Check us out and let me keep creating value for you in any way I can, especially if it’s for free. It’s awesome. Thank you so much. We have had an amazing year. I love seeing the increased number of you reading this show and getting more feedback about what’s been valuable and what you’ve been getting. I love it. That’s why I do this show. I want to be able to create value for as many of you as I can without ignoring my family. I hope that during the summer months, you’re enjoying with your family and having fun, and doing great things because life is way too short to waste away working hard and getting no results.
I’ve seen that we’re now halfway into the year. I’m sure that if you’re the type of person that’s reading this, you probably made goals at the beginning of this year. I want to ask you, how are you doing on those goals? How are things coming along? Especially your money goals, how has that come along? Are you on track? Are you ahead? Are you behind? Are you starting to worry a little bit because you have to do massive catch-up? How are things going right now?
I want to bring this up because it’s always good to do a check-in. You should do a check-in monthly, if not quarterly to see how you’re doing with your goals. That could be weekly too, but you’ll be doing smaller goals in the short term. I hope that you’re on track and if you’re not, let me know if there’s a topic or something we need to address on this show that helps you towards it.
I want to talk specifically about the money goals that you’ve had. There are a lot of stories that we all have about money. I want to talk about certain stories that I’ve had and other people have had. I even posted that on Facebook about the story of the nobility of being broke. In fact, let me read that, and this is one story. I want you to understand that these stories are the very things that determine the results we get. I’d have you ask yourself, “What is your money story? What are your beliefs surrounding money? What are your beliefs surrounding your business if you’re in business or those that have a lot of money or that don’t?” There are interesting perspectives in both ways, but what’s your story?
I want to talk about one in particular, especially in Christian cultures in Western society, people that believe that there’s nobility in being broke and that being a humble broke person is a good thing. They’ll talk about how it’s easier for a rich man to get through the eye of a needle than it is to get to heaven and those kinds of things.
As I’ve said in one of the first episodes I did when we talked about, “Does God wants you to be rich?” We talked about how the eye of the needle is coming in and being penitent, but some people believe that if you’re rich, you’re prideful, and if you’re broke, you’re humble, and that’s a good thing. It’s been passed down so many times. There are people that logically will say, “I know, Chris, that being broke is not good. I want to be rich and have money,” but then there’s this deep belief that having more money will somehow make it worse.
There's nothing noble about being broke. Click To TweetLet me read this post to inspire this conversation. I said this, “There’s nothing noble about being broke. Money is the root of or based upon all that is good. Why? What’s the root of money? It’s value, service, and solving problems. Money is evidence of service being delivered or a promise to deliver. Money doesn’t corrupt. Money is a magnifier of the soul. It only makes you more of what you already are. Your perspective on money and how you use it shows your true colors more boldly. If someone says money corrupts people, don’t do business with them. They’re telling you that they believe the only way to earn money is by hurting or taking advantage of others because that’s the only way they believe they can make money. Those are the dangerous ones.”
That’s not the only money belief. Let me talk about this specific money belief. I talked about you have to be worried about other people’s perspectives. Do you understand that a big part of how I decide on who I even have on my team or the people I have on my team that I refer business to, I dig into their perspective? It doesn’t take much. You have to ask a few questions and let them chat about themselves. It’s interesting to hear what comes out of their mouth.
I’ve learned to spot these people from a mile away. They believe that people with money are bad and there are corrupt rich people out there, and things like that. I’m not taking away that there are no corrupt rich people. Of course, there are. There are broke corrupt people too. Money has no bearing on how corrupt or uncorrupt somebody is. Money makes you more of who you already are.
What money does is put a megaphone next to you. It allows you to put a magnifying glass on you, and it magnifies everything about who you already are. It’s interesting because if you have a money story that’s in scarcity, you do not want more money. I’m not saying that you can’t have more money because you can’t wait until you’re perfect. Nobody is, but those money stories will blow up, and you have to be very careful and watch them. This is why one of the best ways to earn money is to do it gradually and to do it step-by-step, here a little and there a little.
As you start to grow in your stewardship, it’s so good to see what pops out. I’m seeing this lately. I’ll give you an example of one of my stories. I grew up in a house where I believed that you had to work hard. I was told you’ve got to be a hard worker. In fact, that was the value. I remember my father saying that hard work is something he values. I remember him talking about my two older half-brothers. He would say, “The ones loving and I love that, but the other one’s a hard worker,” and he tends to favor the one that was a hard worker.
For some households being a hard worker was more valuable than someone loving, caring or affectionate. Even though my dad wanted affection, that’s the thing. I grew up working hard. I grew up that you had to get jobs. Also, when I got jobs, they weren’t necessarily the best-paying jobs. I would work hard for an okay pay, in some cases, minimum wage. That’s what I was taught.
I remember seeing friends and thinking, “Wow.” I had one friend who seemed like he always got the right opportunities. He always got better jobs. Sometimes he would hook me up with those jobs through all of his connections, and maybe his dad helped him or whatever it would be, but I was surprised. Now, I know that he’s expected to get those jobs. I understand the mind a lot more and how the mind does affect our money.
It’s interesting when people give me perspectives about their money. We all have perspectives about money, and I still have beliefs. I’ve been a hard worker up until recently. Even though I could work leverage time, I still believe that I had to keep working hard or it wasn’t valuable. It was this last year that I realized I tell people all the time that it’s not about working harder and working smarter, but it’s about working right. When you work right, you don’t necessarily have to work hard. You will be surprised how little you have to work.
It’s been an awesome transformation in my business to where I’ve gotten time freedom again. With my ex-wife, I remember that being an issue where she’d say, “Can’t you just be done at 9:00 to 5:00 every day?” As an entrepreneur, that doesn’t happen and it’s not realistic. You can set hours, but sometimes you have stuff that goes on into the evening. It was unrealistic for her to expect that story to be true. It was still unrealistic for me because I still said, “No, that’s not what an entrepreneur does. I didn’t come out of retirement to work part-time. I came to live a full-time mission, not a part-time life.”
That full-time mission doesn’t mean you have to work full-time to overtime. I’m a part of a coaches group on Facebook and have seen some people that say, “At the beginning, you’ve got to work like 100 a week.” I’m like, “Who says?” At the beginning of launching Money Ripples or when I launched a brand-new business with brand new relationships, I had to work hard, and there were some 40-plus hour weeks because I had a non-compete with my old company that I was with for six years and all that stuff.
If you think that you have to work day and night and slave away, here’s the thing, you’re doing it wrong in business. You’re not doing it right. You’re busy but you’re not being productive. There’s so much you can do, but when it comes to priorities and things you can do, you might have some of those days, you might burn the candle on both ends for a few days, but I would hope that you have a weekend and some time to be able to relax and unwind, and be with your family. That’s important. No success matters in your business if you can’t have your family with you.
It doesn’t matter how awesome you are and how much money you’re making. If you’re working like a dog, that’s not good. Ask yourself, “What story am I telling myself that I believe I have to do that?” That was like working like a dog, being broken, and how that’s a good thing. There are people that give you perspectives. If people believe that rich people are evil, better believe that either 1) They won’t have any money because they believe they’re a good person, or 2) That could bite you in the butt. If you’re being successful, what are they going to say about you? Are they going to be successful? I like to surround myself with successful people, the people that do want to grow and progress.
Money is a magnifier of the soul. Your perspective on money and its use show your true colors more boldly. Click To TweetI was talking with a friend yesterday, and we mentioned that we don’t necessarily do the normal guys’ night out or hanging out. One, he’s in a different state, so it’s not the easiest to do unless we’re visiting each other’s states. I’ve noticed as well that I don’t have people that I go hang out with. I joked with him, “I don’t have those buddies that drink beer every night.” I have people that are, in some cases, way busier than I am. They’re always out there speaking and doing crazy stuff.
Although Facebook might be deceiving, I don’t work a ton. I work at least a few hours a day. There are some days I don’t work at all. There are some days that I work, I’m like, “I did a 9:00 to 5:00 type of day, that’s crazy.” There are always these stories that we have and create. What’s your story about money? What are you believing that’s keeping you back? What’s holding you back from achieving your goals? If you haven’t changed the way you see money, and I’m not saying talk to your money, I’m not saying that’s always a bad thing, but I’m not saying that you have to roll around in your money and press it on your body. That’s crazy stuff.
What I’m saying is what’s your relationship with money? How do you view it? Do you view it as a good thing? Do you see it as something that’s scarce? Do you see it as something hard to come by? Do you see it as something you can only get if you do life or business a certain way? What if your business needs to change for you to see more money? What if the whole way you’ve been doing your business or money needs to be undone? Do you believe that high risk creates a high return on your money? Do you think you have to take high risks to make money? You’re a gambler and you’re going to lose money. You’re going to wonder why you don’t have it.
You can’t expect to grow watermelons if you plant daisies. It doesn’t matter what you say to those daisy plants. You can’t sweet talk them into becoming watermelons. You’ve got to plant the right seeds to be able to get the right fruit. I’ve seen it so many times. Even with my own clients, they’ll get great success in great things, but a lot of times it’s limited success because there are some deep-rooted beliefs about money. The ones they don’t even understand or recognize yet.
My challenge to you is to start asking yourself, “What is my story? What needs to change? If I don’t know what needs to change, who can help me see that truth?” Sometimes, I’ve had to have outside people tell me stuff. As I’ve said, my business has hit new highs that I’ve never hit before. I’m hitting new income levels I never hit, and I’ve done it with less effort and time. It’s got me to question, “What have I done to be able to bask in this?”
I’ve pretty much done what I said. I’m basking it. I sit with it. I’m like, “This is nice. This feels different.” Your subconscious mind always wants to be correct. A lot of times, what happens is that people get caught up in their stories so much that subconsciously, they ruin results because they don’t want to be wrong because that means that everything you thought was right was wrong. You might consciously think, “That’s not the case,” but your mind always wants to be right, whether you like it or not. That’s why I sit with them, “This feels different. I want to do different things. I’m going to buy better quality things.”
I mentioned that I thought, “I’ll buy cheap stuff. ” Quality things are the things that matter, but a lot of times, I buy quality things for things that were more outward and seen. For example, I’ve started better-quality food. Better quality food is not something you see. It’s something you partake your body, but energy levels are different. My vibration levels are different. I attract different people than I ever have before.
I love the fact that I’m attracting people. Either they have businesses that are increasing in success or they’re like, “I’ve got to manage my stewardship. I can’t blow this. I can’t let my old money stories take that money away.” I get people that have had money that they’ve saved up and they’re having their retirement accounts. Some of them aren’t even business owners, but they have this money stashed away in retirement saying, “I’m not getting anywhere. How can I get this money doing something for me?”
I had a woman at a networking group I talked to, and she was telling me about her situation. We’ve done some business together before. As I’m listening to her, I’m like, “There are some solutions for you. We could double your income with what you’re being paid by your retirement plan. That’s possible.” You don’t even have to take more risks. Most things block us because we create stories around them.
I completely stay away from people that believe high risk creates high returns. Those people are broke and gone. Their money is easy to come and easy to go. I especially don’t do business with those people. That’s an easy way to get yourself in trouble because you’ve got people that have a gambler’s mindset. Those people are either 1) Going to go broke fast or 2) They’re going to do something illegal because they think that taking these high risks are unnecessary and horrible. You’ve got to be careful of your perspective and other people’s perspectives. Be careful with the money story you tell yourself.
If you have been frustrated with your goals this year, the very reason could be because you’ve got some story that you’re still holding onto. You can try to change all the strategies. You can work harder all you want, but if your story and perspective around money don’t change, and if you don’t see things from a true abundance perspective, not just thinking positive, although that does help sometimes, but when you see money from a truly abundant stewardship type of mentality, you will find that money will come much easier.
That’s my challenge to you, guys. Let’s question your stories. What’s holding you back? If you have to ask somebody to help you and get somebody to hold you accountable, or whatever it takes, this is what’s required for you to see success. Question your stories, look into them, find stories that do work that gets you different results. Sit with it, ponder it, live in it, be in it, immerse yourself in it, and watch what happens when you start to get different results. Don’t deny it, just accept it, and keep going forward.
If you’re having a problem where you feel like you’re stuck, and I’ll end with this quote, I’ve told you that consistency is key. It sure is, but consistency may be a key to success, but consistent complacency is the key to failure. If you’re consistently complacent and trying to go the same route and think that working harder is going to work for you, it won’t work.
Consistency needs to happen, but you cannot let your mindset be consistent. You’ve got to let your mindset evolve and grow into something more abundant and more truly successful. That’s my challenge to you guys this week. Make it a prosperous week. Let me know how I can serve you. I love you so much. Have a wonderful week. Talk to you later.