Hi and welcome to this week's episode of Money with Alpha. This week I wanted to talk a bit about the concept of wisdom. It's come up a little bit lately, and, and I was putting some shirts together because I have a Cricut now, and I'm having a bit of fun with putting some shirts together just to put a little bit of inspirational sayings on there for, for women in glitter, of course, pink glitter. And one of the things that kind of came out was the concept of wise, wealthy woman. And I thought, oh, what does that actually mean? You know, I mean, it can mean like anything, it can mean something different to each one of us. But then the concept of that wisdom, and if you think about how our worlds have evolved, and I was having this conversation with somebody at a kid's birthday party on the weekend where we used to have that, that village, we'd have multi-generations of women. And back in the day when the men were still hunting and gathering and the women were sort of the homemakers, so to speak, you know, and tending to the children. And then once the grandmothers didn't have the younger generation necessarily to raise, they were there to care for grandchildren. But they were also responsible for going out and foraging. And they would find the berries and the fruits and the things that would help sustain the village until the men came back with the bigger game. And the role that they also played in understanding how to deal with different health issues and women issues and food and what combinations of things and longevity and wellbeing. Like, we went to our elders for wisdom. But in this day and age, we've— I feel like there's a certain loss that happens with with that, that we don't tend to perhaps not value our elders as much as we used to, but there's less of a place in society because we're also caught up with the day-to-day. And, you know, there's all these trends and influences and, you know, new things that come out that might seem a little bit too fast-paced and everyone, you know, the older generation is a little bit too slow to react or respond and they're just not like with it. And I've noticing this. I remember, you know, when I was in my 20s, like looking at my grandmother and thinking, you know, I mean, she, she had a lot of issues herself, but she still had a lot of life experience and she just knew things. Like even, and it wasn't my grandmother, it was someone else's grandmother that sort of told me like, oh, I was going down the path of I didn't want to use tinned beans as much anymore in my cooking. I wanted to cut, you know, cook from dry, but I just could not get them soft enough. And then a grandmother overheard me sort of complaining about this and like, just put some bicarb in the water when you soak it that'll make them nice and soft. I was like, oh, okay, right. So in all these recipes that I've read over the years, it said soak your beans overnight. Not one of them had ever said put a little, you know, half a teaspoon of bicarbonate soda in there. Well, I did that and it was a game changer. I was like, oh my gosh, especially trying to cook hummus from dried chickpeas. If you've ever tried to do that, you know how hard it is to try and get those chickpeas soft. So the bicarb became the absolute game changer. So I was like, just like a simple thing that had been known that unless it gets passed down, we lose that knowledge. And then maybe someone might stumble across it and then go, wow, look at this thing I've discovered. Meanwhile, you know, the older age generation are going, but we knew that. We've known that for years and decades, and nobody's either asked or listened, or we've, you know, just never shared it. So, and how this relates to money, I am getting to the point, but I'd like you just to think about the wisdom that you have built up over time as well. I think to some extent, we tend to undervalue the life experience that we have. We just look at one facet of our life, and if money is that facet you're looking at that you don't think you've always been great at, then you're gonna judge yourself on that facet holistically. Or if there's, you know, maybe you weren't good at math in high school. And I was literally having this conversation with my husband earlier. When I was in grade 10, I had a teacher who was not that fantastic. Well, it turned out I needed glasses. I couldn't even see the board properly from the back of the room, which of course I didn't know because what I was looking at was all I knew. But I still remember getting these glasses and like on, off, on, off, going, oh my God, there's leaves, trees, leaves, leaves, no leaves, leaves, no leaves. I was just fascinated by the fact I could see all this detail, and we had no idea that I couldn't actually see the board. And this teacher was so sort of not particularly considerate, let's put it that way in general, not just towards me, but in general when somebody couldn't do something or get it the first time. And so for a while there, I was like, well, I'm not particularly great at math. But then when the glasses thing came in, I was like, oh, well, it was the glasses. So suddenly I had a reason. I had something I could like— blame is too strong a word, but I could put the reason onto something else. So then the story had to change because I was like, okay, well, it's not me that wasn't great at math, it was just that my eyesight wasn't good enough. So now that narrative changed. But if you didn't get that kind of narrative shift, then you're going to be carrying that, you know, I'm not good at math and therefore— and math is numbers and money is numbers, so therefore I'm not good at math, I'm not good at numbers, so I'm not good at math, I'm not good at money either. So you've lumped all of these things together in the same narrative. And then there's, there might've been examples that would reinforce it because, you know, we look to experience. But then if you look at other areas of your life and you might be really good problem solver in other areas, then just assign that problem-solving brain to the money side without limitation based on that previous spoken of narrative. So it's, it's looking and, and I think sitting in it too, because I had a bit of a day of semi-rest. Yesterday and today I was so tired and I thought, why am I so tired? I had a day, a slower day, and I was like, that was it. I slowed down. But in the process, I was able to process things and go okay, these are the things that are going well. These are the things I've done. Oh my goodness. And we're coming to the end of a quarter. As I'm recording this, it's, it's the end of March. And I'm thinking, wow, okay, that January, February, March, that was a full-on quarter. Like, got so many things done. In that 3 months. No wonder I'm a little bit tired. But hadn't stopped to kind of reflect until now, thinking about the next quarter. Of course, we're always looking forwards. And that's why I love that book, you know, The Gap and the Gain by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy, because it really forces you to look backwards. And I normally read this book once a year in December, but I didn't this year. And I'm noticing that my ability to look back and reflect is a little bit lacking as a result, because I haven't had that focus on it. And without that, you can't acknowledge the wisdom and the experience that you've gained. So then wisdom then becomes replaced by knowledge. And to know something is great, but to know it and then to do it is something else again. So if you know that there's things that you should be doing with your money, but you're not doing them, then there's an underlying element of guilt and stress that goes with that, which then impacts your ability to feel wise. So it tends to compound on itself. And what is the reason that you have knowledge that you're not implementing? That could be linked back to the stories or the narratives that you're not good with money or whatever. It could be that you just are feeling overwhelmed in general and you just need some, some space and some time to be able to do it. It could be that it's not absolutely the correct knowledge for you right now. And I found that a lot has happened to me where I was like, oh, all this like information is just like is on me and like, oh my gosh, what do I do with all this right now? I can't, I can't implement all of it right now. And if I can't implement all of it, I'm going to do none of it. So it then becomes that little bit of a, the problem's too big. I can't, I can't bite into an apple this size. If you're seeing me, my hands are probably about, you know, 10, 15 centimeters in diameter. I can't eat an apple that big in one go. Nobody can. So what do you need to do? Chop it into smaller bits. So what is the bit that you're going to deal with first? And normally we go to the beginning or the end. I've noticed this happening a lot when I get asked questions or I'm helping my clients. It's very much the, I want to know how to invest. I was like, okay, well, that's one end of the scale to a certain extent. That's the wealth building side. Or I need to get better at my, you know, what I'm spending and better at cash flow management. I was like, okay, that's the, that kind of the other end of it as well. The mindset sits outside all of that too. And it's sort of the overarching umbrella. But when you deal with either one of them, once you've been dealing with them, you then have to be able to connect them. So it's not enough to just work on your cash flow or your budgeting or, you know, putting limits on what you're spending on retail or eating out or groceries or whatever it happens to be. And it's not enough to just go, I'm just going to put this amount aside into my superannuation or retirement fund or figure out what ETFs I'm going to invest in and just continue to do those. That's great too. But if you don't get your cash flow set up correctly, then you'll find you don't have that $100 a month or whatever it is that you want to invest regularly. But if you then only look at the cash flow, then you don't look at the wealth building side. So it's a matter of looking at all of it, and that's when it starts to feel overwhelming. The thing is, look at one first, then, then find out what the next piece is. Then once you've done that, but it's, it then creates this like, what if, or what next kind of mentality rather than What now? And it's, and that's what I find creates that stuckness. It's the, what am I doing right now? What am I doing next feels too hard. So it's always about the now. It never becomes about the next. It's a little bit like, oh, we had an exchange student stay with us for a while when I was a, when I was a teenager and she was constantly on a diet wanting to lose weight. And so we found this, this picture or this little saying which we put on the fridge and it says diet start tomorrow. Well, tomorrow is always tomorrow. It's never now. So she was constantly trying to, to start something tomorrow that was always tomorrow. You know, it's that, it's what's, I think it was, there was some saying or riddle about, you know, what's, what's what's time that you actually never reach? And that's tomorrow. So what's, what do you need to do right now? But then also have in mind, well, once I get this sorted, what am I going to do? Like, for example, say for instance, your goal is to be cash flow positive, so to speak, or have some extra cash at the end of every month. Say you even get to that point, unless you have a purpose for that extra cash, it's just going to disappear. It's not like you're going to— and then you're going to be like, oh, well, I'm just not good with money, so why even bother trying? So then you just go back into the, oh, well, it's not— I know it, but I can't do it. It doesn't work, or this doesn't work for me. And I think we tend to overcomplicate things a bit as well, wanting that sort of silver bullet that will actually fix it. When in fact, we just need to get clear on what it is we want money for and to get the visibility over the money and then have a plan for it, which is what I have. It's the money pie, which is the connector between the cash flow and the wealth. That's what to me is that connector. It goes sort of through the money pie. The money pie helps you kind of like filter things by priority, but you've got to be clear on what those priorities are and then it can be dispersed. So then you don't actually have to manage it at a budget, like line by line item level. You can manage it at the money pie level, and then you can make sure everything has a purpose. And then you start to find, you find even more money than you were looking for in the first place, but you're like, it's all good. I know what to do with it. I have my money pie. And then when things change, you can adjust the pie. You don't have to adjust all your spending. You don't have to redo any of your investments. You just have to adjust the money pie. And then you might need to tweak some automations here and there to keep it running the way you want it to run. But it's that, you know, what if kind of scenario then, which is, well, what if I actually fix this problem? Like, you know, I'm looking at my, my history and I can see that I'm learning and growing and I'm becoming wiser. I'm turning my knowing into doing. But what if? What's the next step? You know, what do I do next? And then the overarching part about all of that is how does your body, how does your nervous system feel? About all this? We're sort of that regulation that we— or dysregulation that a lot of us are in when it comes to money. Is that the steady state? Is that— is that your base? Like, that where you want to be? How would your body even know what it feels like to feel less stressed about money? Like, just imagine that for a moment, because that in and of itself is telling, because your body won't even know what it feels like. Even if you get there, it'll probably shift you back into stress, you know, some something will break or some extra bill will come, or there'll be some mini disaster that happens to send you back into stress because that's where your nervous system feels safe. It knows that because you need to grow it incrementally. So building the foundations of that clarity and sitting in it, like having that, you know, your mind doesn't know the difference between reality and fiction. If you can sit in the feeling of like, go to, I go to a luxurious resort and just sit there in the, in the lobby. You don't even need to stay there and spend the money. You just sit in the lobby like you belong and go, yeah, isn't this lovely? I really like this. You're not constantly telling yourself, oh, I couldn't afford to stay here. You just feel like, wow, just acknowledge the beauty, acknowledge the serenity, whatever it is, and just surround yourself with that energy as well so that you can actually start to feel it and your nervous system gets like a little taste of like, oh, this is pretty all right. I don't know what I've been stressing about. Okay. You want to do that? Cool. We'll take the lock and chain off and off you go. Like, go, go at it. But still needs to be incremental. Otherwise our habits and our brains will still start to kind of resist things if we go too much the other way too quickly. And to be honest, financially, most things are incremental anyway. So you probably wouldn't be able to go from, from where you are now to being able to stay at the 5-star resort every weekend. Anyhow, just— and you probably wouldn't want to because I wouldn't be special anymore either. So it's understanding all of the pillars to this. First of all, what is wisdom to you? And what do you know that you're not actually doing something about? What's your what next, what if, what then kind of scenarios? What do you know, that clarity of what to do next? And if not, Go back to the knowledge that you have because you might already have it and you just haven't realized it. And you're, you just need to kind of look at the things that you've already, because our intuition and, and to be honest, a lot of the knowledge we have is just inside us. We've just not taken the time to dig it out in a way that's linked in this way. Or we just haven't really believed that we're capable of achieving it. So we've just, we've shoved it further down. And then finally, what does, how does your nervous system feel about money at the moment? Do you want to be stuck in stress forever? And I'm pretty sure the answer is going to be no. So what do you need to do in order to start to train your nervous system to not be quite so stressed? Having conversations about money is a really good one. Actually seeing your numbers, like ignorance or avoidance, I should say, rather than ignorance, probably a bit too hard, but avoidance. And just like the lack of knowledge on that particular, like not knowing your numbers, is actually causing more stress. That avoidance is making it worse because you don't know the size of the issue. It might not even be a problem. It might just be, oh, okay. That's not as bad as I thought. Well, all right. So, and then what do I need to do here? And it's, it's just, it can be quite simple. But not necessarily easy to start with. But at least getting that visibility, you know what you're dealing with. You know also where that you're aiming towards too, rather than having that like arbitrary, oh yeah, I read in a magazine that I need to retire with $2 million. Okay, well, you might or you might not. It depends when you're retiring, what kind of lifestyle you want, what you've got in there now, what you're earning. Like there's, there's quite a few variables to that. And you can plan once you know if it is $2 million, okay, well then you need to figure out how to make that happen. But it might be $1.5, might be $1 million. Like, it depends where, where you are in life right now. And you know, if you've got your house paid off or you know, what's, what else is going on. So don't just read an article and go, oh, they said I need this. And I, now I'm stressed because I don't think I'm anywhere near there. Well, A, you may not even know how close you are, far away you are, and B, it might not even be the right number. So that's, that's a little bit more clarity to help. And help just imagining also, like, do a bit of a meditation on what would feel like in your body right now if money just felt comfortable. Like, just take a deep breath, sit in it, and go oh yeah, this feels good. I like how this feels. And allow that feeling to stay with you as long and as often as possible. So that your body gets used to having money from at a nervous system level, and then you can start to make that an actual reality rather than sort of just a an imagined reality. So that's, that's what I want to talk about today, and I know it's a little, a little bit rambly, but hopefully some of that resonates and that you can take something away from it. But ultimately You have knowledge that you're not putting into action. Start to do that, work on the nervous system, and gain some clarity. If you can do those, then you are well on your way to getting further than you currently are and further than you could probably imagine at this point as well, because you need your imagination to work harder for you at this point. So with that, I will leave you to ponder. And let me know if you have any questions or if anything needs to be a bit clearer, and I can always clarify and do another episode. Or if there's any specific technical things or any, you know, any specific areas of money and life that you would like to hear about, I can bring various experts on because I love asking people questions and I get to learn in the process as well. So have a lovely week and I'll catch you next episode.
