Know Your Money with Bronwyn Waner and Craig Finch
Know Your Money with Bronwyn Waner and Craig Finch
107. Gratitude and Growth in Personal Development
Unlock the secrets to mastering your mindset and commitment to pave a path to personal and financial triumph! Join us in this insightful episode of Know Your Money, as we promise to transform your approach to promises and goals with the expert guidance of Mike Williams. Together, we tackle the intricate dance between mindset and habit formation, unveiling strategies that reprogram your thinking for consistent success. Discover the nuances of emotional investment and accountability, and learn how these elements can turn mere resolutions into lifelong habits.
We also lay bare the art of promise-keeping, diving into the core motivations that drive our personal goals and New Year’s resolutions. Through evocative visualization and emotional connections, we demonstrate the value of trust as a currency in relationships, both personal and professional. Listen as we share heartfelt gratitude for Mark's incredible insights into personal and financial growth, and underscore the importance of maintaining integrity in your commitments. Don't miss our call to action—subscribe to our podcast for more enlightening discussions and check out our website for additional resources tailored to fuel your journey toward transformation.
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Welcome to Know your Money, where we will explore our relationship with money and how the psychology of it impacts our financial decisions, as everyone thinks about money differently. In our podcast, we'll be presenting a variety of financial topics in an easy to understand way, which we hope will assist you with managing your money.
Speaker 2:Hi, I'm Craig Finch, co-owner of Growth Financial Planning, an independent financial planning practice, and I've been a financial planner since 1986.
Speaker 1:Hi everybody. I'm Brandon Wehner, co -owner of Growth Financial Planning. I'm a certified financial planner and our philosophy at our company is to grow yourself to grow your wealth.
Speaker 3:Hi everyone. My name is Warren Grimsley. I'm a director at Rogue Media and help facilitate this wonderful podcast. My main goal here is to try and understand what these two lovely people are saying so that we can all understand. Mike Williams, absolutely wonderful to have you back, Good to be back. I believe you have some information about 2025 we all need to know.
Speaker 4:Definitely so. For me, the big issue about 2025 is it's a new year, but what about a new you? Because the new year is going to mean nothing if there's no new you. So, again, I talk a lot about the emotional approach to life rather than the physical. So I'm going to get a diary and I'm going to plan and I'm going to do my to-do lists and all these sort of physical things that I'm going to do, which are important as well. They are, but they've been driven by your attitude. You know, if you have the right mindset, then you will plan your day, you will prioritize your day, you will execute your day. If you have the right mindset, then you will plan your day, you will prioritize your day, you will execute your day. But if you don't have the mindset, you might plan your day, but that's it. You get home that night and you look at your diary and you haven't touched anything that you wrote about.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 4:So it's not just physically writing this stuff, it's having an emotional investment to what you wrote, an emotional investment to go in a gym, to following your eating plan, to spending quality time with your son. Yesterday I was talking to a guy and he just recently had a daughter, his wife had a daughter and he's got a son who's two years of age. So yesterday I was saying to him how old will your son be in five years' time? And he said well, he'll be seven. And I said what does your relationship look like with him when he's seven? And he kind of couldn't really answer it. But what I said to him, what you do in the next seven days, will determine that relationship when he's seven.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 4:So if you're not focused on what you need to do in the next seven days, then that relationship isn't going to be what you would like it to be.
Speaker 1:We had an event previously it was actually quite funny enough called Flourish in 2025., and one of the speakers spoke and what she said was what promise are you making to yourself? So if you're saying you're going to go to gym next week, do you go to gym or do you break that promise? Do you go to gym or do you break that promise? And if you are breaking that promise with yourself, how are you going to keep your promises with other people, how do you keep your word with everybody else, if you can't even keep your word to yourself? So I think to your point, mark, you know the new you. What? What words do you want to keep true to yourself and for yourself?
Speaker 4:But what we've always got to remember, because people will say to me things like it's a done deal, I've made the decision, I'm going to gym, that means nothing, it's a done deal. People are very good in making promises, using words to say their commitments, but they don't understand how to rewire their brain so that those commitments aren't just a statement. It now becomes a way of life.
Speaker 2:Like Bronwyn says a promise to yourself and you make sure you don't break that promise.
Speaker 1:What do you?
Speaker 4:think is the biggest tool. A promise to yourself is just words. Again, it's the same as the words to your wife or your words to your children or your words to your client. It's deeper than that. We now have to invest time, day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year, to rewire and reprogram our thinking. It's not just saying the words, because even in relationships, we want our spouses and even our children to base their love for us on our intentions. But your wife is not interested in your intentions.
Speaker 1:She's interested in what you deliver. So what do you say is the best tool a person can use to change that?
Speaker 3:For me what I.
Speaker 1:That's a good question.
Speaker 3:Okay for me. What I do is I add a level of consequence to myself. So I try and make sure that I'm not a deal welcher is what I call it, and my wife knows this about me. If we say to somebody we're going to go and do this, we will do it, Come heaven or hell, whatever, we will do it because we've made a commitment. And I see one of the most serious infractions for me is breaking a commitment to anybody or myself. So if I say I'm going to do something, I'll do it, and so there has to be consequence to it as well. So if you say to yourself right, I'm going to go to the gym, blah, blah, blah, blah blah, three times a week from the beginning of the year, and that's my new thing Well, if you break that, you have to have a consequence, because otherwise your word means nothing, even to yourself. The word has to mean something.
Speaker 4:And Warren, I love what you're saying. However, my experience with people is that still is not enough.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 4:The consequences, you know, or whatever it might be, I'm going to live up to consequences. You know, my promise to my be, I'm going to live up to consequences. You know, I promised to my wife that I'm going to spend quality time with the kids, or whatever it is, and maybe there are consequences that I or we mutually agree on consequences. You know, no pudding for you, you don't need your broccoli or whatever. Okay, there are consequences. Those are very short-lived as well. How do you?
Speaker 4:change it, we're talking about reinventing ourselves, rewiring ourselves. That requires effort. It's not lip service, because even consequences can be lip service. So I want to read something to you that I think might illustrate it a little bit deeper. We're talking about 2025 and I read this out this morning when you were in the session what do you want?
Speaker 4:A lot of people don't care about what they want, and I have proof of that. Look at your parents. Now. A lot of people get upset with me sometimes because they think I'm putting their parents down. It's not about that. You know. I think I was a brilliant father. When I look at the money that I spent to send my son overseas five times to put Natalie through Red Hill, the most expensive private school in Gauteng. I look at the other kids who went to Waldorf, a school that I would have loved to have gone to. I spend a lot of money on my kids, but I also spend a lot of time quality time with them, doing different things with them. But I'm not a perfect father. There are a lot of times that I drop the ball. So what I was reading out this morning was what do you want? A lot of people don't care about what they want, they don't. This is the key statement here. They don't sit down and think it through. That's why they get to 60, 70, whatever it is. They don't have the money, they don't have the health. One of the fastest growing industries currently is adult nappies. 60, 70, whatever it is, they don't have the money, they don't have the health. One of the fastest growing industries currently is adult nappies yeah, especially in Japan, and that's not a good indication. Why is that the fastest growing industry? It's dreadful. So we get to 60, 70, and we don't't have the health. We don't have the wealth.
Speaker 4:I had a mother-in-law who lived with us. We bought a house with a cottage just for her. We had to take care of her Because she didn't do these things. They don't sit down and think it through. We are writing our own life story every day. When we come back to the end of our lives and look back, what do we want to say about what we've done? So what do you want is a very powerful question. We don't answer it. New Year's Eve, I promise you, I'm going to go to gym. Honey, she's concerned that you put on weight or whatever it is, and the kids are complaining that you don't spend time with them, or whatever the case might be. Those New Year's resolutions are such bullshit.
Speaker 3:When I was saying consequence, I didn't mean no pudding if you don't go to gym. So I talk of consequence, as I describe it like this play the movie out. Okay, so I want to lose weight. Let's just do fitness for this example. Right, I want to lose weight, so I'm going to eat healthier in this new year and I'm going to go to gym. Yeah, okay. So that day comes where I don't feel like going to the gym. You have to play the movie in your head. We know where this goes. This is a slippery slope. You're not going to go today, and then you're going to miss next week and then, before you know it, you're not going at all anymore. So your goal of being healthier is in jeopardy if you don't do this now. That's the consequence.
Speaker 1:So what I think Mark is trying to say here, though, is what do you want? So when we started the fitness one, it was I want to go to gym three times a week.
Speaker 3:But why do you want it?
Speaker 1:But then it went to because I want to lose weight. But what Mike's saying is try to get to the core of that, the thoughts and the emotion. Why do you want to lose weight? What is that for? Okay, so you want to be healthy. What do you want to be healthy for? So I think, what? He's trying to say is get to the absolute root of what it is that you want.
Speaker 1:Because if you can do that, you're not going to skip that gym. Because if you do it because you want to lose weight, you're going to go. Oh it's fine, I don't mind if I actually have a few pounds on. But if you're doing it because you want to live to 70, to be healthy and not be in the nappies and be with your child, and you're thinking about the root of what it is.
Speaker 3:You want to be a great grandparent.
Speaker 4:one day You're going to get yourself to the gym and I love what you're saying, bronwyn, because the exercise that we go through is you write the goal. You want to follow your eating plan whatever you already know what that is. You've written it out. You want to go to gym three times a week, or whatever it is. The next question we ask is why do you want it? In other words, as you were saying, is to find that emotional connection to why you want it so.
Speaker 4:Well, I want to make money, or I want to be able to provide a better lifestyle for my family. Describe that lifestyle. What does that look like? A better lifestyle for your family? Well, I'd like them to go to better schools. Which schools? Which schools? Don't tell me you want them to go to better schools. Do you have a school in mind? Yeah, get specific about it. Start to see, smell, taste and touch your kids being at Waldorf or Red Hill or at university or whatever it is. And then the holiday. Well, I want to be able to take them on more holidays. Which is the first holiday you're going to take them to?
Speaker 4:I don't know. You know there's a lot of places I could take them to. No, be specific, and what you're saying was really good on a lot of levels, is when you make a commitment, you make a promise, you don't break those promises. A lot of people do because they don't understand how important that promise is. You know the movie Liar Liar with Jim Carrey what a brilliant movie, you know, very funny but also very confronting. In that am I one of those fathers who's always making promises and making promises and never keeps them? But I think when you build your character through the work of whatever the tools that you're going to be using, you find you get to a point where your word is incredibly important. You know there's that thing about the integrity account. Yeah, incredibly important.
Speaker 1:You know.
Speaker 4:There's that thing about the integrity account, yeah, which is, when you keep your promises to people, you make a deposit. What is that currency? What is that deposit you're making? Into that person's account? What is the currency?
Speaker 2:Integrity, your honor, your word, your people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like how much is that?
Speaker 3:It's what they value, your word as it's trust.
Speaker 4:Yeah, trust, yeah. Trust is the currency. So when I do what I say I will do, I'm making a deposit into your account. The moment I break my promise, I'm taking a withdrawal. Yeah, and that's how divorces happen. Is that account? That marriage goes into bankruptcy and that's when your wife.
Speaker 3:That's a wonderful way of saying it. That's a really, really good way of saying it.
Speaker 4:You know divorce papers because yeah, yeah, you know, and that's how you get fired. There's so many withdrawals in your job that eventually the owner of the business says to you you know hasta la vista. That eventually the owner of the business says to you you know hasta la vista, and it's the end. And we don't realize. And trust is hard to build.
Speaker 1:I think that all comes to understanding the promises to yourself first.
Speaker 4:Well, that's the whole point is placing value on yourself. If you place a small value on yourself when your value is that high, it's not so much that I want to keep my promises to you. It is a promise to you but it's more a promise to myself. I remember one morning at 3 am, waking up and realizing that I hadn't sent an email that I had promised somebody. Do you know that I could not lie there and say well, you know, I can get up at three, go and send this email. He's not going to read it, so let me rather wait till seven. I couldn't allow myself to lie there knowing, so I got up at three and I sent the email.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Why it was? Because it was about me. It wasn't about you receiving the email. It's not what you're going to think of me, it's what I think of myself. I cannot lie here till 6 am and then send you the email, and that's the kind of integrity that we want to get to, which is not easy to get to. Yeah, you know, with your children, with your, you know customers.
Speaker 3:So often. It's funny when I, when I had the woodworking business going full-on, my assistant, joseph, would often say to me why are you taking so much time on that part? No one will ever see it. And I said it's not about that, joseph, our notes there yeah, and that's the thing, know.
Speaker 4:They say your true character is reflected when nobody's watching, correct?
Speaker 1:So that's beautiful. So I think, mark, what you're kind of saying here for 2025 is go and think what you do want you know that gym three times a week or whatever those things are but then really sit with those and get into it and the root of it, and that will help people to make their 2025 a success. Is that right? Very good?
Speaker 2:Thanks.
Speaker 4:Mark, awesome, you're wonderful. Thank you, fabulous.
Speaker 1:I hope that helped.
Speaker 3:You're washing For sure. Thanks, mark, as always. Thank you very much, thank you.
Speaker 2:Bye. Thank you for listening. If you have enjoyed this podcast, would like to subscribe, please visit our website, wwwgrowthfpcoza. The information we have provided in this podcast is our personal opinion. For more detailed information, please discuss your financial situation with a financial planner.