Delayed Gratification

Later today, I’ll be delivering the keynote address at a Future Business Leaders of America conference. It will be comprised of 150-300 high school students interested in pursuing business careers. I’ll be talking about three myths I believed when I was younger, and why overcoming them can be transformational for their journey.

One topic I’ll bring up is delayed gratification. As humans, especially as young adult humans, we want what we want…..and we want it now. We also live in a culture that is tailored to give us the instant gratification we desire. Unfortunately, the important things in life rarely provide instant gratification. It’s a slow burn of patience, discipline, persistence, and maybe a bit more patience.

As I reflect back on some of my successes, it dawned on me just how patient I was (even if it didn’t feel like it at the time):

• I offered financial coaching as a free ministry for more than six years before someone paid me to do it. Those years allowed me the opportunity to serve people well, learn my craft, carve out my approach, and discern my desired client base.

• I gave 95 talks before someone paid me to speak. I suspect the first 30+ were terrible! Every repetition allowed me to get comfortable on the stage, try new techniques, and find my voice.

• We’ve produced nearly 200 podcast episodes and haven’t made a single penny in revenue. That’s more than 60 hours of free content, available to the world. Maybe someday we’ll decide to create an income from the podcast, but until then our goal is to find our audience, add a ton of value to people’s lives, and start to bend the culture when it comes to work and money.

Patience isn’t easy, but it does get easier if we remember our why. My why is to make the deepest and broadest impact possible over the next 40 years. When I remind myself of this, it’s far easier to remain patient and keep my eyes focused on what truly matters (and what doesn’t).

Old Habits Die Hard

“I’m sorry, but old habits die hard.” These were frustrated words proclaimed by a client during a recent coaching meeting. This quote was thrown out during a somewhat tense conversation about a few of his questionable decisions and repeat offenses. I wasn’t asking him to perform brain surgery….these were simple adjustments in behavior.

Though my perspective of these changes being “simple” is correct, so too are his words. Old habits do indeed die hard. We can’t repeat the same behaviors and processes for decades then suddenly make a 180-degree shift overnight. That’s now how human behavior works. It took years to establish these harmful behaviors, so it’s going to take several months (at a minimum) to re-wire them into healthy behaviors.

I don’t say all this to demean my friend. In fact, he’s in the perfect spot. He has a keen self-awareness of his behavioral pitfalls, he’s taking steps to create new structure around it, he’s persistent, he knows his “why”, and he’s giving himself grace along the way. This is all we can ask for. I know he’s going to win. Why? Because he’s playing the long game. Get a little better each month, and do it for the right reasons. He’s definitely going to fail along the way. After all, old habits die hard. But this is more about the journey than the destination.

If you’re in your 30s, 40s, or 50s (or older), it’s never too late. It’s going to take some time and intentionality, but you, too, can re-wire these behaviors to create a healthy relationship with money. If you’re in your 20s, you probably haven’t had a chance yet to fall deeply entrenched into bad financial behaviors. What an opportunity for you! This is the beauty of getting this money stuff right when you’re young. It’s so much easier to create healthy habits and behaviors when you’re fresh in the adulting game, preventing you from having to dig out and re-wire further down the road when it’s significantly harder to do so.

What’s one financial habit you can start/stop during this season of life? Pick one thing and try to get a little better each day/week/month.

** If you want to learn more about creating healthy habits around money, check out my recent appearance on the Happily Every Habits podcast and connect with host Jason Harwood’s content. This guy is awesome and he knows his stuff!

The Why Behind the Why Behind the Why

When I’m having a conversation with people, especially in a coaching setting, I repeatedly ask the question, “why?” I sound like my 6-year-olds, I know. I find that when “why?” is asked, we continually get closer to the truth.

I was recently meeting with a client who expressed an interest in buying a new house. They already live in a very nice house, in a very nice part of town, in a very solid school district. This intrigued me, so I started the process of unearthing the truth:

“Why?”…..”We need something bigger to comfortably fit our family.” They already have a 4-bedroom house and they are pregnant with their second child. I knew we weren’t deep enough yet.

“Why?”…..”We also want to be in a safer neighborhood.” They already live in a notoriously safe neighborhood in a notoriously safe town. We still weren’t there.

“Why?”…..”We’ll enjoy living in the new house more than our current house.” Ok, now we’re getting somewhere. We still needed to go deeper.

“Why?” This is the part where I was expecting them to go down the material side of things. After all, that pool and theater room were indeed pretty sweet!!! “Because we earned it.” Oh, now we’re cooking!

With the fourth “why?”, we finally broke through and the truth was approaching. After a few minutes, it was revealed that the husband’s father had always equated one’s success with their house. People who had bigger, nicer houses were obviously more successful. Therefore, buying a better house would be an external symbol of how successful they had become. That was their real “why.”

My role here wasn’t to criticize their prospective decision to buy this house, but rather for them to understand their true motives and be honest about it…..then make the best decision for their family. This was a profound discussion for them and provided an opportunity for self-reflection and introspection.

They eventually decided to purchase a different house, but armed with new insights about why they were really doing it, they ended up purchasing a different house. I think they won. We always win when we understand the why behind the why behind the why.