A hearty welcome to “Grandma’s Wealth Wisdom” with your neighborly hosts, Brandon and Amanda Neely. This is the only podcast that helps you take charge of your cash flow and leverage your assets, simply and sustainably, the way Grandma used to.
Amanda: Hi, I’m Amanda, and welcome to our Grandma's Wealth Wisdom, where we help you break through to a smart, stable financial future, with the tried and true wisdom Grandma used.
Brandon: And I’m Brandon, and this is Episode 91 titled, “Defining Your Financial Vision.”
Amanda: Word of warning here. We're a little nerdy when it comes to vision, mission, values and goals. We've sat through classes, read books, spent plenty of time writing and rewriting these types of things for ourselves personally and for our businesses, which are often intertwined. The vision personally and the business are one in the same often. [01:00.0]
Brandon: Yeah, to be honest, if we never have to do another ideal client avatar again or write all that stuff out, I’d be fine with it. But I do have to say that this episode will apply really well if you're defining a personal financial vision or a business financial vision, both of them. We're going to use examples for both here today.
Amanda: And I would add to that an important note. We don't want to regurgitate what you can find on Google or might have read in a book. Instead, we want to simplify and make this part of our lives. Having a vision, we want to make that easier and more accessible for you. Plus, we're going to be adding our own spin from our experience as we've been experimenting with what this looks like for us, and so this is going to come from our personal experiences, as in what we've found actually works.
Brandon: Yeah, as we've achieved or pursued our vision and seen it successfully happen. [01:59.5]
The very first thing we have to get clear from the beginning is that financial visions are important, but they are not independent. By “important”, we mean this: if you don't have a plan for your money, someone will. Someone does. I mean, seriously, watch TV for any length of time and you know there's a plan for your money. We believe a financial vision is critical to taking charge of your finances.
When you have a financial vision, it acts like a filter that every financial decision can run through. Does investing in this stock help me achieve my financial vision? Will making this purchase get me closer to my financial goals? Financial visions are important. [02:51.8]
On the flip side, financial visions are not independent. The vision for your money is really part and parcel with the vision for your life. If you want to have a successful business, your financial vision will include that business. Of course, right? If you want to travel the world, your financial vision will include money for travel expenses. In our humble and accurate opinion, we say let the life goals and dreams guide the money, not vice versa.
Amanda: We're going to talk about financial vision in terms that relate to business, financial vision and personal financial vision, but also in much larger terms of overall life vision. You can take whatever you find most valuable from what we share and apply it to your life vision or to your money visions, personally, or within your business, whatever area you want to focus on now. Take what we share and apply it there. [03:55.6]
Brandon: Now that we've covered that financial visions are important but not independent, the biggest problem with visions, missions, values and goals is that too many people are so much into the day-to-day of things that they never carve aside even a little bit of time to look at the bigger picture. They either never craft a vision or they let it sit on a shelf or in a computer file without revisiting or refining it. They did that little homework thing and they never go back to it.
Amanda: Now, don't get us wrong. Running your businesses is good. Living your life is good. We're not saying to stop that. You actually can't stop living your life. Please don't. The problem is getting stuck in the minutia and not coming back to your vision on a regular basis.
Think about it this way. Let's say you work really hard. You're the hardest worker. You take massive action, that whole 10X thing from Grant Cardone. But if you don't have a vision or you aren't revisiting and refining that vision, all your hard work could be in the wrong direction. It would be like starting to dig a hole. You keep digging and digging, but if you're in the wrong spot, it's all for nothing. [05:11.5]
Brandon: I've seen a lot of people doing that.
Amanda: Yeah. No one starts digging without having a vision for why they are digging, and if you don't look around while you're digging, things could change and you could end up continuing to dig when it doesn't make any sense. You could be doing massive action that's totally inappropriate.
Brandon: I mean, there are a lot of diggers out there with pointless holes. On the other hand, there's a bunch of people with golden shovels and detailed surveys of the land who don't even break ground, if we're going to go with that a little analogy there. They have a vision. They've worked and reworked their business plans, but they never get going.
Amanda: I think this is your biggest pet peeve, Brandon.
Brandon: Definitely. When it comes to financial visions, we don't think you can't just make a vision board with a Porsche on it and expect a Porsche to magically land in your lap. Some people, I swear, that's what they think is going to happen. [06:05.2]
Knowing what you want and trusting in the law of attraction is good. Those are fine, but in our experience it's both, and you have to have both a vision and you have to have hard work, which is a hard thing to say, because, God forbid, we have to work for our goals.
Amanda: One more way to think about this that might be helpful, especially if you're offended by Brandon right now. It’s that you might be familiar with the 80-20 rule where 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts. When people don't spend enough time or time at all on their vision, they get stuck on that 80% that doesn't matter, instead of finding and focusing on the 20% that drives 80% of their results. That 20% is the part that aligns with your vision. You’ve got to be spending time in your vision to find it. [07:00.0]
On the other hand, people who have a vision, but no action, they don't see any results because they're not even doing the 20% that gets them the 80% of results. Actually, that 20% is action. You're doing that 20%. So, 80-20 might exist for them in theory, but it's more like 95-5. If they're doing 5% of the action, they're not even seeing the results of the 20%.
Brandon: We want to remind you that even carving a little bit of time to remember your “why”, as Simon Sinek calls it, can and often does open up creativity, drive and passion for the day-to-day of the checklists and hard works and all that stuff, and trying out your vision in the steps to get there reveal what really works and doesn't work. You actually get more creative insights when you're taking action towards the vision. It's all about making sure you're doing both the visioning and the work towards the vision. [08:06.3]
Amanda: Think about it this way with your money. If you focus solely on the monthly income and expenses or the quarter-to-quarter investment returns, you could be totally heading in the wrong direction and never realize it. If you focus solely on the long-term vision, though, you might miss out on the opportunities within the monthly or the quarter, or even the day-to-day, to help reach that vision, but also live life more fully in the meantime.
Brandon: If you're with us so far, you would agree that finding your vision, including financial vision, is important. There's still the problem of how. Let's say all you have is two hours that you can carve out for this kind of thing. What's the best use of that time? How do you do it?
Amanda: Okay, so you've got two hours and we've got two things to say about how to use these two hours. The first thing we want to talk about is how really the “how”, for you, depends on your strengths. [09:05.3]
What we've found is that there are often two ways that people come toward their vision and goal-setting and that kind of thing. Some people see the short-term next steps really easily. That's their strength. They can see what's the next step to take, but the long-term feels like it's often a dense fog, whereas others find that the long-term vision is found more readily. That's their strength. They can see the long-term, but it's hard to break it down and to know which steps to take now to get there. They're like Indiana Jones at that ledge, can see what's across the chasm, but they can't see the steps to get there and they feel like they're stepping out into a void if they do try to move forward.
Brandon: Now, some people might have not seen that Indiana Jones thing, the movie. Basically, there was no ledge.
Amanda: There were no steps. You couldn't see the steps until they took an action.
Brandon: Yeah, he had to trust that it was there. For the people who find short-term easier and the long-term foggy, you might start with reviewing the last week or month, and asking yourself what you want to be different in the next week or month. [10:13.0]
From there, you can follow the trajectory. If I’m able to make that change, what else would I want to see? Keep going from where you are now until you find yourself in the land of the seemingly impossible, and that’s your vision.
Grandma always said, “Eat your vegetables. Look both ways before crossing the road, and never risk your financial future on elements of the market you can’t control.” That Grandma, always good for some tried-and-true advice, and although some of her wisdom seems to have skipped a generation, you don't have to be left behind.
Download “Grandma's Top Tips for an Independent Financial Future” absolutely free, when you visit Grandma’sWealthWisdom.com. Don't wait. Get Grandma's best tips today.
Amanda: I like this, Brandon. I could totally see someone thinking, financially speaking, looking back over their last month, reviewing the last bank statement or credit card statement or whatever, and asking, What do I want to be different? And if that change happens, what other change would I want to see? And if that change happened, what's the next change, and the next change, right? And keep going until they're envisioning this financial reality that seems totally impossible, and I would say, now they've got their financial vision, and then I would say, write it down in however many words it takes and revisit it regularly.
Brandon: Not for the Indiana Jones types of people who find the long-term easier, but the next steps difficult to find. You don't need to be like Indiana Jones and step out blindly and thrust into that chasm. Instead, you can take that long-term vision and break it down. [11:57.0]
If you know where you want to be in 30 years, ask, What do I have to do in the next five years to get there? Then ask, What needs to happen in the next year to reach the five-year goal? Then what's required this month to make that one year a reality? Then how about this week? Then, of course, what about today? Then ask yourself, What are you doing right now?
This breakdown is done well in The ONE Thing by Gary Keller. It's a really good book. We've listened to it on Audible multiple times and I highly recommend it.
Amanda: Yeah, and in particular, Gary shares a focusing question and that book that we’ll let you go, find for yourself. Now, let's take a classic example, though, of taking this idea and bringing it to the financial realm. Let's say someone wants to be a millionaire, which, with inflation, 3 million is the new million, but let's stick with 1 million for this example.
Brandon: I’m going to be a three-millionaire. [12:56.0]
Amanda: Keep the math simple. Let's say your long-term vision is to have a million dollars of net worth and you think you can get there in 20 years. Mathematically, that means that, in five years, you're going to aim for 250,000. Over the next year, you might focus on 50,000, right? Two hundred and fifty divided by five. In order to hit that, you might try to increase your net worth by $4,167 per month, 50,000 divided by 12, and then if this month has 30 days, that's $139 per day.
Then you might ask, What do I need to do right now to make an additional $139 today? You might see, pick up that phone, call that new lead, close that deal with someone who is at the finish line, cut an expense you don't really need. Thinking in terms of $139 is a lot easier than jumping to 1 million, but it's all connected to that financial vision.
Brandon: The other thing we really want to say about finding your financial vision, if all you have is two hours, is this. It works best with others. [14:03.3]
Amanda and I are very fortunate to have each other to process with and our different strengths help us make the most of the time we spend on vision, mission and goal setting, and other things, right? I mean, it really helps having that team. But not everyone has that. I mean, you might be a solo entrepreneur, you have a team, but you are the only one in the C-suite role. If you do have a spouse or partner, or other leader in business, these types of conversations also don't come very easily. Trust me, I know.
Amanda: Yeah. Wouldn't it be awesome, though, Brandon, if there was, say, a framework or a checklist of sorts that simplifies things, gives some outside perspective, helps walk through those conversations, and allows you to have a common starting point when you're having those kinds of conversations with others? [15:01.8]
Brandon: That would be, Amanda. It sounds like something amazing. Anyway, we can ask the same questions. That's why we started developing this methodology to guide conversations about money, and again, this is part of seeing the pain points and seeing what is happening with others. The first step in the methodology is all about vision and goals, right? That's, again, a really good step to have.
Amanda: Yeah, so to go along with this simplifying methodology and the checklist that we're developing, we're also getting people together as a support system for one another. It's in the beta-test stages right now, which means you can be an early adopter. You can also get the most value for the least expense.
If you're getting excited about this, you can find out more at www.CFOHours.com, and when you visit www.CFOHours.com, you'll find a checklist to download and you can use it by yourself. You can use it with significant others and with partners. [16:05.4]
Then you'll also get an invitation to join with a community of business leaders who are scaling from six figures to seven figures and beyond, and they're currently performing the CFO role for themselves until they're ready to hire a CFO. Long story short, if you're ready to break through the chaos of juggling all the balls of cash flow and building assets, then you're ready for what we're calling our Still Method and Still Checklist, and those are going to help you to quiet your mind, find stillness, and see the vision for your financial future.
Brandon: Now, remember, it's not just about vision. You need action. That's why this is just the first part of the methodology. Remember we don't want to just do massive action in the wrong direction. We want to do massive action in the right direction and …
Amanda: Appropriate massive action. [17:00.0]
Brandon: Appropriate massive action. There you go. We want to do that. Be sure to check out www.CFOHours.com for more about developing a financial vision and then putting it into action, so you're doing the right actions to help fulfill that vision you have.
Amanda: There you have it, defining your financial vision, why it's important and not independent of your life vision. Two different ways to find that financial vision and see how you might move toward it and then a community to do this type of work with together. Be sure that before you stop listening, we're about to wrap up here, go visit www.CFOHours.com. Click the link in the show notes and find out more. Get that checklist. Find some stillness amidst the chaos.
Brandon: Next episode, we're going to take this idea of having a financial vision and ask the age-old question. What if I hate budgeting? That is the age-old question, I guess. [18:05.0]
Amanda: And that’s a question you like, too, Brandon. You would ask that.
Brandon: Yeah, I mean, I am old. A vision is all well and good, but do you have to track your income and expenses and stick to a budget if you want to reach that vision, particularly in a business? Does a business have to follow a budget? Hit that subscribe button, so you don't miss Grandma's hot take on the budgeting question.
Amanda: Until next time, keep building your wealth simply and sustainably, so you can break through to a smart, stable financial future.
The topics presented in this podcast are for general information only and not for the purposes of providing legal, accounting or investment advice. On such matters, please consult a professional who knows your specific situation.
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