Are you sick and tired of hearing the same old conventional financial advice? We feel you. We're fed up with those same old truisms that fall flat when you get into the unique opportunities and challenges of specific situations. This show is all about bringing you historic wisdom around wealth-building with practical insights on how to apply it to your journey. When conventional financial thinking doesn't get you where you want to go, you need wealth wisdom. Let's master wealth-building together.
(00:04): What's more difficult to decide what's for dinner or how to best save for your future. Both are overwhelming because there are just too many options. Chinese or pizza, 401k or Roth or annuity or life insurance. What life insurance, you can't save for your are there or can you, hi, I'm Amanda Neely and welcome to the wealth wisdom, financial podcast, episode 105 financial decisions on how to make them with too many options. And I'm Brandon even saying the word overwhelm can trigger some overwhelming feelings. Let's take a second to calm Anden. So, as you're thinking about all this overwhelming stuff, I want you to just let it go, breathe in and breathe out, breathe in again and breathe out. Now we did our yoga here. Now Amanda's the yoga person. I need to do these breathing exercises. My more often anyway, cuz it is overwhelming. It probably doesn't surprise you. If we tell you there are over 450 different financial products out there. As of right now, there might be even be more every five minutes. Who knows? I don't know if anyone knows the exact number, plus there as many ways to use those products. As there are people in the world it's totally overwhelming and keeps too many people stuck today. We want to empower you to move forward with whatever financial decision is causing you to feel overwhelmed with all the options you could explore. So today the big question as this, what if you didn't have to choose, but you also didn't have to let someone else choose for you.
(01:53): That's a really great question. Yeah. Are you sick and tired of hearing the same old financial advice? We feel you we're fed up with the same old truisms that fall flat. When you get to the unique opportunities and challenges of specific situations. This show is all about bringing you historic wisdom around building wealth, with practical insights on how to apply that to your journey. When conventional financial thinking, doesn't get you where you wanna go. You need wealth wisdom, let's master wealth building together. So first let's talk about the problem a little more. As we recently heard a teacher say, if someone doesn't understand the problem, the solution doesn't matter. So here's a fun fact. The word over choice was first used in 1970, over 50 years ago and a bestselling called future shock written by a husband and wife team Alvin and Heidi Toler. The same book also popularized the term information overload in 1970. If they had over choice and information overload, then what do you think we have now?
(03:03): Yeah. Whenever you told me this book, I was like, oh yeah, it's definitely a new top 10 best seller. I bet you not a new top 10 best seller from 1970 and over choice and information overload are pro problems even worse in the financial industry than perhaps anywhere else. Like, I mean, it is all over the place, right? There's so much overload and information. There are only so many restaurants that you could feasibly get to for dinner tonight, but you could literally move your money all the way around the globe in a nanosecond yet. And I'm gonna say something that might surprise you. I think the problem really isn't the number of options. The problem with feeling overwhelmed and feeling stuck with making a financial decision. The problem is that you don't really know all the options that you you have and it's science's fault there have been. So there's been a lot of research into the economic implications of over choice, but most of that resource has helped businesses offer you the right amount of choices with no more choices or, and no less choices. The more choices that you have tends to increase the time it makes to take time. It requires to make a decision. So notice the next time that you're trying to buy something, just how many choices are offered to you and how much time it then takes to make a decision and of what to buy and what not to buy notice too. If the more profitable businesses offer you or more choices or offer you filters to help you decide which choices to make. Can we all say Theon has used this research?
(04:49): Yeah. and I think you can see even profitable. Some those businesses, you know, the chicken place, right. Or, and another place like that is burgers and more Right. Even ice cream shops know exactly how many flavors to offer you and no more and no less. Yep. Yep. So if you reached out to an investment advisor recently, you might notice that they show you a few options, but not all the options you could do. Even if you use a robo advisor, there's an algorithm, other constraints in effect to help you not feel overwhelmed and invest more money with them. So they wanna make sure that they're doing the right things according to the algorithm to keep you going. Yeah. And we know, you know, this you're clever, right? You know, that there's often at your favorite restaurant, a, you know, secret menu or options that you can get. If you just ask questions and similarly at investment firms or other places where you could put your money, they might not show you all the options unless you know how to ask for them. Or you have certain amount of money that you can put with them, their businesses too, right? They're gonna follow a lot of this stuff to get your money. And so as you're coming into this financial world or you've been into it for a while, you might even be deciding between different investment firms and their offerings. And you know, there's a difference between an investing in savings. So you're also weighing your savings options and it feels like the further you get into by exploring the harder it becomes.
(06:25): So how do you put it all together? How do you make a financial decision when you might not even know all your options and should, you know, all of your options is another question. We've got some practical ideas. The first is something you need absolutely zero financial experience or knowledge to do the other ones build on top of the first and are meant to help you make financial decisions with confidence and clarity. I'm really excited about this for one it's. I maybe it's the Yogi part of me. The first one actually comes from Alvin and Heidi Toffler, the authors of future shock that we shared earlier after they wrote that book and other books, they later became chairman and chairwoman of the United States committee of the United nations fund for women. And then in 2006, they were wrote a book called revolutionary wealth. Now that title caught me. It was like, Ooh, I gotta look at this book a little bit more revolutionary wealth. I haven't read the whole book yet. I'm not really recommending it per se, but we just came across it as we were researching this episode. And I found in their book that they have a very well articulated, a to think about wealth like us. They define wealth as way more than money in their words. Here's what they wrote in the book quote for the mother whose child is starving. A daily handful of rice may be wealth beyond measure and quote. That is such a beautiful thing. I'm gonna just read it again for the mother whose child is starving. A daily handful of rice may be wealth beyond measure.
(08:05): What this way of looking at wealth helps us to see is that wealth is really about desire. A mother's desire to nourish her child means wealth is a handful of, and that is wealth to her. Yet. If wealth is easily misunderstood and hard to, you know, figure out what does wealth look like for me, I feel like desire is much less so understood. In fact, as much as people detest wealth, they actually, as, especially in our, you know, of American, but also around the world, we deest desire much more. So in a lot of ways, it's one of the vestiges of our religious ancestors, whether it's Eastern or Western religions, our grandparents were taught to seek happiness by reducing their desires rather than fulfilling their desires. And then in history, consumerism took over in the 1970s. It became okay to think, to get rich is glorious. You know, that's what people thought, right? Actually I should probably share the, his, where that I came to get rich as glorious. There was actually someone who was high up in the China, like revered person in China that actually said that in the 1970s to get rich as glorious and it became okay. And China to, to almost be okay with not voluntarily staying poor for the good of your community to actually pursue rich, could be glorious and a, and a worthwhile pursuit even in China.
(09:42): Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. And that's a different background or, or dynamic from there today in one year we see as many advertisements trying to get us to buy and want more as our great and parents saw in their entire lifetime. So in, in other words, if we're not careful, our desires are manipulated and controlled by those with enough money to buy ads. And the financial industry is no different and do an ad filter kind of think through that as you're watching or gone through life today, right? Part of why so many people's desire, cryptocurrency or gold or an EF ETF is because they're being to old that they should desire it. So know people are saying, well, I need crypto, or I need a real estate deal, or I need gold, or I need an ETF because other people are, or the ads that they're watching. And, and you'll notice even if you do YouTube and all of that, you'll find things that are similar to your interest and it's all targeted.
(10:57): So our first step to make a financial decision with confidence that you can believe in, despite all the options out there, despite all the ads, trying to tell you what you should do starts with a blank sheet of paper and a clear mind. Wow. That's not a lot of stuff. Blank sheet of paper and a clear mind. So we, you to set aside everything you've heard and anything you've seen, try to ignore all the Shita, all the Kus and all the Wood's out there. And simply put this paper down and ask yourself, write this on the top. What do I desire my money to do for me again? What do I desire my money to do for me? We talked about this a little bit, a couple episodes ago in episode 1 0 3, the title was financial portfolio construction for building wealth. So if you wanna go back to that one in 1 0 3, check out that episode for some more questions to ask. Ultimately, you might put on the spice girls in the background and dream and say, what, what do they, we want them to think, hear, I, I think you should sing it. Brandon. We wanna hear your singing voice.
(12:12): I, I don't sing. You can do do the spice girls and write on the last second line, what you want, what you really, really want. Tell me what you want, what you really, really want. There you go. Okay. That was I don't know the rest. I'll let you off on that one. Brandon, How do you say, can you sing this? Oh, so Tell me what you want, what you really, really want like that. Yeah. Put that in there. And, and now you're gonna have spice girls in this blank piece of paper. Okay. And so a quick tip here to get to the root of what you really, really want. Keep asking yourself. What's important about that. To me, for example, I might say this isn't a hundred percent true, but for sake of example, let's just play with this. Let's say I want 3 million. What's important about 3 million to me. Well, it's enough to provide an income, even if there's high inflation. Well, what's important about having an income and a growing income to me. Well, that means I'm self-sufficient and I don't need to rely on anyone else. What's important about being self sufficient to me. Well, that means my son is able to live his best life without worry, or having to take care of me. And what's important about my son living his best life to me. Well, that means he's making the world a better place by giving his gift to the world.
(13:27): And what's important about him giving his gift to the world? Well, that means others are being helped to live their best lives. What's important about others living their best lives to me. Well, that means that they're giving their gifts to my son and to all kinds of people. And here I get into a little bit of circular thinking, and that's when I know I've gotten to the root. I desire to see people live there to their full potential and to make the world a better place. Wealth to me would be being able to make that happen more and more. What I really desire is to see the change I wanna see in the world. And wealth is really my tool to make that Happen. Now, before we go on to the second thing we wanted to share about making financial decisions right now, before we go onto the second thing we wanna share about making financial decisions, we encourage you to sit with this desire seeking for as long as you want, or need like sit with the desire seeking for as long as you want or need. Like, we, you should do that for well, we find it the most frustrating when we chat with people and we can't help them get what they want, because they don't know what they want. Right. And that's a challenge, right? So we step in and try to help them figure out what they want, but that can be a long process. Right? Cuz they haven't even asked themselves that. And then they say, well, that's an interesting question. And really it's you asking that of yourself? So we encourage you to get started with it as soon as possible and do it with your spouse too, if you
(15:06): Can. Oh yeah. A hundred percent for sure. Anybody that you share financial decisions with us dream together. Absolutely. Now let's say, you know what you re want, what you really, really want. How do you discover and decide what's really going to get you what you really, really want. So then we have three key ingredients here. The first of course is an ally who can help you see what you are not seeing other people on your team that that can help you get what you want, what you really want. We you've heard us say time and time again on this show, the best financial professionals are the ones who will empower you with knowledge and help you make the best decision for you, not just push a product or service your way of Thinking. On top of that before an ally starts to share information, we believe they should get to know you and what you really, really want. That's why every person who reaches out to us to see if we're a good fit together, we spend about an hour just getting to know them and what they want their money to do for them. Then we can move forward to help them find what they want, easier and faster. Maybe it's helping them get there faster and easier. One of the tools during the conversation is that filter in that filter is a key ingredient to number
(16:31): Two. Yeah. So the second key ingredient is this filter to easily knock out a bunch of options that won't get you where you really, really wanna go. We actually have a series of 12 questions. You could ask that help you take what you really, really want and find out what types of financial tools will help you get it. We've turned these questions into a fund online quiz that you can take right now at grandma's wealth, wisdom.com/quiz. We'll put a link in the show notes again, it's 12 questions that help you filter out a bunch of those 450 different financial products and find which ones are actually gonna get you, what you really, really want. And you know, people love quizzes, right? They, they love to do that. You know, find out which Harry Potter character you are or you know, all of the things. So again, go to grandma's wealth, wisdom.com/quiz. And you're gonna probably love some of the results. Finally, at the beginning of the episode, we mentioned, today's big question, it's this? What if you didn't have to choose, but you also didn't have to let someone else choose for you. Several years ago, we were told about a tool that increased our ability to adjust as our desires changed rather than keep us locked in. It gives us time and space to continue to own in on our desires and figure out how best to pursue them and our monetary wealth as it continues to grow in the meantime. Right? So we are able to build this in and we are able to see and achieve those desires because of those tools that we put in place years ago.
(18:21): What we love is that this tool is a both and kind of asset. For example, we can grow our wealth and an invest during our business. We can grow our wealth and own a home. We can grow our wealth and give our son a wealth of experiences in his childhood. We can even have our monetary wealth grow in two places at the same time, right? We invite you to do the 12 question, financial tool quiz. You might just find it surprising what tool might give you the ability to start building wealth or to build wealth more effectively and increase your options over the long term, rather than making a decision that limits your options in the future. And we, you know, we all love options. We just wanna have the right options for us. So to recap today, many of us feel overwhelmed when it comes to making a financial decision, partly because we have too many options. And because we fear, we don't know all the options and that fear is rightly justified. So we invite you to dream for, with a blank sheet of paper and an open mind. What, and again, write this down. What do I desire my money to do for me answering that question will help. You know, what wealth really means for you, not for me, but for you. Then you can find an ally and of course, use that quiz and find the right tools for you. And most importantly, when you find those financial tools, you will have confidence in deciding they are indeed what will bring you to wealth, whatever wealth, again means to you in our experience, that is the wise path to wealth, knowing what's to you, what you really desire and then aligning your tangible assets with those desires. It's really that simple.
(20:21): And it doesn't matter if you have a handful of rice or a silo filled with rice have it, as long as it aligns with your desires before we close today, we do wanna quick word to those who might still feel lost when it comes to figuring out what they really desire. First, we wanna say this is actually very common, especially if you experienced some sort of trauma in the past, particularly financial trauma sometimes to help get clarity on what you really, really want. You could start backwards, you could start with the quiz to show you different qualities of financial tools and then go to the blank piece of paper and reflect on how that made you feel and what it revealed about what's most important to you and what your desires really are. Be sure you take as much time as you need, but not a second more to dream and open yourself up to having desires and to finding those desires what they really are. And at any point along the way, we're excited to be your ally. So again, the website for the quiz is grandma's wealth, wisdom.com/quiz. That link will be in the show notes. And the reason I said, take as much time as you need, but not a second more is that your financial future is waiting for you. And the sooner you get started, the better it could be.
(21:37): Yeah. We don't wanna just stay in dreaming mode. We wanna actually balance the dreaming with the action, right? It's a And speaking of taking action. Yeah. So it's both. And so taking action hit that subscribe button, write a review. We would love. And if you could write a review and share this episode, because in the next episode, we're also gonna be sharing how to move from financial stress to financial sanity. So I know there's a lot of people out there who are in financial stress even as, as the market is up or whatever it is. There is so much stress out there and we want all want sanity. So we're gonna reveal what we believe is the underlying cause of financial stress that stems back to the 1960. These more importantly, we're gonna uncover what you can do about it, to bring more joy and freedom to your life. And of course, to your wallet Until next time, keep building your financial confidence. We hope you live long and profit. The topics presented in this podcast are for general information only, and not for the purposes of, of providing legal accounting or investment advice on such matters. Please consult a professional who knows your specific situation.
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