Focusing On What You Can Control – Episode 145

This transcript was auto-generated and may contain errors.

[00:01] Welcome to the Prosperity Podcast, fresh alternative personal finance talk for independent thinkers who prosper outside of Wall Street. Here’s your host, bestselling author, Kim D.H. Butler and No BS Money Guy, Todd Strobel. Hey everybody, welcome back to the Prosperity Podcast. This is No BS Money Guy, Todd Strobel. Once again, we have bestselling financial author and our co-host, Kim Butler, with us today. And I guess the term we’ve been kind of playing around with is don’t stress about the mess. In other words, you know, we are at a time where there’s so many people saying that unemployment is going to go up and the stock market is going to go down and the fundamentals and there’s been we’ve quadrupled the money supply.

[00:49] I mean, there’s all kinds of things out there that could have potentially bad effects. One of the things that amazes me is watching the price of gas. I literally watch the price of gas swing 30 cents a day up and down. I mean, it’s just amazing to me how one gas pump can pump something 30 cents difference in 20 minutes later. So what we’re going to be talking about today, and Kim, this is something that has definitely been one of your big topics, is what is it that we can control? What is it that we should worry about? I mean, if we want to look about worrying about terrorists in the Middle East, yeah, that’s a really, really serious subject. But sitting here doing this podcast, I can’t think of how I can help that.

[01:43] Exactly. And this is our message to focus on what you can control. And you can control your thinking. And so if you are concerned about various things that might be going on, like the stock market, then let’s work to get your dollars out of the stock market. We have a couple different investments that provide good investment rate of return, which of course, our goal for that is double digits, not that we can hit that all the time, but that’s our goal. You will behoove yourself to stop worrying about the stock market by moving your dollars out of the stock market, putting it into investments where the principle does not roller coaster ride. And if you can’t do that, then go to, for example, your 401k provider or

[02:35] 403b provider. That’s usually the problem area because we don’t control those monies as well. But you can go to your 401k provider and ask them for a money market equivalent or a fixed account, or you can also ask them about an in-service withdrawal, I-N-S-E-R-V-I-C-E, in-service withdrawal. The new laws are asking employers to make available this idea of an in-service withdrawal, which basically says that even though you’re still employed, you can roll some of your 401k money over into an IRA and literally withdraw it from the 401k plan. It still would be in an IRA, so no penalty, no tax, but it would not be stuck in that environment. So check with your provider. If they have cash accounts, move your money there so that you’re not worried

[03:34] about a stock market crash. If they don’t have cash accounts, ask about an in-service withdrawal so that you could move your money literally to a self-directed IRA and then you can talk to us or somebody else about an investment that does not rollercoaster ride. So that’s the way to handle concerns about the stock market. Now, I’m sure we’ve got some other concerns, Todd. Help me know what some people are saying out there that they’re concerned about. Well, I would say that the next biggest concern is probably employment. I mean, what can I count on being, you know, how can I make myself, and this is, I’m adding this to the question, the stress is the employment part, but I suppose the answer

[04:17] to that is how do I make myself more employable in tomorrow’s environment? Well, I think there’s two things. We talk all the time about the importance of savings and the best place to save is cash value of life insurance because it earns a slightly higher return than the banks. It’s a private account. It’s not taxed, but it also provides a lot of peace of mind. And if you have that, then you can be less concerned about employment. Then the answer in my mind to the question of, well, how can I make myself more valuable in the marketplace? Keep learning and growing in your area of expertise. And if your area of expertise is not exciting you anymore, then pick a new area of expertise and spend an hour or two every day if you can, pursuing information

[05:09] and opportunity around that. I’m having a lot of discussions with college-age kids these days, either just happenstance because clients have college-age kids that they want me to give some help to or my own children are at that stage as well. And the best way to be valuable out in the marketplace is to know how to sell. And a lot of people really turn their nose up at this. Oh, I don’t want to be in sales. I don’t want to sell things. And yet nothing happens in this world if selling doesn’t occur first. There’s a great book out there by Daniel Pink called To Sell is Human. And he’s essentially saying that every single person sells every single day. You sell yourself on your own ideas. You sell other people on your ideas.

[05:58] And if you can figure out good sales methods, then you can get your ideas bought. Now, sometimes not literally, but sometimes it is. And so this is a fabulous skill to work on. Communication skills are valuable. Any type of writing, any type of speaking, those are always going to be in need. And then also the general category of marketing. Marketing is what happens before something can be sold. Marketing is getting the message out there. And every single business needs more of marketing skill and more sales skill. And so if you can pick those skills up in your area of expertise, you’re more valuable. And I think you brushed over something that I just want to bring back and kind of bring a point to.

[06:48] You know, I’m a 50 something and you’re not too far from my age range, I assume. And, you know, you’re talking to people in their 20s. And I think how important that it is to get that viewpoint. I mean, they just look at the world differently than we did. And if you happen to be one of the 20s that are on there, I just I couldn’t tell you how many mentors I’ve had in my life. And I have never yet had one person that I’ve gone up to and said, look, I respect where you are. I’d like to just know more about your life and how you did what you did. Absolutely. There’s something called an information interview that is super valuable. And I’m actually reading a book on Elon Musk right now. Fabulous book. Thoroughly loving it.

[07:42] It’s actually making me laugh out loud. It’s wrong. It made it. Did you see it? It launched. That’s right. Isn’t that cool? I just love that. And one of the things that he and his brother did when they were in college is they this is up in Canada. They read the news, they figured out who the important people were, both business, political, you name it. And they called them up and asked if they could take them to lunch. These are college age kids doing an informational interview. I thought it was a fabulous idea. Something that I know I did when I was in the middle of switching careers. I’d started out at a bank and I wanted to get into more thorough financial services work because in the late 80s, that was not done in banks.

[08:32] And I did a whole bunch of informational interviews before I figured out where I was really interested in. And then I went back and did job interviews accordingly. So those are super valuable, free things that we can do. OK, maybe the cost of lunch. But how cool that these college kids who did not have a lot of money, in fact, they would take sometimes two or three different bus rides to get to the person’s place of business so that they could have lunch on the person’s time frame, et cetera. I thought it was great. I don’t know who to properly credit this to. And maybe, you know, there was a person who said that if you read a book a week or a book a month on any subject within a one year’s period

[09:14] of time or something, you would be one of the leading experts at whatever the field is you chose to study. I love it. Yeah, I can’t quote the source either, but whoever it was, that’s a wise person. And if reading books are not your thing, then find podcasts that you can listen to or get on Ted Talks dot com and watch some of the TED Talks in your area of expertise or an area that you want to become an expert in. There’s no shortage of information these days. There’s just a shortage of your attention span. So think carefully about what you want to be spending your attention on. And I’m all for a Sunday chill day where you watch football all day or baseball or, you know, movies or whatever it is on occasion.

[10:02] But so many people, I think, fritter away a good hour or two every evening, either in front of the television or doing just unproductive things that could be spent on improving themselves. And there’s also the time in your car or on a train. It’s a lot of travel that occurs. I had a client the other day say that they listened to our podcasts. In fact, he said, well, where’s No BS Money Guy? Is he on the phone? I said, well, not today, but he could be. He listens to our podcasts while his son is playing in golf tournaments. He said he spends hours and hours watching his son play in these golf tournaments, and he just keeps his earbuds in and listens to our podcasts while he’s walking around the golf course.

[10:50] I thought that was a great use of time. Super. Well, once again, this week, I had a person who said, you know, I’m really worried about the Federal Reserve, which if anything there is, I mean, probably a legitimate right to worry about. It’s I mean, there’s little control we have over the Federal Reserve. So the first thing that the people say is I’m worried about the Federal Reserve. I’m worried about the money supply. The second thing is, so I think I need to buy gold and silver. And I know that we’ve talked about in this in the past that if you truly believe a disaster of that magnitude is coming, which I believe that this is not going to be a flip a switch thing. It’s going to be more of a slowing down thing

[11:37] personally, as a person who studies economics. But there are so many more things that you could do. And you talked about in the past about growing a garden or storing some food or preparing in that way. And in my opinion, that’s so much more valuable than being the richest man that ever starved. Absolutely. And I think people can take some very easy concrete steps to give them peace of mind. One of them is actually storing some cash in your home. If you’re concerned that the banks are going to shut down for seven or ten days, make sure you’ve got cash in your home. If you’re concerned about food, then make sure you have food and water in your home. It’s a piece of cake at the grocery store to grab a couple of flats of water

[12:25] and 10 extra cans of tuna and salmon and soup and, you know, those things. And just rotate them through your pantry so that they stay fresh and usable. You know, there are lots of places if you want to go further that you can on the web, buy food that is specifically designed to be stored. And some families believe in storing six months or even a year’s worth of food in their homes for any type of disaster. You don’t have to take it that far or you can take it that far. But just those simple concrete steps should be completed and then stop worrying about the issues because worrying about them isn’t going to do you any good at all. And if you’ll spend the time that you had been spent worrying,

[13:13] learning or focusing on the good, writing in a gratitude journal, being verbally grateful, et cetera, you’re going to be in a much better frame of mind to deal with any of the problems should they come down and come down quickly. I’d like to ask our listeners maybe to help because I’m trying to do a project here. I’m living in a neighborhood that it used to be a resort neighborhood, maybe a weekend place or something. And the properties have kind of been handed down from years to years. And there’s some very, very, very beautiful properties. And there are some properties that no human being has walked in them in 30 years. And they’re dangerous. And I can’t see why we can’t figure out a way to take those properties,

[14:02] bulldoze those down and build some community gardens that would allow us to get together, socialize, and everybody get a share of the gardens. I know somebody out there has done this and there has to be a way to do it. So if you can share that with me, I just think of so much better use. The city of Detroit did that successfully with a lot of homes when the last 2008 hit, they created co-op gardens out of rundown houses. Kids don’t get in them. Gangs don’t get in them. Rodents and cats breeding in them and everything like that. But I don’t know the legal process to do that. And I’ve been trying to, this is a project I’ve been working on in my spare time. And I don’t know. What do you think of that, Kim?

[14:51] I love it. It’s a great idea. And I would be very curious to hear if somebody’s got some expertise in it. I’m too aware of what Detroit did. And I’m also aware of another area, I don’t know where it was, where everybody just decided to create gardens in their front yard. The families had been in a situation where the homes were back off the street quite a bit. The front yards were fairly large, but nobody was doing anything with them. And so they all just created gardens in their front yard. And of course, because it was in the front, there was a lot more community involvement, etc. There’s another resource that I want to share. And that is a company called Essential Seeds. And this person, the website is essentialseeds.us.

[15:36] This person has packaged heirloom seeds, which will create new plants. A lot of the seeds that we buy today, you can’t, for example, you can grow one tomato plant, but then you can’t use the seeds from that tomato to grow another plant. Well, the heirloom seeds, you can. And so this gentleman has figured out a way to package thousands of seeds in a coffee can. And we have a couple of them in our freezer. They’re just stored there. They’re good for 10 years. And again, this is essentialseeds.us. We’re not connected to them in any way. I think the guy’s name is Jess, a man named Jess. And it is a place where people could have the ability to have the garden. Maybe you don’t have a place for the garden yet,

[16:21] but you could have the ability to have the garden with the seeds. And then, of course, there’s a tower garden that’s available as well. And maybe on this particular podcast, we can include a link. I grow a tower garden that’s made by a company called Juice Plus. And we put seeds in there for lettuce and other herbs and grow that year round. That’s available inside, outside. You can buy a little greenhouse on Amazon for $100 and do all kinds of fun things with it. So take some action. That’s, I think, what we’re encouraging you to do more than anything. Super. And like I said, if anybody has ideas, I’m sure there’s some people out there who have ideas that are just way better than anything we’ve ever even thought of.

[17:06] Hello, at Partners, the number four, Prosperity.com. Please share those with us and we will be glad to share your information. Maybe, you know, this is your area of expertise and you’d like to come on the podcast with us. But we’d love to do anything that we can to help our listeners. Again, this is No BS Money Guy for the Prosperity Podcast saying take care, everybody. Thank you for listening to the Prosperity Podcast. To take control of your money and have it work for you, visit us at partnersforprosperity.com. If you liked this episode, make sure you subscribe and leave a review.