What Families Can Learn from the Government Shutdown – Episode 645

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[00:01] Welcome to the Prosperity Podcast. Prosperity thinkers, welcome to the podcast. We’re gonna be talking about what families can learn from the government shutdown. And no, we’re not getting into politics. We’re not gonna break character here. We’re gonna talk about the lessons we can learn. Isn’t that better than talking about politics and slinging mud? So much better. And you know, there’s lessons everywhere if we’ll just choose to look for them. Absolutely. So I have to come to the table with this. I haven’t actually read the news and know all the things that are happening with the shutdown. So what I’m getting are like big highlights and from research that I did and from hearing from others.

[00:46] I think that’s a safer way to approach it. I think that’s how you approach most of the news as well, isn’t it? Agreed. I might see something occasionally on a Google screen or something that I haven’t shut down because typically I shut down all of that type of thing for even showing up in my life just because I just do not find it helpful. But you can’t go to the grocery store, which actually I don’t go to the grocery store very often, but anyway, you can’t. I know, you can’t go to the Henderson, Texas Syrup Festival. Now this is population 30,000, so festival’s an interesting word, but you can’t go anywhere without hearing about something that’s going on in the public, in the news, et cetera.

[01:28] The whole government shutdown thing’s really interesting. I have to tell you the first thing that happened to me about a month ago or whenever it first happened that was so funny is a fairly young member of our team. Apparently the paycheck was late or I don’t even know how we pay people these days. Venmo, whatever the system is, pay whatever. He said, is my paycheck late because of the government shutdown? I was like, no, we’re an entrepreneurial company. The government shutdown doesn’t have anything to do with anything. Why don’t you call our bookkeeper, which is what you’re supposed to do when something in the cashflow system is not cooperating. And I just thought it was so interesting. I mean, this person’s been with us for a while,

[02:18] but what an interesting perspective. Absolutely bonkers that a person would think. Like that happens. Wow, that’s like very shocking. As I pulled together the notes for this and actually I pulled together four lessons and I wanna see if you agree with the lessons and then if you do or don’t to dive into each of those. So you cool trying that one? Absolutely. Okay, so the lesson one, it says, dependency is fragile. That means relying on one paycheck or one system. Do you agree or disagree with that one? I absolutely agree that relying on one paycheck is fragile and it’s so interesting in today’s world that the gig economy or whatever you wanna call it with people having two, three, 10 different sources

[03:14] of income as an individual, you could potentially double that if you were talking about a family or if you have young adult children like teenagers in your life, you could triple or quadruple that. But it’s true in a business as well. So whether you’re running your family’s finances like a business, PS, which you should be, or whether you’re actually dealing with business finances, this is something to just be conscious of and not have just one client or one source of income be your only source. And then I’m gonna add an additional thing there, Spencer, and that is the utter importance of an emergency fund. I mean, we’ve talked about that and there are so many financial people that do not talk about that.

[03:59] I know all the writers do, like all the, and it cracks me up. It’s so obvious when somebody’s really young and they’re writing things that are in the press. Oh, you should have an emergency fund of $5,000. Well, yeah, for a young family, that might work really well, but for a lot of families, that emergency fund should be $100,000. It’s so critical so that when a source of income dries up for whatever the reason, you’ve got a backup plan. Yeah, absolutely. Kim, I don’t know how you spotted it. Actually, I do know, because this is what you talk about week by week, but in the lesson-prepped pieces, it is liquidity is resilience. Now, you said one thing. You said this, you said a young writer will talk in terms of $5,000 a month,

[04:53] but you’re thinking more in terms of runway. Let’s call it months or in terms of that mental clarity, that space. Why is it that you do that versus the very minimum envelope approach of some people? Well, it’s because of the mental clarity. I mean, your choice of words there was spot on, and it’s that when, again, as a business or as a family, and so, so important when you’ve got kids and they’re doing things and you want to keep the family going, and of course, fed and clothed are one thing, but even special programs like sports or whatever they’re involved in, if you don’t have the mental clarity, then you’re not present as a parent. You’re probably not doing well at work either. It’s just so valuable to have months.

[05:46] Laurel of a emergency fund to solve problems. Liquidity solves problems, and it’s always so funny to me. People really scoff at the idea. Sometimes, typical financial planners don’t deal with liquidity because, of course, they don’t get paid for you having cash, and so it’s often a misstep and there’s a little bit of almost pride, like, well, I don’t need an emergency fund. My income’s good. Awesome, it may very well be. Go ask your spouse, however, if they would like you to have an emergency fund. I mean, it’s just always so interesting, the perspective of various family members, for what that is and what it does for them in terms of their peace of mind, which then enables them to be a good parent,

[06:33] a good spouse, a good provider of value in the workplace, which is then what creates the good levels of income. So I have another funny, somewhat related story to tell, but let’s tackle lesson three and four and I’ll see if I can fit it in. Okay, perfect. So lesson three is self-reliance as a financial value, and that’s what families can learn from the government shutdown. Do you agree or disagree with that and expound a little bit? Well, that’s an interesting one, and I’m going to sort of agree, and here’s why. Self-reliance, absolutely a critical thing for everybody to start out with when you’re young and you’re just building your career and your life. It’s very important for you to be really reliable

[07:24] upon yourself for as much as possible. And yet very quickly, if you continue down that path, and you know, in our world, we have such a DIY space, a do-it-yourself movement space. If you continue down that path forever, you’ll never be able to get as good of results, nor will you be able to put your own value out in the marketplace as effectively as, and efficiently as if you can also start to rely on other people. So an example, we have a very large property. There is tons of stuff that has to be done on it all the time just to keep things even in remotely decent shape. I mean, if we don’t beat the jungle back every couple of weeks or so, it will take over. And yet, and I’m very happy to get on the big tractor

[08:18] and mow, yet if I spent my time, it would literally take all weekend every other weekend for me to keep the place mowed. So it’s a way that I can expand my own reliance by hiring somebody to do the mowing, and I’m not talking a lawn, I’m talking pastures. Where they have the bigger tractors, with the two full down wings, and they can go 15 feet in a chop or whatever their capability is, and they have the time to do it, and it’s their unique ability, and this is a Dan Sullivan term. It’s their way to create value in the world in very specific ways that are directly related to the talents that God gave them. So I think the self-reliance thing is good to start out with, and clearly from a monetary standpoint,

[09:11] we wanna remain self-reliant without a doubt. We don’t wanna be relying on employers our entire life. Obviously, for the first 30 or 40 or 50 years, again, if you own a business, a little different story, but we don’t wanna be relying on our parents or our children to help us financially, and yet, there’s a difference between the earning of the money, which you wanna be able to be self-reliant on, and the keeping slash investing and saving for liquidity of the money, wherein you may choose to rely on others’ expertise to get help doing the good part of that aspect of your finances, the investing, the saving, the keeping, the protecting of the dollars once you have earned them, and holy cow, I mean, we see examples all the time

[10:02] of people that are very good at earning the money and flat out lousy at keeping it. So I guess my self-reliance summary is yes, I agree with it, and there is an absolute point in everybody’s life where they’ll cross over to a place where no, I don’t agree with it. So you mentioned on lesson three, self-reliance, it lines with a principle of prosperity, which is it limits us on the ability to multiply. So lesson four, do you agree or disagree with this one, which is we can learn from the government shutdown and our families that we get to create our own family economy, so that means that we are sovereign entities. Do you see it that way or not see it that way? I do, and family economy is just such an awesome word,

[10:58] and I’ve used that term, our personal economy, for a long time, and I wanna layer in here as we wrap this up and talk about lesson four for a minute, the utter criticalness of the mental economy that we operate in every day as well, and that is to take things like whatever is going on politically and economically and potentially choose not to participate. So who knows that we’re recording this late in 2025, who knows what’s gonna happen with the economy and the marketplace, et cetera, the stock market, the real estate market, mortgage market, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, but as a general rule, my attitude is do not participate, choose not to participate mentally. I mean, you gotta do what you gotta do financially,

[11:48] of course, and in your career and job-wise, but to just draw a line between so much of the chatter that is just not helpful and should not be focused on, and instead to choose to focus on what you can control, and that is your family’s mental economy first, and then, of course, financial economy when you go back to the other three lessons and layer those in, and this fourth one just really sets this home as a space of utter joy that your family can have when they are learning, number one, and then implementing ideas around this idea of the control and capability that cash flow gives us, and earning multiple streams of income gives us, and getting all of our dollars to multiply gives us. I mean, this truly is a joyful act.

[12:47] Yeah, absolutely. My fifth lesson, which is the bonus lesson I’m gonna put on here, I think of a bonus lesson. It is this, we can learn from this government shutdown, large principles, and then we curate our own customized plan, so I think for what that looks like for you as a listener, if you’re looking to figure out what your financial runway should be or where it is that you need to be self-reliant and then where you draw the line in the sand or what it is that you’re doing to move about and create another stream of income, that will be customized. Send an email to helloatprosperitythinkers.com if you have specific questions, and I think that that customization is what we can apply now, and because we think prosperously,

[13:41] we start with gratitude. You’ve shared that lesson with us time and time again, Kim, so it’s been really helpful. Thank you for listening to the Prosperity Podcast. To take control of your money and have it work for you, visit prosperitythinkers.com.