Financial Education For Empowerment – Episode 550   

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[00:01] Welcome to the Prosperity Podcast. Prosperity thinkers, we’re going to be talking about the financial education for empowerment. That sounds like a topic that you would be taking at college, but I promise this is going to be a lot better than something you would get at the 101 level or maybe even at the Harvard level. We’re going to say we’re going to get the chem level of that. How about it? Well, thank you. That’s a very nice compliment, and I just saw that there is a new, I believe it’s high school required element of financial literacy that was floating about the country and there’s a good 20, 30 states now that require some form of financial education. I take a big breath because sometimes their definition of financial education is really

[00:56] But I have to admit, I looked at two different elements of the test that have been approved by whoever the Department of Education or whoever that is, and they were decent. They even involved risk mitigation, so you had some insurance questions, which typically I don’t see those anywhere. It involved some other just pretty basic things. Oftentimes, it’s just way too oriented towards stock trading, and they consider that financial education, which they have no business, a person straight out of school really, in most cases, has no business doing that. So we’re getting there. It’s a good start. I was grateful to see that the tests had some legitimacy to them. That’s funny. You got to start somewhere.

[01:44] That’s the best way I put it. Yeah, exactly. With the financial education and that empowerment piece, I saw a really interesting clip. That is, we would not say related in thought to what we’re going to talk about, but I’m going to pull it in because I think it’s more related than we realize. I should know this politician more. I’m using the word should loosely. What’s his name? Vivek or something? He’s the politician that’s running for president. I am not following it a ton, so I don’t know, but supposedly, and I know all of our listeners are cringing right now that follow this. He’s a pretty strong libertarian and he’s very articulate in the way he speaks. And this is the business owner guy that’s running.

[02:35] I know who you’re talking about now. Exactly. Yeah. So I think he’s, I don’t know, Indian descent or something like that. So he was plagued with a question and he gave an answer that shocked me. And I’m going to give it to you a synopsis of that, because I think it pulls into our financial education empowerment, which is he was asked about AI and what fears are around AI. And he said that essentially, we will give up our abilities to analyze and to interpret because these AIs say an answer, a biased answer with so much certainty that we’re now taking that. And so when I take that piece about the AI and the certainty and my kids even do it, they’ll say, well, did you know this? And I say, it may sound this way to you, but I have experience in this area.

[03:40] So for you, you can take sound bites from YouTube of other people, but you have decades of experience. We say, yes, your 30 second clip may sound like financial education, but you operate with the full picture. So how can we help our listeners create better filtering and better reasoning? Oh, filtering and reasoning. Wow. Okay. So I’ll go with the reasoning first, because I believe that that is where it starts and that’s going to create the filters. So the reasoning to me has to do with being clear on your own perspective, which sometimes requires gathering a lot of other people’s perspective to get your own clear. So this may mean looking, learning, reading, listening, watching a variety of

[04:48] inputs to a particular subject matter so that you can get your own reasoning about it. And I’ve always found that the best way to get my own reasoning is to take the various inputs and then be quiet and just listen. And I say that I’m listening to father, mother, God, but you might say that you’re listening to the universe or you’re listening to your own brain or whatever it is that you are doing. And this is not easy in our super fast paced world. And I’m just as guilty of taking all the inputs, listening for two seconds, making a decision and going on. Nevertheless, if it’s an important issue, two minutes of quiet, I’ll even set my phone sometimes, just sit there for two minutes and be quiet and listen.

[05:35] And that listening lets all those inputs assimilate into my own reasoning. And that then creates the filter with which I can agree, disagree, take action, don’t take action, take different action, whatever it is that is the appropriate next step for my own situation, that particular business, the people that it’s serving, et cetera. Okay. So for you, it’s providing what we call space to be able to think about that. And then that space is helping you filter. And it’s an action filter from there. Is that correct? Yes. Well stated. Okay. So as you do that out, you know, in our call it our effort of the day, when we’re deciding on the things that we’re going to take action on, the things that we’re going to learn, the circumstances we put ourselves in.

[06:34] What are some additional reasoning levers that you’re pulling? Because yes, you’re using space, but you also have many other levers that you’ve pulled. You mean you’ve mentioned strategic coach. So we can take that and say, okay, it’s assimilating with people that are of the same caliber, assimilating with people that are like-minded. Give us a couple of other pieces. Well, I use the seven principles of prosperity that we have had since like the nineties. And I didn’t create them. I put them on a single piece of paper and they’re very, very valuable as a filtering tool, as a guideline to make decisions with. Interestingly enough, I also utilize something that is spiritually related around my father, mother, God. And I have seven synonyms that I use for God that I was taught long,

[07:38] long ago. And they originate in the Bible. And so it happens to be the same number of seven. And there is some numeracy behind that, but that’s not my point. The distinction is that there’s some layers there that let me take something through a series of steps. Could be the seven principles of prosperity, could be the seven synonyms for father, mother, God that enable whatever that issue is to get fleshed out more fully, to get discovered more thoroughly, to get clarity increased so that again, those next steps, if that’s the appropriate thing or whatever the reasoning is that needs to be upleveled can occur. Okay. So we’ve got the reasoning pieces built in and that’s the, we’ll call it the

[08:31] framework that you’re working from. So let’s take the whole topic of this, which at the beginning is financial education for empowerment. And let’s bring in now reasoning, the framework thinking, we’ve got the filtering of it and the comment that I brought in, which is we can be chatting with an AI with chat and it can tell us something that sounds so persuasive, but it’s bias and wrong. Or we can watch a clip and we see the 30 second blip that sounds persuasive and right, but logically it’s wrong. Or we can hear and see something that’s an anomaly, but it’s not right principally based. So how is it that you’re able to navigate those pieces? And again, you have decades of experience, so it’s not like you can in this episode say,

[09:27] okay, here you go listeners, but we want to create some at least stepping stones. Well, I’m really believing I’m listening to you carefully and you’re right. There’s a lot to unpack there, but I’m believing that it goes back to my original answer is either using the seven principles of prosperity or the seven synonyms for father, mother, God that originated in the Bible and that I have been taught that are foundational to my operating as a human being in this world, whether it’s here at the office at home on a Saturday out in the barn with the alpacas, with my family members, with extended family members, with teammates, all of our interactions as human beings come down to whatever guidelines,

[10:20] principles, values we have that enable us to operate in the world, make decisions in the world, listen, get input, provide output. And I really can’t identify at this time any other thing beyond those two that enables me to, for our listeners, give a succinct answer that’s something that they can turn with and do something with. And you’re right where it’s 50 plus years of on this earth learning. And what I trust is that it’s that saying that I love older every day yet never old. So what I trust is that the older every day comes with more wisdom every day. Oh, I love it. I love it. I think of, and this is really strange how this is somewhat connected, but not. I think of a time when I was teaching one of my boys when we were chopping wood

[11:27] and it’s the principle of taking a axe that is not sharp and seeing the effort that has to be done and then taking the time to sharpen the axe and see the right tool, the right principle followed and the right work and how there’s less effort, manual effort we’ll call it, but more concentrated effort. And so hopefully in this episode, we were able to convey some of that financial wisdom for listeners and sharpen the axe a little bit more. So Kim, appreciate it. Very good. Thank you for listening to the Prosperity Podcast. To take control of your money and have it work for you, visit ProsperityThinkers.com.