How Partners Create Gratitude – Episode 386

This transcript was auto-generated and may contain errors.

[00:01] Hello, partners. And we have the week of gratitude coming up. Kim, I am so thrilled to talk with our list, our partners today. Yes. Should we talk about why we’re calling them partners first? Or did we do that a couple of weeks ago? I can’t remember. I think we should touch on it again, because it’s one of those things that is intentional. The word actually means something beyond what most people would think. So will you dive into that? Absolutely. So I’m going to retell a story, if you will, in the naming of our company, Partners for Prosperity, which occurred formally in 1999. But it was around even two or three or four or five, I don’t remember, years before that, in sort of loose, informal

[00:51] fashion, if you will. And it was truly chosen, the word partners plural, right, was truly chosen to connect with our clients in a way that indicated what the term can indicate, which means we’re doing some of the work and you’re doing some of the work. And a four-letter word. Work is something that we should all be aspiring to, that we should want to do for the rest of our lives, that we should find work that we love so much that it’s not even work. We should have available to us the ability, the fortitude, the passion to get in there and do work. And building finances is work. And some of us naturally gravitate to it and love it and some don’t. And that’s okay, too. But let’s understand that we want to partner with people that want to do the work. And

[01:53] it doesn’t have to be both spouses all the time. But let’s roll up our sleeves and dig into this. And partners just implies that to the nth degree. And you know what, Spencer, it can even be applied to the speaker listener relationship. And we’ve done this all along. We’ve said, hey, bring us your questions. Let’s cover questions that you have. And that’s part of partnering. Absolutely. You know, there’s almost an invisible energy to it, not to get, you know, esoteric or anything. But as we’ve gone out and we’ve asked for questions and they come in, we don’t know what kind of questions are going to come. But it’s strange because many times they’ll be very similar. And because of that, the listeners, in a way, are partnering with each other, like they’re

[02:43] helping. Yes. And I will tell our partners a secret goal that I’ve had that isn’t probably very secret, but that I just kind of keep in the background right now because we just don’t have the wherewithal to pull it off. But I would love more than anything to create some type of partnership community that enables our clients and the people that listen to our podcasts to connect to each other. Because I know how valuable it is to have amongst your friends, people that are also using alternative investments, people that are also using whole life insurance as a place to store cash, people that also resonate with the seven principles of prosperity, etc, etc, etc. And so it is absolutely a long term goal of mine to do a better job of connecting our

[03:36] listeners, one to each other, those that want to. And I don’t know how we’re going to pull that off, but I know that there will be technology and social media, etc, in the future that could help us do that. And I know it exists today. You know, we could do a Facebook group or something like that. But like I said, I don’t really have the bandwidth to work on it properly. But it’s something that I think is super important. And you know, what’s interesting when we came up with the partners word, notice it’s plural, I try to do every word I find every word I use, especially when it’s in a name or a title. I try to make it a plural word because it just indicates growth and expansion and helping more people in the multiplying

[04:23] effect of that word. And when I went to get the LLC that now remember, this is 1999, give or take internet just coming on the scene, there were not places that you could just pop on and get an LLC done super fast, you had to actually go to an attorney. And they’re like, Oh, no, you shouldn’t use the word partners. It’s putting you too much on the line. It’s exposing you in a way that you wouldn’t like. And I’m like, wait a minute, of course I’m on the line. I’m helping people with their finances. Finances affect everything that are the most near and dear to people’s hearts, like their family and their vacation time and their wherewithal and their ability to get things done, etc, etc. You better believe I

[05:14] want to be put on the line and I’m going to make mistakes. And that’s okay. It’s not ideal, of course, but I’m a human being. And that is okay. You know, Kim, you just jogged my mind from something that I think fits it perfectly. And I’m actually going to push back on that comment, just a hair. Is that cool? Of course, it’s cool. Go for it. So the partners, you know, you say you’re on the line. And I do agree with that. You know, it’s kind of like a partnership or relationship, even a marriage in many ways. And those are never 5050. It’s 100 100. Yes. And how it works is that person A says, Hey, here’s what I’m bringing to the table. Here’s what I’m committed to do. And here’s what I’ll do. And then partner B does the same thing. Now, oftentimes, you get into

[06:05] funky relationships, or as the attorney mentioned, he said, Hey, you’re now going to be putting yourself in a position of liability. So that’s where this quote comes in. I pulled it up from my phone right now, because it was so good, I had to write this down. And it says this, what dumb money wants is to be hands off and be able to blame somebody when it goes wrong. If you think about that, that’s where partnerships go wrong. Because what happens is, they say, Hmm, I don’t want to take the time to learn. Oh, I don’t want to take the time to do the due diligence. I don’t want to take the time of this. And so they’re wanting the partner to come in with 100%. But they’re not willing to give 100%. Right. And that’s the

[06:50] typical asset center management, financial advisor who says, let me take care of it. I got you all do all the work. And it that’s so well said, what the so now we’re being a little aggressive here, but you are going to be bold. So I’ll just go for the second half, which is aggressive. The dumb person, and we don’t mean this in a bad way. It’s it’s a frank sentence, which is the person that’s not turning their brain on would love to hand that off to somebody else, especially if they don’t really enjoy working around their personal finances. And yet, we all know that nobody, nobody cares about your own money more than you. That model only works when things are going well. And when things are easy, if it’s not, then and things get bumpy, the

[07:43] first little bump, then then a person’s out. And that’s really sad, because, you know, lots of times on the first little bump, that’s kind of weeding the weak people out and the people that have longevity to their thought and have wisdom sit there and go, Oh, this is normal. Fine. We’ll sit there. We’ll wait this out. Oh, this is a this is this is another signal. Oh, that’s great. You know what I mean? Yes, so true. And if you look at all the things in life, when you are partnering with somebody and and truly isn’t so much of life a dance of partnering, because any any time we want anything of value done, we’ve got other people helping us get it done. All of life is showing up and giving that 100%. And there is just way too much where people

[08:37] are attempting life at 5050 or worse. And we are seeing evidence of it in the way that America handles its finances. Also in the way that America handles its health, because we’ve adopted this, I just want to put my toe in the water, you know, I want to go to the gym, but I don’t really want to do anything when I get there. Or, well, you know, this, this cheat meal isn’t going to matter. And they’re right, the first one isn’t. But what about the second, third and fourth? And so the cool thing about partnering is that it does give you a little bit of accountability. It gives you effort and information and knowledge and even resources when you don’t have it yourself. And you know, it always cracks me up, somebody

[09:29] will say, well, why haven’t I heard about that before? Does that mean you’ve heard about absolutely everything yourself? You know, it’s just it’s a saying and people don’t really think about what they’re saying when they use that saying. And so it’s what I love about our company. It’s to me anyway, and gosh, partners slash listeners, please, please email us if this is not clear. I believe that our messaging makes it very clear how we help, and how we don’t. And very specifically, the things that we do, like storing cash in whole life insurance, like using alternative investments, versus the things that we don’t, like working with the stock market or relying on things like the stock and bond market to get results, and

[10:25] getting ourselves in areas that we cannot control, like maybe too much money tied up in government qualified plans and retirement plans and that kind of thing. And even the whole idea of retirement, like I’m so grateful that our partners do not come to me anymore, saying, I want to retire early, can you help me do that? Because why I might be able to help financially, I don’t want to help emotionally and psychologically and literally physically, etc. Unless they are truly seeking a second career or a third or fourth or 10th. And or they are truly with an open mind of what do I do next, I either know what I’m going to do next, or I know that I need to learn what I’m going to do next. That is a true partnership right there. You know, we

[11:22] started the episode one listing out the word partner and we went in and explained what it means. Also, we’re at this time of year, we’re a time of gratitude. You know, this is a time where people gather together and, you know, they may make their lists of gratitude, or they’ll just think about the things that they have. So I know I’m switching gears a little bit. What I’m hoping that we can do is one, become a multiplier. So for whatever gratitude you have in your life, partner, we want you to know that there is a community and we look at the statistics, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of listeners, which is amazing. Like I would have never imagined that Kim, like we’re so, we’re so lucky.

[12:12] And I look at the stats, and there’s people from all over the world. So for you to be tuning into this show, know that there are other people just like you that are invisibly supporting you. So that’s one thing to be incredibly grateful for. Well, it is so awesome to be grateful for things like that. And to find all aspects of our lives, a space for gratitude. And that includes some of the things that don’t go well. And when things don’t go well, that’s actually a time to look for a partner, to look for somebody to hold you accountable, to look for somebody to teach you something that you need to know that would then get you past that hard time. I mean, all of us have challenging times and being

[13:08] grateful in those times is, I think, actually more important than being grateful when everything’s going easy. And there’s always aspects of our lives that we can do a better job seeking a place of gratitude. Because I’ll tell you, and I have done this before, when we’re not in a place of gratitude, it’s going to be really hard to learn the lessons that we need to learn to move past and through and beyond whatever challenging thing we’re going to have. And so it it’s just been a growing practice of mine, something that I work on all the time, not only being grateful for the super obvious things, but up leveling that a notch and being grateful for the idea that the thing represents. So like I’ve shared

[13:59] this before, you know, I love Emma Dogg or Great Dane. And I love the complete, happy, joyful, playful way that Emma Dogg goes about her life and the unconditional love that all dogs express. Like that’s taking the material dog and then up leveling it one to like the inspirational or the spiritual aspect of that dog. And then I would like to share an example, too, of when things are not going as good and we dig gratitude out of the woodwork. And I’m not going to share my blue airplane seat story because I’ve shared that numerous times. But I will share something that has happened fairly recently. I’ve had an opportunity to work with some attorneys through a business structure that was all above board, like

[15:03] nobody was suing anybody or anything like that. But it was still attorneys can just be challenging. And the business structure was challenging. And of course, I wanted to do something a little unusual. And the bill for their time was just really starting to skyrocket. And we had to get this thing completed. And there were a couple other people involved, but I was the one paying the bill. And I just was really tempted to just get mad and to kind of call the attorneys to the carpet and be like, you know, we have to stop this, but we couldn’t stop it. Like I was completely committed to the project. And I knew that I had made some unusual requests. And so I just before one of our meetings, I just sat back for a minute

[15:53] and it was literally for three minutes, probably total, I physically wrote down because sometimes when you’re digging gratitude out of the woodwork, you have to write it down because it reinforces it more. The things that I was grateful about, like they were willing to take on the project, they were trying, they were working hard, they were coming up with suggestions, even if we had to say no to a bunch of them. And I visualized and was grateful for the end result, even though I didn’t know what it was yet. And that meeting was quicker, more efficient, and we actually still haven’t totally solved the problem, but there’s so much a light at the end of the tunnel. Whereas before the meeting, it was still really, really

[16:36] dark. And I know that we can solve it. And so I’m continuing to be grateful for the solution, even though I know it, even though I don’t know what it looks like, I know we’ll get there. And maybe that will help some of our partners understand that it’s okay to dig out gratitude that’s really vague. And that sometimes that’s where you have to start. And you can’t get down to the level of the dog. You have to just be in the gray and white space in between it. And then you know, in time, that that will help turn the challenge around. Wonderful story. You know, I think for our listeners, depending on the challenge that you’re in right now, you can pull from that. You know, when it’s difficult, that’s when we

[17:23] actually grow. That’s when we kind of measure our real character. Wonderful. I want to hear a story from you to tell us of a because I know you up level gratitude. So so tell us of one, an example of up leveling because I think that’s so important. It’s so easy to just be grateful for the material things, right? And then tell us of a challenge one. So I, this one actually happened today and I thought about it. So I was in my office and I was trying to solve a really complex problem. We hired a consultant that’s helping with some operations and I couldn’t get my head around it. And so I took a little notebook with a pen, put it in my back pocket and I said, I’m going on a walk. So I went on a walk and

[18:13] there’s a park down the road and stream through the park. And I thought it’d sure be nice to walk down by the stream and hear the water and water’s flowing. And I bet I can get some ideas flowing. This is what’s going through my head. I know whatever. So I do that and I get to the bridge and I’m standing there and I see this couple probably in their mid thirties and they’re walking with a handicapped man. And he was, I would guess mid sixties. And you could tell he was severely handicapped and he was, he was going along and I think he was physically handicapped and mentally handicapped. And I looked at them and the two people that were helping, they could have been social workers, they could have been husband and

[18:56] wife, brother, sister. I don’t know. They were smiling. I smiled at them and I looked at the handicapped person and I smiled and I realized, I said, you know, I just realized how grateful I was to have a fully functioning body in mind. But then I was looked at him and I thought he’s lived a life and I making the assumption that maybe his entire life has been this way. How grateful I was that people were willing to care for him. And so it’s like this level of gratitude just kept on swarming over me. And guess who easily solved all of the other problems with their notebook? This guy right here, because I changed it. Now I could have thrown a pity party and I could have been mad and frustrated, but I didn’t.

[19:46] That was the way that I was able to solve it. That’s how I choose to do it, because I realize there’s only one permanent thing that’s going to end this. And that’s if I’m laying down and the sun is beaming in my head and all of a sudden the sky’s open and a crowd of angels say, welcome. Here’s the music. Besides that, I mean, really, can I be losing? No, I’m grateful for everything because I’m breathing right now. Yep. Love it. Life is like that. And so for any of you listeners that maybe feel like it’s a challenging time, realize you’re hearing this podcast with your ears and your mind is able to think about it. And I would venture to guess that you have a lot more going for you than you realize. And to

[20:42] circle back to our beginning topic, we are all partners in this, the partners for prosperity. And we have the principles of prosperity. And, you know, I guess one of the calls to action I could make is if you are not familiar with those principles of prosperity, each one of those can be something that will trigger a item of gratitude in your life. And so go to the website, partnersfor prosperity.com. And if you also find something that you’re grateful for, I’d love to hear it. And I bet you would as well. So send an email to hello at partnersforprosperity.com. Does that sound like a plan? That’s awesome. Thank you, Spencer. So grateful to you. And if you’re looking for the seven principles, the easiest

[21:28] way to find them is to go to the blog and search seven principles. And there’s a couple different articles that’ll pop up. We’ve taken the seven principles through our health. We’ve taken them, of course, through money. I believe we’ve taken them through relationships. So you’ll find some good fodder there to feed your soul as we feed our bodies on Thanksgiving week. And how cool that we live in a country that has such a thing. Yes, absolutely. Thank you, partners for spending the time with us today. 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

[22:16] and leave a review.