The Impact of Global Events on Personal Finance – Episode 551     

This transcript was auto-generated and may contain errors.

[00:01] Welcome to the Prosperity Podcast. Prosperity thinkers, on this episode of the podcast, we’re going to be talking about the impact of global events on personal finance. From the research that I have done, this is a very common and talked about subject worldwide. We’re not just talking US. And so for our listeners that happen to be outside of the US, maybe it’s Canada, this is something that we will get into depth. So, Kim, I’m excited to share this topic with you and then hear your feedback. So when you first hear that, where does your mind go? Well, it’s so interesting how often we get really wired up about something that we’ve read or heard in the news. And I have been on record for a long, long time about having a news diet, a news fast,

[00:59] if you will, and really staying out of that. And yet a lot of people, because of their work or just their own personal interests, do maintain knowledge around the various events that happen globally. And there’s nothing wrong with that if that is your space and you enjoy doing that. And at the same time, it is so imperative that we not let things that we cannot control affect things that we can control. And our area of personal finance is absolutely controllable by us, not all dollars, for example, maybe you can’t really control your 401k or IRA dollars. You have some control, but not an entire amount of them. However, there is something that we can always, always control around personal finance, and that is how we’re thinking about it.

[01:56] And so it’s very easy to get all wrapped up in, for example, you know, the war in fill in the blank or the uprising in fill in the country and be afraid. And that fear is harmful. It’s harmful to our personal finances. It’s harmful to our health, our mindset, our relationships. And so I think it’s very, very important that we be conscious of what we’re letting in our brains and then what that’s doing to our hearts and our minds, literally, and our relationships, which then impact that that we can control, which is personal finance and, you know, personal finance, your dollars have an impact on everything that you do. We can say, oh, money is not important to me. But the fact is money affects everything that we do.

[02:55] So if you are tying in global events that you have no control over with personal finance, that you have a little bit of control over and that’s affecting how you’re thinking and being, which you have one hundred percent control over, then that is an area to work on improving. Yeah, absolutely. You know, one thing that’s different about our generation now with the proliferation of information, social media or just being able to Google something is that 20 years ago, we didn’t know about all of the problems that were happening throughout the world. I mean, I guess you could if you had the TV on all the time. And, but, you know, for the most part, we didn’t know what was going on and now it’s easily accessible.

[03:55] Taking your perspective of that, we can choose where we put our attention. So, for example, I’ve traveled to a couple of countries recently and I have seen prosperity in other countries that I have not seen in the U.S. And that prosperity impacts how I look at finances and how I look at the world and I can see that that heartbeat, that movement, and I can see, oh, I’m actually I can see this is going to start to happen in the U.S. So again, back to news, we could be looking at the war, we could be looking at this famine or whatever that is. No, thanks. Or we could look at the prosperous things that are happening. But tying it back, what are the other impacts of global events on our personal finance or you can even just slim it down and say city

[04:51] events or family events? What does that look like? Well, it’s like everything in life, all of it is connected. And so whatever level of event you are choosing to be impacted by, it’s just so important to bring that prosperity thinkers lens to it. And I want to be clear, this is not a rose colored glasses. Oh, everything’s going to be fine mentality. This is more of a here’s an event. Here’s a space. Here’s a opportunity and fill in the blank happened. Now it’s what am I thinking about it? How is it impacting how I’m showing up for the very next event that I am attending? Just quick story. So it’s freezing weather right now and in a lot of parts of the country and in Texas, that’s an unusual thing.

[05:49] We don’t deal with it very often. It means shutting off water at the barn, making sure when I go out there that the water that’s in the buckets under the heat lamps that still froze because it’s so cold is available for the alpacas. So that’s an event, right? I go to the barn. I have to crack the ice. I have to do all this stuff. And then I come back to the house. Well, in the house, we had a variety of people over the weekend. Everybody was warm, happy doing what was important to them. There were people cooking. There were people doing puzzles. And so I had to check my event at the door, right? I dealt with the ice. I dealt with the cold, dealt with the problems. If I had come in and I’ve done this before, come blasting in the door.

[06:39] The previous event is in my head, in my heart, on my hands, sometimes literally, and I don’t take a moment to wash my hands, to clear my mind about the next space that I’m going to be in. I can come blasting into a very harmonious situation and bring all this stuff that I was dealing with with me that nobody that’s in the house can do anything about. I did what was needed when I was in the barn. And now I too can let that go so that it doesn’t need to impact everybody that’s in the house. So it’s no different when somebody happens to turn to their phone and read about the XYZ event, repeating that verbally or expressing concern audibly when you’re in a room of people that are having harmonious

[07:43] conversations, working on business, working on puzzles, cooking. It doesn’t matter what everybody else is doing. Think for a moment, stop and think for a moment before you bring the prior event into the current event, before you bring something that nobody can do anything about into a room where what they can do something about is already being done. And so that’s a challenge that all of us human beings can tackle and just be conscious that that phone, which is where most people get news about all types of world events and the information in it does not always need to be brought into the room. Absolutely. So to dissect that we have to be aware of the information that we’re consuming, then we have to be aware.

[08:43] And if we have to consume or say this, choose to consume that information, be it for, you know, reasons that we want to entertain ourselves, or maybe it’s for work, or maybe it’s just for information gathering, one of those reasons. The next is to set up the filter, as you mentioned, and to say, is this something I need to be sharing with other people? Correct? Absolutely. In another story, a different situation, somebody came in and they had just seen and taken a picture of a wreck and they were showing the picture of the wreck to everybody. And I chose not to look at it. I did not want that image in my head. Now, had there been something that I could do about it? Absolutely. I’m all in, like roll up the sleeves, get my brain on, what can I do to help?

[09:38] But in this instance, it was half an hour ago and miles from me, there was absolutely nothing that I could do about it. So putting that image in my head, putting that thought then in my brain that then affects the very next person that I speak with, that is not acceptable. And it takes some practice and it takes sometimes putting your foot down a little bit. I mean, I literally turned away and said, no, thanks. I don’t want to see it. Yeah. So you mentioned something there that is, that is actually leading to my next point, which is you didn’t want to put it in your mind. So you’ve chosen the filter again, as you mentioned, it’s not going to get shared or you’re not looking at it. And then what you’ve realized is that this is going to have

[10:26] an effect on the next behaviors. And so the impact of global events, if you are focusing on the catastrophes that are happening, it’s probably going to be pretty difficult to be looking for opportunities or prosperity. Now, I think it could be said that you can find opportunity if, if you are aware of global events and maybe you could say, okay, well, there’s a challenge here by having a resilient mind. You could say, let’s start solving the problem for that. As you mentioned, you know, Hey, let’s, let’s, let’s actually like, you know, get our brains into overdrive and start working. Now, maybe that’s helpful, but again, probably not going to be the first step in that exercise. How do you approach that when, you know, you just came back

[11:17] from a strategic coach event? I would imagine people are talking about a variety of things. Uh, some businesses are going great. Some businesses are going through transitions. Some businesses are innovating. You’re probably seeing all this information and some you’re accepting and willing to take some of it. You were looking at it and you’re saying, how can I apply this with the prosperity lens? I’d love to get some feet, like final feedback on that. Well, thank you for asking. Yes, I will happily publicly state that sometimes the first and best thing to do is to just stop and listen. And I’m going to say, listen in the form of prayer, you know, so often we think of prayer as pleading, but I really see it as praising.

[12:05] So if somebody’s discussing a wonderful business opportunity, that’s going well. I will praise the intuitive, amazing, uh, innovative mindset that they brought to cause that amazing business thing to occur. If somebody’s discussing a business thing that is, as you said, in transition, full of challenge with strife, et cetera, then I will listen to find where I can praise. And there’s always one nugget of good in every sentence. There’s always one capacity for positivity in every story. And so just sometimes keeping my mouth shut for a few minutes and listening and learning and looking, and then finding a good space, finding something to elevate that brings in the learning that occurred or the one

[13:09] positive element that is there to see if possibly that is reputable, scalable, repeatable, any of those things that business transitions can start out with that are negative, but then turn positive. So let’s take what you just said and turn it into an action. So here’s what I would love to have for our listeners. If, uh, you as a listener can share with us one thing that you’re seeing that is positive, one event, one thing that is positive that is happening in your life that is causing more prosperity, send an email to hello at prosperity thinkers and tell us what that is. It could be a sentence. It could be a paragraph. You could write a story that email is specific for you. And the reason we do that is because now we will get feedback

[14:10] and we can keep it anonymous and then just share those on future episodes, if that makes sense. But I think what it does is taking a moment of that gratitude, a prayer in a way, a reflection, and then sharing, I can guarantee more prosperity will come your way. Thank you for listening to the prosperity podcast. To take control of your money and have it work for you. Visit prosperity thinkers.com.