Velocitizing Your Vocabulary – Episode 054

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[00:00] 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 to another edition of the Prosperity Podcast. This is No BS Money Guy, Todd Strobel. Once again, got bestselling financial author Kim Butler as my co-host and in the office with us today. Hi Kim. So Todd, happy to be here. You know, you mentioned bestselling, that must mean we’ve got books and we’ve got another one coming out. In fact, it is the one that hit bestselling category just for a moment, but that’s all it takes on Amazon in the life insurance section with your life insurance.

[00:50] And we have the second version coming out just in another week or two. And I bet I could be convinced to create an audio version of that. What do you think? I bet we could talk you into that. Cool. Looking forward to it. Awesome. Well, Kim, you have taught me a lot in that your vocabulary has a lot to do with changing your life. If you change the way you speak, you can change the way you think and changing the way you think can change your reality. So today we’re going to be talking about velocitizing your vocabulary. That sounds pretty cool, doesn’t it? It does. This is, once again, something that I have personally learned from you and I’m excited from our listeners to learn some as well. So I’m just going to kind of let you take it from there.

[01:38] Fabulous. Well, I need to give a big thank you to Will Duffy, who’s an advisor that was at our event, who provided a YouTube video called The Power of Word. So just if you’re interested in that couple minute YouTube video, pop in there and put in the search button, The Power of Words. And it’s a really, really good example of how critically important that they are. And so I’m going to cover some today that are more along the areas of mindset. Now we know think and thinking from a prosperous mindset is the first principle of prosperity. And so when we talk about mindset, mindset matters. We’ve talked about that before. It is part of you building your wealth. And then I’ve also got some actual financial words that we’ll have some fun with too.

[02:32] So shall we tackle financial or mindset first? I think mindset comes before money. So let’s start with mindset. There you go. So velocitizing your vocabulary. One of the most important mindsets to have is the difference between gratitude and entitlement. And so anytime we can be grateful, anytime we can be proactively grateful, which means put the gratitude out without anything expected back and put it out first, we’re in so much better of a position to take advantage of opportunity than when we’re putting words out there that indicate entitlement. And entitlement is a really easy thing to fall into. We’ve written about it, talked about it before. It is absolutely something that we want to keep ourselves out of and our thinking out

[03:25] of and also our children. I’ve even heard the current crop of children being called the entitlement generation. And it’s just not what we want to fall into. Gratitude is so much more freeing. It’s so much more velocitizing. I mean, that was a great title because gratitude gets things moving. And whenever I’m frustrated, if I can find something to be proactively grateful about or positive about, then it turns that around in a big hurry. Awesome. All right. Number one, gratitude versus entitlement. What’s next? Number two is compliment versus criticize or complain. So there is a fabulous piece of material out there called ComplaintFreeWorld.org. And Will Bowen has YouTubes and blog posts and books and cruises and little other bits

[04:22] and pieces, home study courses for the homeschooling crowd about the value of complimenting versus complaining. And ComplaintFreeWorld.org, I mean, it pretty much says everything that it is right there. And any time I catch myself complaining, I try to switch that around to a compliment. In fact, just the other day, my husband said, oh, you know, why don’t you try this? And literally out of my mouth, as my statement is being made, I’m trying to switch it around into a compliment instead of resisting or complaining about what it was that he was suggesting that I try. So just find ways to compliment. And if you do need to complain, only complain to somebody that can do something about it. And when you do that, Will Bowen says it’s not a complaint anymore.

[05:12] But compliment, compliment, compliment. It’s a great way to get your world going. It’s a great way to get money moving. If you think about it, when people buy things, that’s a compliment. And so we need to be good at giving compliments. And we also need to be good at receiving compliments. And not be quite so hard on yourself. I think sometimes this is a great way to stop and just kind of get a chuckle at yourself when you catch yourself at this so that you don’t start complaining about yourself. Well said, absolutely. What’s next? So number three is forgive versus holding a grudge. And gosh, are there just incredible stories out there. A mother whose son gets murdered forgives the person with the gun because she knows

[06:07] that’s the only way that she’s going to get ahead. And there’s just numerous, numerous stories of that. And there are also stories of the opposite side where somebody’s held a grudge for years about some particular thing. And it has literally caused themselves way more trouble and problems than it ever caused the person that they were holding that grudge for. So we just want to be aware of it and be forgiving instead of holding of a grudge. I think there’s probably even medical proof that a lot of illness comes from that. Absolutely. All right. So our next one is fail and pivot versus fail and blame. So talk about studies. They’re also showing, thank goodness, that failure is awesome. Fail and pivot.

[07:02] Pivot is a term that the Silicon Valley uses heavily these days when something that they tried didn’t work and they pivot. They switch gears and try something else. So fail and pivot instead of fail and blame. It’s so much better for you. You’ll get better results. You’ll learn from your failures. And that’s a question that you can just ask yourself. OK, this doesn’t seem to be working. What can I learn from it so that I can move on? And that’s the pivot. It’s turning just even ever so slightly and trying something again. I was at a dog groomer’s office, I guess is what you would call it here just the other day. And inside the office, they have a blind cat. And now picture how cats move about and this cat is completely blind.

[07:50] So I mean, it makes mistakes. It falls off things. It runs into walls and same thing. There’s no bad attitude. Think of how we would handle that. I mean, if every time you took a step, you know, you potentially made a huge mistake, it would just get up, not do that again, turn around, go a different direction. I love it. That’s great. Well, Jordan Adler, who’s a send out cards fabuloso, I’m going to say, is a speaker at this last event that we were at. And he shared a story about a hummingbird that was accidentally in his house and kept flying against the window. And there was an open door on the opposite side of the room. And he finally turned around and flew out the door. And Jordan put up the picture of the window and he said, that’s in destruction versus

[08:41] the open door, freedom and potential. And that’s what the hummingbird did. Just turned around and tried the other direction after continuing to fly against the window for a while and not getting any results, just turned around, just pivoted. And that’s what we can do mentally first. Sometimes I try to do it physically if, if I need that physical shift in my thought to get the better results. Super. I love that example. The next one is to talk ideas versus talking things or people. And I believe it’s Eleanor Roosevelt. And I can’t quote this exactly, but it’s something to the effect of great minds talk about ideas and mediocre minds talk about people and very small minds talk about things or that’s something in the realm of the quote.

[09:32] And so just anytime you’re catching yourself gossiping, then just switch gears, fail and pivot, right? And talk about ideas, talk about things that are meaningful to you. And I think you’ll get a lot better results. And it really goes back. I mean, this one picks up a lot of our things back to money for a minute. If we’re complaining that we don’t have enough money, switch that conversation, fail and pivot and talk about ideas about how you could earn more money or how you could increase your savings or whatever it is that’s important to you. So we again, just want to be really aware of the language that we have, the vocabulary that we’re using. And the last one that’s on my little list for today is how we’re spending our

[10:14] time to feed our brains words that are going to be valuable. And so I just want to ask every listener today, how much time do you spend reading versus how much time you spend watching TV? And I’m not going to make any judgment call. And I’m not even going to indicate my own particular habits around this area, though those of you that know me well know them. But just add it up. Just take a look at how much you spend reading. And then, of course, next week we could talk about what it is that you are reading. But let’s just right now add it up. How much time you spend reading versus how much time you spend on TV? I happen to be in a doctor’s office this week as well. And one of the statistics on there was 40% of Americans have not read a book in

[11:02] over a year. Yeah, I think I have seen that. And that’s a shame. And so, again, as we dig in next time to what it is that we’re reading, because I think that, too, holds a really big hint as to the kind of results that you’re getting. So, yeah, just add it up and see where you are with it and what you can do about it. All right, shall we switch to words around the financial world? I’m ready. OK, well, this is a fun one, too, a little list that I came up with as I was thinking about what to share today. And one of the things that we help our clients with so much is the idea of borrowing against the cash value of whole life insurance as opposed to the idea of borrowing from. And anybody that’s spent much time on the phone with me about life

[11:57] insurance has heard me correct, sometimes even myself, because I fall into making the wrong statement as well. And when we say borrow from, we think that we’re actually removing the money in some form. And clients will even ask sometimes, well, why would I pay interest to borrow my own money? And that’s why I’m so particular about these words, because it’s horribly misleading when you use the word borrow from unless you’re going to follow it right up with borrow from the insurance company. And so I prefer to use the word borrow against, because that’s really what you’re doing. You’re borrowing against your cash value from the insurance company. And it’s a huge difference in meaning. And that’s why we really want to be velocitizing our vocabulary.

[12:47] We always want to be looking at the words that we’re using and making sure that they’re having the biggest impact and the right impact and that they’re the whole truth about all things, whether it’s a financial discussion that we’re having or any other thing. So borrow against versus borrow from is one of them. And as we get into the financial side of this, it’s less conceptual. I would encourage everybody to go to partners, the number four, prosperity.com. And not only can you read some of the articles about what we’re talking about, but you can see some physical examples that might help clarify, as well as I encourage you to call in if you need more information on exactly what that means. Yes, absolutely.

[13:34] These can get a little esoteric sometimes without a doubt. And the next one’s going to dig even deeper in that category. And it’s interest payment versus interest cost. So let me set this up a little bit. You are going to a car dealership. You are being promoted the idea of a zero percent loan. And so you think, OK, I won’t have any interest cost when in actuality what’s happening there, the dealer and their financing arm is adding the interest to the cost of the car. So instead of a, say, thirty five thousand dollar vehicle being sold to you for thirty five thousand, which would not the dealer profit. We know they’re making a profit. They are selling this thirty five thousand dollar vehicle for forty

[14:27] thousand, adding five thousand dollars of interest to the cost of the car. And so if you have an interest cost versus an interest payment in your head, it will help you get clear on this. And another way that you might say it is that you either pay up interest or you pass up interest. So let me work that one through. If you pay up interest, it means that you are paying interest to typically a financial institution. This could be an insurance company. It could also be a bank or a credit union for a car or anything else where you’re paying interest. When you pass up interest is when you use your own cash. And what you’re doing is you’re passing up the interest on where that cash came from. Now, I know in the late years of 2015 that a lot of people’s cash

[15:28] isn’t earning much, but nevertheless, you are still passing up interest. So let’s say that you actually did have an account that was earning two percent. Well, then you are taking money out of that account and passing up the two percent interest in order to pay the cost at somewhere else, whatever it is for your car or what have you. So pay up or pass up interest, a good way to think about it, interest payment versus interest cost, a good way to think about it. And it absolutely can get confusing. I know I had to think through this quite a bit myself in order to get a handle on it. But it’s so important that we get clear that even though we may not have an interest payment, we may, for example, pay cash for something

[16:15] in its entirety. We still have an interest cost because of where we took the money from and the earnings that that dollar could have been earning inside whatever account was there. And if you wanted to apply economic language to it, you could call it opportunity cost. That’s essentially what’s happening is you took money out of an account. And now that money has lost the opportunity to continue earning in that account. So that might be another way to help yourself get your arms around it. And, you know, we all learned about opportunity cost in high school and college economics. But because it was never applied to our own personal financial realm, we often didn’t understand it then. And if we did, we’ve probably forgotten about it.

[17:05] So good thing to bring back around is opportunity cost and being aware of the difference between an interest payment and an interest cost. Perfect. What’s next? Well, you know, we’ve talked about this book realm that we have reading, how important reading is, and taking a look at how you’re spending your time and what you’re reading. And we’ll actually have a book coming out, I’m going to say, in another month or two. I know I keep hinting at this, but I promise it’s almost done. It’s called Busting the Interest Rate Lies. And it goes through a very thorough analysis of the mortgage arena, like a 15-year versus a 30-year mortgage arena, and also actually takes a high school kid all the way through car financing.

[17:54] So we cover that concept around the interest rate being added to the cost of the car and some other interest things. So not interesting things, but interest things that a person deals with all the way through their work as an adult in the interest arena. And again, that’s Busting Interest Rate Lies. Is that the name? Busting the Interest Rate Lies. That’ll be on Amazon in another month or two, looking forward to it. Super. And that’ll be by Kim D.H. Butler, correct? That is correct. Somebody asked me the other day, what’s the D.H. stand for, Kim? Is it designated hitter? And I said, no, it’s D for Diane, my middle name, and H for Hayes, my maiden name. And the only reason I did it that way is because I wanted to be different.

[18:43] And so I thought two middle initials were cool. You know, people in England do it all the time. In fact, the president of our college when I was attending, which is probably where I got the idea, was John E.G. Boyman, because, and he’s from England, in the land of England, they have two middle initials all the time, so normal there, different over here. I liked different. Super. Well, special thanks to our listeners today. I know we went a little bit longer than we usually do, but this is a message that we thought that was really important. Kim, anything else you want to add before we wrap up? Just gratitude as always. Thanks for listening and thanks for learning. Keep sending in those questions and we’ll keep finding the answers for you.

[19:28] Again, this is No BS Money Guy Todd Strobel for the Prosperity Podcast. 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.