Latest / The Happiness in Retirement® Hour / Money Mindset Mastery
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- Swell AI Transcript: Money Mindset Mastery.wav SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Happiness in Retirement podcast, where we help you turn your retirement dreams into reality. Each week, we'll dive into smart financial strategies, lifestyle tips, and expert insights to help you build a fulfilling and secure retirement. Whether you're planning ahead or already enjoying retirement, this is your go-to place for inspiration and practical advice. So sit back, relax, and let's make your golden years the best years. Del Ceti Capital Management LLC. Del Ceti is a registered investment advisor. Advisory services are only offered to clients or prospective clients where Del Ceti and its representatives are properly licensed or exempt from licensure. For additional information, please visit our website at www.happinessinretirement.com. SPEAKER_01: Welcome. Welcome to this episode of the Happiness and Retirement Program podcast. I'm your host and creator of the Happiness and Retirement Program and this podcast, Bill Del Setti. Thank you for joining me today. Well, if you've listened to any prior podcasts, you're probably noticing a theme and the theme has to do with how you view money and your life. Life planning has been something we've talked about quite a bit in prior podcasts, and we're going to talk more about it today. And the reason we spend a lot of time at Del Ceti Capital talking about goals and life planning, because they are the driver for financial success, which occurs in the context of your entire life. And there's this idea floating around out there now on the internet, this idea of your money mindset. So what is money mindset? Well, it's your core beliefs and attitudes about money. And of course that influences how you spend, save and manage debt. Well, your money mindset occurs within the context of your entire life. And this idea of a context for your life was created by Werner Erhard. Werner Erhard was the creator or is the creator of the Landmark program. personal and professional development program. And this idea of context for your life basically is how you view life. And if the context for your life is negative, then your money mindset probably is not going to be positive, right? Context meaning the whole, all of it. So in order to have the proper money mindset, the first thing you have to do is have an empowering context, again, using Warner Earhart's words, and an empowering context has to occur in spite of your current circumstances. You see, we all have circumstances from time to time, at least, that are not great, but it's in those times that you need to have an empowering context. So how do you do that? Well, You do that by having goals. You believe you can achieve this empowering context. If you don't believe you have an internal locus of control for your life, you're not going to do the hard things necessary to give you a shot of achieving those goals. Stephen Covey in the book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, talks about this idea of an internal locus of control. An internal locus of control means that you believe that you have a say in your life and how it goes. In his words, you're the programmer of your life. Write the program. If you have an external locus of control, that means you have a victim mindset. And what's the point in trying? If there's an external locus of control, it's the world's fault and your circumstances are bad. They're always going to be that way and there's no point in trying. So if you have an external locus of control to stop right there, you're not going to have an empowering money mindset, at least as much is necessary for you to really have a shot at hitting those goals. So, so have an internal locus of control for the context of your money and your life. And it's not that you're. Circumstances are necessarily going to change right away, if ever. But if you say to yourself, well, I am going to save enough, but only if the market goes up all the time, then, you know, you're just going to be at the whim of circumstances. So this empowering context needs to be front and center in your life, in spite of your current circumstances. Did you know that the number one predictor of success is not intelligence? You want to guess what it is? It's conscientiousness. You're going to plan. You're going to abide by schedules. You're not going to miss your bill payments. You're going to show up on time. You're going to keep your promises. You're going to practice self-care. You're going to work hard. You're going to be less likely to do the things like smoking and drinking they're going to negatively impact your life. So is it any surprise that conscientiousness plays a huge role in the potential for your success? Well, are you going to be conscientious if the context for your life is negative? Of course not. So having this money mindset that if it's to be, it's up to me within the context of an empowering future and what you're living into, man, that's powerful. Look, I'm not talking about just whistling by the graveyard. I'm not talking about just being happy all the time and not being realistic. So let's talk for a minute about the Stockdale paradox. Admiral Jim Stockdale, who's the highest ranking U.S. military officer in the Hanoi Hilton prisoner of war camp, During the Vietnam War, he wrote a book called In Love and War, along with his wife. If there was anyone that should have had a disempowering context for a life, it was Admiral Stockdale. Of course, tortured and just horrible things over the course of eight years. And he was interviewed, and in the interview, he said, you know, I never lost faith in the end of the story. He never had a doubt, and to quote him, I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which in retrospect, I would not trade. His words, pretty amazing. He went through some horrifying things, horrible, horrible things for many years, but the paradox to all of this is when he was asked who didn't make it out, he said, oh, that's easy. The Optimists. Now, wait a minute. So the Optimists were the ones that didn't get out. They were the ones that, again, in his words, oh, we're going to be out by Christmas, they'd say. We're going to be out by Easter, and Easter would come and go, and then Thanksgiving, et cetera, et cetera, and they died of a broken heart. His point is, and again, his words, you must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end, which you can never afford to lose, with the discipline to confront the brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they may be. The Stocktale Paradox. You have to have faith and confront the brutal facts at the same time. Interesting. The context of your life and the money mindset that you should have in order to be successful, you've got to say, Hey, look, maybe my current circumstances are, they're not great. I've got a family to support and I just lost my job. or I just got a divorce, or whatever it may be, your current circumstances are such that they're not going to be great all the time. But you can never lose faith that you're going to make it through. So again, this empowering context for your life is okay. These current circumstances are what they are. And I can't really do anything about my current circumstances, but I can live into a future I can have a context for my financial future that's really empowering. And I'm going to save enough and I'm going to work hard. I'm going to be conscientious. I'm going to go the extra mile at work. I'm going to go to college. I'm going to stop smoking. I'm going to go to the gym. All of these things that occur within the context of your life. Very important. Another concept when it comes to money mindset is this idea of happiness set point theory. I don't know if you've ever heard of this before, but the set point theory of happiness says that we all have a set point for happiness and our set point is genetically determined and it makes up 50% of our happiness. The good news is of the other 50% of our happiness, 40% of our happiness can be influenced by intentional activity and only 10% by external circumstances. Well, this is great news. First of all, 50% of our happiness is genetic. Well, I don't know about you. I don't get up in the morning with this empowering. Context. It just doesn't happen. I wake up in the morning, like God, you know, uh, yeah. Okay. Life is life and it takes work, but the intentional activities that I personally engage in. You know, we all know the people that jump out of bed in the morning, they're happy and energized and good to go. I'm not that way. So I've got to get up and I've got a journal. I've got to express some gratitude. I've got to exercise. I've got to get the blood flowing, you know, all of those things. Um, and, and then I can have a great day assuming I was, or assuming I am conscientious and I've got enough sleep and done all those things. Well, then the external circumstances only account for 10%. of my happiness. And those external circumstances as a financial advisor also includes market declines. When you become a financial advisor and investment advisor, well, that's just part of, you know, life is dealing with these sometimes challenging market conditions, but having that empowering money mindset and viewing declines as sales, definitely helps me to be a better advisor. So happiness set point theory, 50% of our happiness is genetic. If your makeup is that that 50% for you is pessimism and you know, not so happy, intentional activities, 40% of your happiness, only 10% external circumstances. Google happiness set point theory and you'll find the activities that you can do to help you influence that happiness, which will help you to live into an empowering context, which will help you to have the right money mindset, which will help you to be financially successful. So you see financial success primarily a function of the activities that you do or you don't do, the actions you take or you don't take, much more so than your current circumstances. Let's talk about input goals versus output goals and how this relates to your money mindset. I'm a big believer in input goals. Input goals are activities that you act on that can influence how it turns out. Now I said influence, but it's not decisive. In other words, if we focus on output goals, we're focusing on things that are beyond our control. Let me give you an example. If an input goal is saving 20% of your salary, if that's your input goal, then that's something that you can influence. You have a say, you are causing the matter of saving 20% of your income. But if instead you focus on an output goal, well, I better achieve a 15% return, or the markets better cooperate, or I don't wanna have market declines. Well, those are all output goals, and there's really nothing we can do about it. Another input goal is education. How much education do you have? How much are you trained? Continuous improvement, are you getting better at your job, at your skill, at your profession? You have absolute say in that. You don't have a say in whether or not you get that promotion. You don't have a say whether or not your business is going to be successful necessarily, but you certainly can take steps that you know can help with that. So you want to focus on input goals, not output goals. There's a saying, always do your best, but be non-attached to the outcome of your efforts. Boy, who would have thought on a financial podcast we'd be talking about Buddhism? I believe that's a Buddha saying I could be wrong. Always do your best and be non-attached to the outcome of your efforts. And when you become attached to outcomes, you make bad decisions. Think about market timing. Market timing is all about trying to influence the output, you know? Market timing There's a saying the market timers hall of fame is still empty. I have yet in almost 30 years of being involved in finance to meet a rich market timer, but I've met a lot of folks who stayed the course who have done very well in life. I can tell you that for sure. And you know what? Those folks all focused on input goals, how hard they work. Were they conscientious? Did they work hard? Did they study? Did they forego that extra beer on a Friday night because they had to get up early to go exercise, right? All of those things. And they had an empowering context in which to live into. Chances are they had goals, plenty of research around the success rates of folks that have goals versus those that do not that occur within this empowering context. So this all comes back to this idea of having a life plan. You've got to create that context for your life. You've got to create those goals. You can use the Franklin Covey Mission Statement Builder. I've talked about that in prior podcasts. Google a Covey Mission Statement Builder. Go to the website and create a mission statement. It's free. Personal mission statement. Let that guide your life and then take actions that will fulfill on that mission, help you fulfill on it. Input goals. You could also go through life planning and think about the one or two or three things in your life that are critical for you that matter most and then do the hard things necessary to make those things happen. You've got to have that context for your life and then you've got to keep it front and center in spite of your current circumstances. The beauty of the Covey mission statement builder and the plan plus calendar system that is also by Franklin Covey. No, I'm not compensated by them whatsoever, but it certainly influenced my life is this idea that, okay, you create this mission statement. What are the goals and the roles in my life? The roles that I play in the goals, the things I want to achieve. And then every single week you sit down for an hour, maybe on a Sunday, and you put on the calendar those things that are gonna move the needle and get you closer to hitting those goals, and you prioritize those things. Maybe it's exercise. Maybe it's making the extra four or five phone calls every day you need to make, because you're in sales, making four or five sales calls. Maybe they're not gonna be successful. That's an output goal, but you know, if you exercise enough, if you eat right most of the time, You know, remember input goals and your chances of hitting those output goals are a lot higher. So have an empowering context for your life, which will help you to have the proper money mindset. Focus on input goals, not output goals. Focus on the things in your life according to happiness set point theory that you can influence to help you enjoy your life. and then take the hard steps necessary to be successful. Save 20% of your income, have enough life insurance on your life such that if something happens to you, your family is not impacted financially. Have a will, have incapacity documents in place, plan and live into that future. And once you've achieved those financial goals of say, retiring at age 60, make sure to have a strategy to spend down those assets and enjoy them. Money is not a means to an end, it's to help you enjoy your life. So have a strategy to make sure that that money is not your master, but a servant. That's it, folks. Hope you enjoyed today's episode of the Happiness in Retirement Program podcast. This has all been a stream of thoughts podcast, so hopefully it makes sense and you enjoyed it. Any questions, reach out. Bill at happinessinretirement.com. Subscribe. Tell your friends about us. Talk to you soon. Thanks for listening. SPEAKER_00: The information provided is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice, and it should not be relied on as such. It should not be considered a solicitation to buy or an offer to sell a security. It does not take into account any investor's particular investment objectives, strategies, tax status, or investment horizon. You should consult your financial professional, attorney, or tax advisor. That's it for today's episode of the Happiness in Retirement Program podcast. We hope you found some valuable insights to help you create the retirement you deserve. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who's planning for their future. For more tips and resources, visit happinessinretirement.com or the Del Ceti Capital Management Facebook page. Until next time, here's to a happy, healthy, and financially secure retirement.