Latest / Money to Give / Ep. 64 Part 2: Gratitude, Contentment, And The Freedom To Live Generously with Chad Hufford

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Ep. 64 Part 2: Gratitude, Contentment, And The Freedom To Live Generously with Chad Hufford · Money to Give

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: There comes a point when having more stops feeling like
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: progress and clarity, gratitude and purpose begin to matter far
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: more than accumulation. Welcome to money to give with me
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Rick Peck, the philanthropy guy with over twenty years in
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: the nonprofit sector. I've seen hundreds of millions of dollars
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: transferred from donors to nonprofits. I've learned a lot along
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: the way that I want to help convey to you,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: my loyal listeners. In this podcast series, we talk about
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: one how nonprofits can most effectively showcase their mission and
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: vision and raise as much money as possible. Two how
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: donors and potential donors can make the greatest impact possible
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: in the world, and three how professional advisors, including philanthropic advisors,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: can offer the most up to date information and services
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: to their clients. So join us here each episode for
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: more of that giving feeling. In today's episode, I'm joined
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: once again by Chad Hufford for a second thoughtful and
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: honest conversation about gratitude to contentment, scarcity, and what it
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: really means to live with margin financially, emotionally, and spiritually.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: We explore how perspective shapes generosity, why contentment is a
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: learned skill, and how financial clarity can lack both freedom
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: and impact.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: Let's begin, So, Chad, how do you help people shift
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: from a mindset of survival to one of stewardship and generosity.
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: Well, beliefs are very important, and I think it's critical
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: that people have a belief first of all, that it's possible.
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: Like if think about like somebody who's working out and
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: you know they're on a treadmill and their lungs are burning,
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: their legs are burning. If that person doesn't believe that
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: there's a healthier version of them on the other side
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: of that treadmill, they're going to get off and quit.
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: So we have to believe that there is more potential
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: for our life, for abundance, for impact. But I also
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: think it's it's perspective, and I always say gratitude is
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: a discipline, it's not an attitude. And a lot of
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: times we want to feel more grateful and we think
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: if we have more, we will feel more grateful. But
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: I believe gratitude is a choice that you make. And
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: here's why this is so important is in our society today,
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: rick everything around us, whether it's commercials or social media,
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: or even television shows and movies. The focus is on
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: everything that we don't have, and in fact it's such
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: as Apple, but some of these tech firms they're producing
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: new products. Part of their marketing is how to get
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: people to believe that they need something they didn't know existed.
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: And that's the culture we live in. So our focus
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: as a society here rick is what am I missing?
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: What do I not have that I should have, that
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: my neighbors have, that my friend has, whatever, and and
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: it steals our joy in it and it creates, I
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: wish say, intensifies the scarcity mindset that most of us
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: already have. I think to a point all of us
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: are born with some sort of a scarcity mindset. Daniel
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: Conneman and all his research showed that that we are.
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: We have a tendency to look at things as through
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: the areas of loss of version and anyway. It's not
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: to go into it.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like systems one, systems too, all that stuff.
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's not so much. We're also was worried
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: about accomplishing something new. We just we just don't want
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: to lose what we have. And it's in the tendency
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: of the reaction. Then is to try to hoard and
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: grab onto everything. So that's that's our natural state. And
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: then you add all of this keeping up with the
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: Jones on top of it. What we focus on is
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: what we think we're missing. When you start having a
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: discipline of gratitude, we could talk about the details of
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: that if you like, for what I do, but you
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: you start noticing the blessed is already in your life
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: rather than all the things that you think you're you're missing.
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: You you focus on what you have, not what you
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: don't have. And I think truly living in abundance and
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: reducing the volume on the scarcity message, the scarcity story
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: your brain is always it's gonna it's gonna still be
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: there on a loop, but it lowers the volume on
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: that so you can live in more abundance and it
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: just have a fresher perspective on life.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a that's a great point. It makes me
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: think about when there's a loss in one's life. Let's
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: just say you have a health scare, and let's just
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: say it affects your breathing, and then the health scare
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: is over, and then you're sitting on a park bench
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: and you're just breathing normally, and you feel like, wow,
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: I'm breathing normally. I'm so happy that I can breathe
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: normally or whatever. Right there's there's or could be a
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: financial like you were definitely almost got white out bankruptcy
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: or something, and then you didn't, and you think, you
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: know what, it's nice just to have something positive in
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: my bank account, or it's it's nice when creditors aren't
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: calling me right. So I think that's kind of almost
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: like it's the opposite of a scarcity mindset. It's almost
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: like I didn't realize how much I had, or I
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: didn't realize how grateful I am for the simple pleasures.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: Rather than feeling like I need two ferraris and I
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: need five houses and I need you know, like there's
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: so much more I need to build to keep up
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: with the Joneses, it's more like I'm just happy that
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: I have something that I didn't think I would be
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: grateful for until I had that loss of it, or
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: I had that situation.
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: Right well, in between real loss and everyday life, we
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: have something I call it near missus. It's somebody swerves
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: ahead of you on the way to work and almost
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: t bones you, or here in Alaska, we're dealing with
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: icy roads and sometimes glare ice and you hit the
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: brakes and your car doesn't respond and you almost hit
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: that car in front. You're just inches from it, and
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: you're just so grateful that you got to work without
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: without incident, and it got to work safely, and you've
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: gotten to work safely one hundred days in a row.
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: But on that day you're extremely grateful because of a
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: near miss. So I believe that losses. If you do
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: lose something, it can make you grateful. But I think
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: the sweet spot there is recognizing near missus, like where
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: maybe you get set out. You mentioned being able to breathe.
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: I got COVID a couple of weeks ago, and one
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: of the things I wrote down so I every morning
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: I write down a little gratitude list. I put it
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: on the kitchen table, not just as a reminder for me,
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: but also as a discipline to illustrate to my kids.
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: And one of the things I wrote is that it
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: didn't go into my lungs. So I was miserable. My
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: head heard body aches on that, but it didn't go
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: into my lungs because I remembered what that felt like
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: several years ago when I first got it and it
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: felt like, yeah, there was a person sitting on my
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: chest and it was It made it what was hard
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: so much worse. And even though I was feeling really crappy,
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: I still had to look at Okay, it's not in
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: my lungs. I actually can take full, deep breaths. I
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: was so grateful for that. So those near misses, though,
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: I think they happen a lot, and in a moment
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: we might see that, but then we just rezon past
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: it and it was just something simple as your lights
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: flicker and it doesn't go into a full on blackout
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: and you don't have power for three days or something
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: like that. But being mindful of that, like, Okay, I'm
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: really thankful for electricity right now, or running water or
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: air conditioning or you know, here and last, we don't
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: worry too much about that, but you know, there's a
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: little things that we take for granted every day. There's
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: a phrase that this fish discover water. Last, Like, when
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: we're surrounded by blessings, we don't appreciate it. So sometimes
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: it takes a loss of those or a near miss
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: and it just heightens our sensitivity. But I believe that
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: if somebody has like a gratitude journal or it has
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: a practice of regularly writing down things, and sometimes for
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: me they're super profound and sometimes they're really really simple,
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: and it doesn't matter which. But what it does is
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: it draws your attention to the good things that are
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: already in your life or some of those near misses,
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: without actually losing the thing that you realize you're so
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: grateful for. So I think near miss is. Maybe that's
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: what I'll put down tomorrow on my gratitude list, is
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: nearlessis because I think it's a phenomenal shift of perspective.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: That's a profound thought. I think that I go two
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: places when I think of near miss. Is it's the
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: near miss that you stop and recognize through your gratitude journal,
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: and then it's the near miss that you go, I
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: don't think about it again, you know, like you and
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: I think to.
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  Speaker 4: Linger on it.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: To linger on the near miss says wow, that could
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: have happened just on that same note. And when you
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: mentioned the car, I think back to this time. This
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: is like fifteen years ago probably I still think back
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: to a time where I was behind a car. It
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: was a one lane north and one lane south, for example,
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: and I'm directly behind this truck or something and I
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: want to pass, and then I blindly just went to pass,
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: and then for some reason I didn't. I just pulled back.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: But then I often think about that point in time
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: that I could have pulled out, and there could have
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: been a Mac truck right there, bam, and it would
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: have been over. And so I think about that as
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: a near miss, the idea of like, nothing really happened,
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: nobody swerved or anything. It was just like a poor
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: decision on my point on my part and I pulled out.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: But I mean to linger on that. It's also instructive.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: It's like, don't do that again, you know. But it's
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: but it's still kind of like you could absorb that.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Or you could say, I've got all near misses around me,
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: and I don't see them, you know why, because they
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: didn't actually happen. Maybe I repeat the same mistake over
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: and over again. Maybe somebody else catches me before I fall,
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: whatever the case may be. But you're not. You don't
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: actually develop that gratefulness. You still are like world's done
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: me wrong. You know, Yeah, all this stuff could have happened,
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: but I'm still looking for the pot at the end
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: of the rainbow, you know, That's what I'm looking for.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: I didn't notice that I almost got hit by another car,
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: or this happened, or I could have gotten a disease,
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: or you know, any of these things can happen to me.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: I'm not recognizing that that's not important to me. So
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: so I just think what you're talking about for me
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: means your intentionality and your consciousness of the near miss
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: and your your reflection on it versus you move on.
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: You're just moving on.
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: And that's a big part of it. I think simply
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: sitting down and reflecting is such a powerful It slows
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: you down to actually notice the good thing's life, whether
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: they're your missus or whether you're like, you know, what
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: that cheeseburger just tasted especially good, or what it could
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: be so minor. But Rick, you and I both know
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: that if people will pause, slow down their life a
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: little bit to notice the blessings, notice the little things
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: that can bring so much, so much impact and so
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: much fulfillment, just so much joy into the like if
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: they stop and notice. Because what we already talked about
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: with Daniel Coddman's research is our mind naturally goes to
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: all the negative things. That is what we naturally go to.
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: And we have media and news sources that reinforce that.
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: And you wake up every morning, you grab your phone
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: and you're like, oh, you know, let's look at all
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: the terrible things that happened. Well, what's wrong across the
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: world while I was sleeping? Right? But so we actually
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: to train our bodies or train our minds, I should say,
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: to notice the good things. And here's what really comes
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: down to to more fully answer your question, is contentment.
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: Because content is a learned skill. It has nothing to
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: do or very little to do with what you actually have,
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: much more to do with what you notice and what
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: you appreciate. And the apostle Paul talks about in Is
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: It Romans I can't remember, but one of his epistles
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: talks about I've learned to be content in all things.
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: I've been content in every circumstance. I've had plenty and
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: I've had lack, and I've learned to be content in
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: both because contentment is something that comes from within. I've
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: not met anybody who is not a grateful person who
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: also is pretty content, Nor have I met anybody who's
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: a super content person that's not graceful, grateful advice person like,
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: I don't know how you separate those. What I have
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: seen though a lot of in my career is working
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: with or at least meeting with, people who are very
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: wealthy but very discontent, and wealth by itself is you've
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: mentioned the pot at the end of the rainbow, like
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: you can keep chasing every gonna get It's like chasing
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: a horizon. We're a football family, so to me, the
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: metaphor I think of it's moving the goal line. You
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: get there, but instead of celebrating and enjoying it, you
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: just you move the end zone down another ten yards
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: and you keep doing that because there's no referee in
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: life that ever comes around and says touchdown. You've nailed it,
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: You've accomplished it. So a lot of times people use
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: money or material things to fill a void in their
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: life that I won't get overly philosophical, but that will
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: never fill that void. But contentment and gratitude is what
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: helps people actually have enough, Because there are billionaires that
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: don't have enough, and there's people that are missionaries living
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: on next to nothing that feel like they have enough.
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: And then there's everything between. So gratitude and contentment I
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: think are the keys to moving past scarcity and being
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: able to step in to abundance.
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's so deep to imagine.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: You have no material objects, but yet you are content
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: and you feel satisfied. And then you could have everything
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: in the world and still feel like you're not happy
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: of the world somehow isn't treating you right? Or you
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: wish you had more. It's all a matter of perspective,
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: I suppose, right in the end, That's what a lot
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: of movies are about too, I guess you see, the
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: protagonist starts with a certain perspective and ends with a
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: different perspective.
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: Well, and I'll just a quick story. So you and
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: I are both old enough to remember Kodak, and some
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: of your listeners are like, what is that like? Well,
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: they were a film and camera company, and this is
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: back in the nineteen hundreds when cameras couldn't make phone
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: calls or search the internet. They only took pictures. And
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: George Eastman was the founder of Kodak, and he was
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: one of the wealthiest people in the world. Kodak, in
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: during its heyday, was one of the most valuable one
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: of the most impactful and innovative companies in the world,
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: not just United States, He's one of the largest companies
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: in the world. George Eastman is one of the most
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: powerful and wealthy people in the world. A lot of
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: people don't know this. He committed suicide in his seventies,
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: oh because of debilitating back pain, for which if he
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: lived today would have been easily augmented with surgery and
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: some medication, but that wasn't available. This is in the
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: sixties or seventies. And I'm not saying there's anything that
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: he did in particular any lack of care for his body.
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: I don't know the details behind it, but he end
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: up committing suicide because even though he had all the
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: wealth in the world, he didn't have his health. And
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: just for people waking up like, yeah, you might you
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: might not be a multi billionaire, but man, if you
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: have your health, and even you have your health, if
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: you have your family, like, everybody has something that they
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: can be grateful for, And there is so much in
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: life that money can't buy. But so many of us
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: are chasing money and wealth and materials as the answer
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: to the wrong questions. So just want to leave people
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: that story because it's it centers me to remind me
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: just how valuable those little things are in my life.
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: Because there's another saying that says the healthy the healthy
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: man has a thousand goals, the unhealthy man has but one.
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: And just man, you woke up this morning and you're
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: able to take a full breath of air, like you said,
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: that is huge. There are millions of people across this
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: planet who would give almost everything to be able to
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: take a full breath of air. And if you woke
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: up this morning be able to do that, count yourself blessed.
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: That's so deep.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: I really appreciate that perspective because I'm not sure that
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: we do that. And one last point on that. I
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: actually went exercising this morning and I often think to myself,
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: I'm really lucky to be able to run, or really
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: lucky to be able to take those deep breaths and
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: feel healthy, feel good. When I finish the run, I
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: feel good, And that is a blessing to be able
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: to say I can do that, because one day I
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: might not be able to do that, but I can
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: do it now And where others would go, yeah, I
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: just went from my run, no big deal or you know,
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: I didn't do five miles today.
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: I did four you know whatever.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: It's like again back to that perspective instead, I'm like,
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: feels good to breathe in deeply, feels good to you know,
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: exercise those muscles a little bit. I'm glad I'm able
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: to do that, you know, glad I'm able to go
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: into my workday and feel somewhat refreshed before I start.
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: So yeah, well, all right, I have another question for you.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: Can you just maybe share a story a specific situation
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: where financial clarity empowered someone to live or give more intentionally?
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: Just really in this.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: Situation, back to your point about perspective, they have clarity
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: in their financial situation, so it made them maybe feel
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: a little bit more confident.
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: Well, and if these two were very much tied together,
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: because if you aren't content person, if you don't feel
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: grateful for what you have, like I mentioned earlier, the
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: tendency is to hoard all of that. And in living
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: in a hoarding sense is I think the epitome of scarcity.
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: And it is a sliding scale, right, There isn't like
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: at one point you become a hoarder, but whatever the
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: thing is, it could be time, could be money, could
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: be resources. But all of us have that thing like
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: to hold on to and we're really reluctant to give
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: it away. And if I think gratitude helps release our
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: grip on the things around us, and contentment allows us
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: to see when is enough enough and just we're not
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: supposed to swear in this podcast, but I'm gonna say
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: that the B word budget. If you have a budget
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: and you're content enough to live within that budget, the
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: clarity shows you the room you have. You've been given enough.
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: Now you can go bless others. And in Leviticus twenty
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: two there's a very obscure passage about Israel and they
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: were commanded to not harvest the edges of their fields,
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: and the command was to allow for foreigners and widows
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: and orphans to be able to glean, which is basically
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: means going through after the fact and picking up the
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: sheaves of grain that had been left, and that was
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: for the entire field. But on the edges of the
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: field they were not supposed to harvest at all and
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: let people less fortunate. So just think about this, the
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: idea of literally living with margin, having a margin around
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: the borders of your life, so you have room to give. Rick,
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: we max out our budgets, our credit cards, our calendars,
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: and in fact our waistlines because we don't have margin
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: for anything. So that is a very broad principle. But
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: having the clarity of knowing what you need to be
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: content and comfortable and knowing what is left over to
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: bless others around you is super super powerful. And just
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: give you a really quick story to I love sharing
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: because we had a couple retire recently and they've done
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: a phenomenal job saving and investing. They're very, very diligent
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: and both had significant earnings. The one of them, one
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: of the spouse's, was an engineer with the oil company,
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: had a tremendous potential to earn literally millions of dollars
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: over the next five or ten years, and chose to
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: retire because they knew they had enough. They had the
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: clarity to know, Okay, we've hit our financial target. The
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: goalposts aren't moving and Rick, right now, what they're doing,
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: Like as we're speaking, they're out in rural Alaska, serving
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: communities that are are laden with depression and alcoholism and
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: drug abuse and even human trafficking. Like some really dark
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: places in Alaska. There's places in Alaska where it's almost
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: like third world countries, and they go out there because
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: they have construction and engineering backgrounds. They go out there
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: and serve the community the building homes, repairing houses because
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: as you can imagine, everywhere in the United States, it's
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: just hard to find a contractor. You could be in
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: the middle of the city with three million people try
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: to get a roofer to come out next week. Imagine
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: you're living in rural Alaska that is like two hundred
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: miles past the middle of nowhere. Well, this couple goes
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: out there and provides the expertise and encouragement and they
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: would not be able to do that without a tremendous
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: amount of discipline but also without a tremendous amount of
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: contentment and generosity.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: Wow, that's really respectable in the sense of again it
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: kind of goes back to fulfillment, like what's giving them
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: pleasure to know that they are helping others who need
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: that same type of help. But then really going out
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: and almost you could say, maybe even putting their lives
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: at risk in some ways because who knows what the
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: conditions are out there, who knows what the safety is
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of things that are risk factors that
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: they're dealing with, and yet there's still doing it because
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: it makes them feel that they're doing something of substance,
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: and they're probably seeing the results of their work, and
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: they're seeing houses going up, people's lives improving, and they
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: can take that back and go, I know why I'm
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: doing this, Like I'm seeing some positive repercussions of this
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: work versus I suppose it could go the other way.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: They could be going out there doing that work, not
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: really seeing anything improve, not really knowing if they should
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: still be out there. But that's not the case here.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: It sounds like they are taking their abundance, taking their contentment,
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: taking their all that they've been blessed with in being
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: able to go out there and do something positive for others.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: And like you said, really rough conditions.
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's a difficult space. And I don't make
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: that maybe sound too extreme, something like, well that's pretty hardcore.
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: This is just yesterday. I had a conversation with another
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: client of ours that we work with, and literally this
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: was last night, and she told me that she's like,
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: you've shown me, Chad, that I have enough. We have
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: a plan we have a strategy, and she's had a
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: lot of She's a physician, so she's had a lot
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: of offers to do work with some various hospitals and
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: some places in rural Alaska and places that I mean
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: just all the opportunities are endless. But she's like, I know,
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: I have enough, and what I really want to do
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: is just be in my grandkid's life. To be there
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: to support by kids as they're raising their kids, and
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: to breathe just truth and encouragement into them, and to
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: drive around and show firm around, but just to speak
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: into their lives and be a positive influence. And like,
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: I mean, that sounds so simple, but think of how
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: powerful that is. Like I just think of some of
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: the people that were that influence in my life and
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: it was life transforming. So you don't have to move
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: out to bush all last going to make a huge impact.
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: So these are people that maybe they're doing it different ways,
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: but they've both recognized they have enough. They've been taken
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: care of. God has tremendously blessed both these families, and
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: they want to take that blessing and then pass along
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: to others because I just I believe rick as you
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: do that. Blessings are like a river, and if we
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: let that river flow through us, it's refreshing and it's
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: clean and it's invigorating. But if we dam it up
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: and stop it, and then we get this overflow of
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: like this sumpy, soggy conditions, and pond scum starts to
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: grow and it starts getting stagnant and weird stuff starts growing.
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: That's what happens with blessings and the monetary blessings, skill set, blessings, time,
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: any type of blessing your life. I believe blessings are
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: meant to flow through you, not just to flow to you.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: Because they only flow to you, they're going to start
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: growing some pond scum. So just encourage people to pass
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: it on.
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah, then pat pay it forward. Excuse me.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: I'm also thinking about when people say that generationally that
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: we're future generations are inheriting the earth from us. It's
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: kind of thing like, you know, we can have the
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: blessings that we have, but then what kind of blessings
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: are we forwarding on to others or are we actually
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: ruining the future for them? And so that's the other
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: thing to be thinking about is like I've you know
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: when I think about the idea of like it takes
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: a village. I maybe I had a great upbringing. The
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: community took care of me, the schools, maybe recreational programs,
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: whatever the case may be. People took care of me.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: Then as I get older, how can I take care
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: of my community? How can I take care of not
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: only the present community but future community. So it's like
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: the same kind of thing, Like that's sort of the
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: river flowing through you. It's saying, I'm just here for
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: a little while. I started at this point in time.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: I'm going to end at some point in time. But
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: in the meantime, what am I doing to keep the
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: river flowing?
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: Right? Well, there's a story. I don't remember the details.
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: We're going to butcher this a little bit. There's a
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: specific type of tree in Israel and it takes decades
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: to mature and produce fruit. And it might be a
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: fig tree, it might not, doesn't matter, but just think
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: through the concept about to lay out here. So there's
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: a farmer and he's an old farmer, sixty seventy years old.
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: He's planting these trees and this young man goes up
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: to he says, why are you planting those trees there
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: is you're never going to be alive to pick the
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: fruit that these trees produce. Why are you putting in
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: all this work? And the farmer looks at the young man,
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: he says, because see those trees over there. I've been
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: eating off those living off those trees my entire life,
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: and I didn't plant a single one of them. Somebody
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: else came before me and planted those trees so I
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: could enjoy the fruits of their labor. So now I'm
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: doing the same. I don't need to eat the fruit
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: to know it's going to be a huge blessing to
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: the people coming behind me. So that's a nice illustrative
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: way of saying exactly what you just explain to us.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, Well it goes back to you what you
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: said before about gratitude, grateful that someone took care of
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: me exactly, and I can help make Maybe not that
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: I need the kudos. That's not really why I'm doing it,
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: but I know that that's just maybe part of life, right,
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: I guess it's more of a healthy perspective on life.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: I took some fruit, and then I can plant some
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: trees and others can get fruit and hopefully they do
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: the same thing right people I'll never meet or doing
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: the same thing in the future because a stranger or
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: someone else and somebody who's an ancestor took care of
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: them and that is pretty powerful, right and to recognize that.
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: And one other thing, I want to go back to.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: That you said around you know, sorry, you said like
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: overeating overspending. It makes me think about sort of not
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: only are there no limits or perception of no limits,
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: like if I overeat, I need to, I want to,
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: I spend too much and need to I want to,
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: you know. I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: psychology around that, but I was just thinking at some level,
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: people aren't feeling like.
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: They're getting enough right there.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: They're they're spending, and they're not getting satisfaction with the spending,
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: and maybe there's there could be negative repercussions of that
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: that they eventually feel, or maybe it's not quite that bad, Maybe.
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: It's just enough to be that, you know.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: It's it's I'm not in I'm overweight, but I'm not unhealthy,
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: per se. I spend a little too much my credit cards,
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: but they're not It's I'm not in bankruptcy, but I'm
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: wondering if there is also that sort of just because
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: I can doesn't mean that I should, and that if
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: I'm scaling back to a less aggressive level whatever it
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: is that I choose to do in my life, I
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: maybe I'm I'm going to appreciate the fact that, you know,
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: I'm actually okay with eating this much food, or I'm
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: actually okay with spending this much money I was.
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: I'm just as happy.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: Actually, it didn't make me happier to spend more money.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: I was just as happy spending this. And so it's
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: almost like training yourself that scaling back or budgeting, as
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: you say the B word, doing that is going to
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: gonna it's gonna be okay, Like you don't need to
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: keep living beyond your means, eating beyond your level, hunger,
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: whatever the case may be. You know what, you use
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: whatever you want as far as excess. But it's it's
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: more of like, what if I actually stop doing that
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: or slowed down on that, would I be more happy?
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: Would I be actually less miserable if I if I
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: cut back a little bit. It's an interesting perspective.
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: It is, and it's what's happened. What you're saying is
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: exactly what I believe too, is we've gone from contentment
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: to consumption. We are very much a consumption society. We
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: consume too much food, too much YouTube, too much TV.
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: It's consumption and just a quick nerdy metaphor. But if
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: you just look at the food industry and some of
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: what they've done, and those use fruit toast example, like
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: high fruit toast corn sorrup, Like, I don't believe drinking
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: forty grams of high fruit toast corn syrup is any
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: worse for you than drinking forty grams of high fruit
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: toast table sugar in the form of soda, like you
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: get diabetes from both. Right. But what's interesting about fruit toasts,
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: and this is why it's in so many foods, is
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: fruit toast does not trigger, say, shiety signals. It doesn't
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: trigger a sense of satisfaction, and it still gives that
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: hit of dopamine when you ingest it. So it has
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: all the benefits of flavorful food, but without the satiety.
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: So all it does is it keeps you wanting more.
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: So when so the little eight ounce soda can is
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: not enough, And that's why we have the giant ones,
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: the big gulps and all that, because you don't get satisfied.
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: You just want that next hit of dopamine. And I
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: think so much of our society that's just in one area.
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: So much of our society, whether it is Netflix, whether
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: it is car manufacturers, whether it's our society, has done
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: that exact same thing. They have reduced the satisfaction that
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: we've that we've gained from whatever this thing is, and
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: increased the temporary pleasure that we get from enjoying it.
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: And this is we make our chips extra crunchy and
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: and extra flavorful, but there's no safety, like, what's what's
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: the lazt thing? I bet you can't eat just one?
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: Like they design them that way, Yeah, design them that way.
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: And I think we need recognize that that's not just
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: going on the food industry. It's all around us. That
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: our world is designed to get us these hits of dopamine,
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: but specifically designed to not satisfy us, so we keep
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: coming back for more. But what we've talked about, when
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: you're doing something for somebody else, when you're serving somebody else,
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: the satiety that you get is unrivaled. That's the stuff
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: that can fill you up for weeks and gratitude as well.
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: So those are the things that we can do to
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: increase our daily saciety without having to continue to consume,
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: to try to keep to try to keep up with
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: the saciety signal that's probably never going to happen.
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: That's a fascinating concept that you your things can be
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: designed so that you're never satisfied versus something that says
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: I am one other really weird sort of side note
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: on that. I just I remember there was a there
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: was an experiment of science experiment one time where they
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: took a dog and the dog was eating out of
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: a bowl. But what they did was they hooked the
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: dog's stomach up so that any food that it was
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: eating was going out of the stomach, it wasn't staying there,
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: and the dog ate and then actually, as part of
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: the experiment, the dog actually stopped even though it's it's
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: stomach wasn't full, it stopped eating. I don't know, I
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: just there's something about what you just said. It just
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: makes me feel like, you know, the contradiction of that,
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: you know, the idea that there was something in its
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: brain that said I'm satisfied, And so I just think
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: that's what kind of the heart of this conversation is like,
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: what will it take for you to be satisfied? What
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: will it take for you to feel satiated? As you say,
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: all right, chat out one more question.
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: I feel like we could talk all day.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: But why do you and this this has I think
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: been integrated in a lot of our conversations so far,
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: But why do you believe generosity is often a byproduct
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: of financial freedom and not just a goal on its own.
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: Well, I think generosity I actually would have to push
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: back just a little bit on that, Rick. I think
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: generosity is not just a byproduct. I think generosity can
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: actually be a cause of financial freedom. And here's and
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: here's why goes back to this idea of margin. If
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: you have no margin in your life, if you consume
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: all of your income like most people do, this is
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: normal behavior. And then some so not only do we
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: not have margin, we're not leaving the edges of our field,
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: we're grabbing. We're trying to harvest next month's field as well,
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: by putting on our credit card, Like I don't have
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: the money for this right now, I'm gonna pay for it,
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: like future Chad can pay for it. So you have
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: nothing left to give anybody else. You also have nothing
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: left to pay your future self. So by learning to
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: live on less to learning to be on content, it
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: allows you to be more generous, not just with people
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: around you today, but being more generous with your future self. Right,
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: And that's why it has to be a habit. A
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: lot of people say, we all be generous when I
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: get the promotion, you know, when I pay off my
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: student loans, when I do whatever, when, when when when when?
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: And it's kind of like saying you talked about running earlier.
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: It's like saying I'm gonna wait to start running every
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: day until I get I'm not gonna do that, yeah,
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: but wait until I get in better shape. Then I'll
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: start running every day. Sorry, guys, it doesn't work like that, right.
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: You have to start the behavior, and maybe that means
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: you can only jog for five minutes or you walk
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: for seven or eight minutes, but you have to start
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: the di scipline now, regardless of where you are. And no,
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: you're probably not going to start off running marathons. That's okay,
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: but when it comes to generosity, you have to start
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: the habit now, regardless of your financial circumstances and what
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: that does. It produces margin between what you bring in
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: and what you consume to give to others and to
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: give to your future self. And if you do that
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: often enough, not only do you have a great habit
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: of generosity for others, but you've produced enough for your
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: future self where you get to a point where you're
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: financially independent. And we call this a rick. We call
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: a job optional lifestyle. We don't call it retirement anymore
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: because a lot of the folks that we work with
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: are not wired to sit around and have twenty years
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: of saturdays, right to have a two and a half
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: decade long vacation. It's not good for most people, especially
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: the types of folks we work with. They are more
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: goal oriented, more ambitious.
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: It's like a next chapter. It's more of a next
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: chapter of your life mentality.
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: Right. And if you've already been exercising this general and
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: muscle for thirty years and you get to a place
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: where you're financially dependent, you have a job optional lifestyle,
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: which means you no longer need your paycheck. You have
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: enough in your investments and pensions and things like that
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: to maintain your lifestyle without ever having to collect a paycheck. Now,
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: you have so much more freedom and independence to step
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: into that generosity. The muscle you've already been exercising for years.
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: Now you can feed that muscle even more. And that's
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: exactly what some of these families we've talked about are doing.
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: And I can tell you that fulfillment that they experience
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: is unbelievable. And that's why I love so much about
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: my job, is I'm in the thick of this all
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: the time, and I get to hear these experiences on
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: a daily basis what people are doing. In fact, here
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: in just a few minutes, I've got a couple coming
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: in that is he was doing they were doing mission
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: projects in me and more doing some clean water work
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: over there, and I'm going to hear about it. All
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: I know is like one hundred and twenty degrees some
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: of the time that they were there. So they're doing
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: some difficult stuff. But again it's they would not be
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: able to do this number one if they didn't do
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: the work to be financially dependent. And number two, you
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: don't become generous when you become financially independent. These guys
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: have been generous for a very very long time. Now
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: they're just able to exercise that muscle in a whole
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: new way.
• 37:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Wow.
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: You know what I love about what you stand for
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: CHAT is you're definitely focused on people's financial health, but
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: you're also focused on humanity. You're thinking about the much
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: bigger picture, about fulfillment for individuals, helping people from other countries.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: You mentioned that a few times, or even in your
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: own state, but just the idea of like, I can
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: take that next chapter. I can be job optional. I
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: can go and do something that gives me joy, that
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: fills my cup, that makes me feel like every day
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: I can't wait to get up and do it again,
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: rather than feeling like you're in this absolute scary seat
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: of mentality. The world done you wrong. You can never
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: have enough. You're very unhappy, you make other people around
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: you unhappy. It's just a sort of a downward spiral.
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: You're talking about people who have fully realized that, or
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: working to continue to fully realize that and then be
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: an inspiration to others. I mean the stories that you tell.
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: I mean people say I never thought about doing something
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: like that.
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: What would it.
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: Look like for us to do that? Or look, what
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: would it look like for me to go out and
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: take an adventure like that and push myself and maybe
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: be a little uncomfortable, but know that it's going to
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: be such a gratifying experience, and then I can move
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: on to another chapter, maybe go to a different country,
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: help a different group of people, or like you say,
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: help my own grandchild, or help my own family, or
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: help my neighbor. Or it doesn't need to be a lot,
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: It doesn't need you have to go around the world,
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: but you can do it in different kinds of ways.
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: Just being able to feel like you're doing something productive
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: in society and helping people around you and maybe even
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: helping future generations. So I appreciate your humanity and the
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: way that you show up and really represent that. I think,
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: not just you as a person, but the fact that
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: you're drawing it out of other people, and part of
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: your legacy is also showing others how to be able
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: to do that and passing that on.
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: So thank you for that.
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: Well, it's my pleasure and you're quite welcome. And just
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: if I could leave the audience with one more thought
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: and yea on what you just said. Giving isn't just
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: of money and resources, the time, our talents. It's many
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: different areas of treasure in our life. And I believe
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: that each one of us has been given gifts, talents,
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: and skills and abilities that were uniquely designed for us
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: to empower the people around us. And it just encouraged
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: Like everybody has these things and I don't know what
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: yours are. I know what some of mine are, but
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: I'm still learning. But our communities, and it's not our
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: communities in your time, in your state and across the globe,
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: are thirsty for your gifts, your talents, what you can
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: bring into the world. I believe each person was uniquely
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: empowered to do and for such a time as this,
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: And I believe every person listening to this you are
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: at where you're at right now in life for a reason,
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: and you've been given the opportunity to bless others in
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: a huge way. And that might be in your own backyard,
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: and that might be across the globe. I don't know,
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: that's for you to figure out. But everybody has those
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: talents and abilities. You just have to figure out how
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: to exercise them and wield them in a way that
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: benefits others.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, everybody has something powerful to offer. You just have
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: to determine what that is or maybe people will tell
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: you what that is. This is what I see in you,
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: you know, this is how I feel like you're showing
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: up and I appreciate that, right, so well.
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: Thank you again, Chad.
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: How can people reach you if they're trying to reach out,
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: learn more, or just really you know, absorb your philosophy?
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: How would people connect with you?
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: Veritas Alaska dot com is our wayite and we do
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: work with folks all over the United States. Veritas dot
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: Alaska on Instagram and I'm on LinkedIn as well. Just
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: look up Chad Hufford Veritas and I'll pop right up.
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: Awesome.
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: And if you want to know how that's spelled, it's
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: b E R I T A S. So that's how
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: you find Chad Hufford h U F f O R
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: D and And so i'd say, if you haven't listened
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: to the first, this is part two of my conversation
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: with Chad, So if you haven't heard part one, go
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: back and listen to part one. He says just as
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: many profound things, and that's why we did a part two.
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: So all right, thanks again, Chad, and.
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: You're always welcome back, come back and tell more stories.
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: Thank you again for being who you are.
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: It's a pleasure and honor to be here.
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: Thank you so much.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: That wraps up our second conversation with Chad Hufford. To summarize,
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: I have three takeaways. First, gratitude is not a feeling
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: we wait for its discipline, We practice, and it fundamentally
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: reshapes how we see what we already have. Second, contentment
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: has far less to do with how much we earn
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: and far more to do with what we notice, appreciate,
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: and choose not to consume. And third, generosity isn't something
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: we postpone until quote unquote someday. When practice consistently, it
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: creates margin, clarity, and the freedom to live and give
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: more intentionally now and in the future. Thanks for listening
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: to money to give. This conversation resonated with you. Please
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: leave a review on your preferred streaming platform, share it
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: with a friend or colleague, and most importantly, keep that
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: giving feeling going. We are now broadcasting in thirty seven
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: countries and growing with five hundred downloads per month and
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: nearly ten thousand downloads to date. A reminder, this podcast
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: is meant to be for educational purposes only for specific
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: advice related to your own situation, Please consult an attorney,
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: financial advisor CPA, or other type of trusted consultant. If
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: you're looking for fresh insights on how to give smarter,
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: raise more money, and advise your clients in a more
• 43:11
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• 43:15
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• 43:18
  Speaker 1: Philanthropy Guide dot com. In the newsletter, you'll also read
• 43:22
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• 43:25
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• 43:31
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• 43:34
  Speaker 1: Richard Peck on LinkedIn as well. Until next time, let's
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: keep making a difference together.