Financial Success is Intentional

On this episode of A Wiser Retirement Podcast, Casey Smith, and Brad Lyons, CFP®, discuss various stories of success and tell us why financial success is intentional.

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SUMMARY:

Stories of Success

Throughout the episode, we talk a lot about the stories of successful people. Most people you look at today who have success, have also dealt with adversity. If we look at Bill Gates, his first project was a complete failure. He had a company called Traf-O-Data and no one had any interest in it, everyone turned it down. Obviously, he stayed persistent and created Microsoft, and is now one of the most successful people ever. Jim Carrey was homeless when he first began his career. He was living out of his car trying to reach his goals. Then, when he first started out in his career, he carried around a check he wrote himself for 20 million dollars, and kept it in his wallet until he was successful enough to cash it.

One of the more powerful stories we cover is about Oprah Winfrey. When she was a young girl, she was repeatably molested by family members. She ended up running away from home at only 15 years old. She then gave birth to a child who unfortunately died shortly after. Amid this trauma and misfortune, she persevered. She kept going to school and graduated with honors, won a full scholarship to college, and now has a net worth of 2.9 billion dollars. Like many of these people, she was intentional with her life and never gave up.

Intention Spans Beyond the Task

All of these successful people have something in common, their drive and grit. They go into each day with intentions and goals. However, when you look at successful people, you don’t see the intention and drive that went into their success. It’s easy to forget all the hoops these people had to go through to get to where they are now. In reality, every single one of these people could have quit – most people would, but they didn’t. They kept pushing and now are successful because of it.

Financial Success is Intentional

Everyone wants to be happy. A lot of people measure happiness with wealth, when in reality, wealth doesn’t create happiness. It can create opportunities or make life easier, but it definitely can’t make you happy. What can make you unhappy is being a slave to debt and payments. When your life is structured around payments and how much you owe, you can never focus on your happiness. If this is you, it’s time to make some changes and start being more intentional.

If you want to change your financial situation, it starts with creating goals. Look at where you are financially and decide where you want to be. What is the purpose of your money? From there decide what it is you need to do to get where you want to be. A good way to do this is to create a budget, or even just track where your money is with a money tracker. This will help you create a budget and decide what things you should stop spending money on. Along with this, pay yourself first. If you have a goal amount you want to save that’s realistic, treat that as a fixed expense. Pay yourself first and then worry about the rest. This can also be related to paying off debt. Treat your monthly goal amount as a fixed expense. Write down your goals and be intentional about them.

Orrin “Checkmate” Hudson

Orrin “Checkmate” Hudson teaches chess classes for inner-city children. He is also the author of the book, “One Move at a Time: How to Play and Win at Chess and Life.” The reason he does this is that when he was younger, he was in a gang and made bad decisions, but he had a teacher who offered to teach him chess after school. This ended up keeping him out of trouble, and he got good at the game. He even won a chess championship for the state of Alabama.

Because of the change his teacher instilled in him, he wanted to do the same for other kids. He now teaches chess classes after school in hopes to reach the same goal and be a leader for the kids. Chess also allows an avenue for life lessons because in the same way that different moves in chess affect the outcome of the game, your choices in a day will affect the outcome of your life. This story shows that you should be intentional about all your goals – not just monetary ones.

Find Your Purpose

Every successful person has a purpose they are working towards. Orrin’s purpose was to give other kids a purpose. So many people use their situation as an excuse for what they’re stuck in. Once you get passed that attitude and create change for yourself, things will start to happen for you. Along with this, surround yourself with like-minded individuals. The people in your life should be genuinely happy for you when big things happen. If there are people who are dragging you down, don’t continue with those relationships. Be intentional, find a purpose, and surround yourself who will keep you moving toward your goals.

Download our eBook on “Top Reasons Most Financial Plans Fail”

TIMESTAMPS:

0:00 Intro

1:12 Stories of Success

8:30 Intention Spans Beyond the Task

15:00 Financial Success is Intentional

26:10 Orrin “Checkmate” Hudson

32:20 Find Your Purpose

LINKS:

Learn more about Casey Smith, Brad Lyons, CFP®, and Missie Beach CFP®, CDFA®

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Learn more about A Wiser Retirement podcast and access previous episodes.