Financial Resilience: Understanding The True Value Of Money Is The Key To Getting More Money

Life happens, and not always the way we expect it to. Every single day we face change, stress, and uncertainty. What if you could learn to thrive no matter what life throws your way? Resilience expert Adam Barkel and his inspiring guests explore breakthrough strategies to fully embrace change and build the resilience required to become change.

Proof. Hey, everybody, it's Adam. And welcome to another episode of the Change Proof podcast. Today, I'm not only your host, but I'm also going to be your guest. I, I love it when I get the chance to do a little solo casting. And that's the term that we use for no ghost, just me as we embark on this brand new 2023, which is, you know, kind of freaky. Just to say that out loud, I thought talking about resilience in, in connection with something that's so vital to all of us, so important in our lives, it's something that we, we often have difficulty talking about, difficulty understanding, if you will. We have very little education. I said little or no education in this area that is otherwise vital to our survival in the world. And it's certainly a key to, to many aspects of happiness. As the old saying goes, it won't buy happiness, but. But it can, it can, it can sure rent some, at least for a short while. So I am, I'm a proponent, an advocate for somebody that really appreciates the value of money. And that is not to say that I love money more than I love things that are a great deal of. Have great importance in my life, like people like family, like health, like peace of mind. But I also think that a part of what we are taught and trained and programmed to think about money from the time that we're very young is that somehow it's, it's an unlovable thing. It's something that we should be sometimes fearful of because of its potential to, to destroy things, to destroy our lives or to just destroy other people's lives. That it is, as the old saying goes, the root of all evil. I think that that old Aramaic saying that, that is also in the Bible is really that the love of money is the root of all evil, not that money itself is the, is the, is the root of evil. And, and even in that sense, what does it mean to put money at, at the top of, of the list of things that you love? Well, I think it can create tremendous conflict. It can create an im. A lack of harmony. It can affect and even infect the way you think. And so that that idea of the love of money is the root of all evil. Even in that it's. You have to take the words at face value, as is so, so much the case in, in any allegory, whether they're biblical allegories or any other narrative where. Where are being used. You have to look below the surface. You have to look. Be behind even the seemingly obvious words or meaning of the words being used. So in, in that context, to me it means placing a, an. In an inordinate amount of importance on money, in putting money ahead of, of your ethics, putting money ahead of your values, putting money ahead of people or other things that, that are of great importance in the world. But money itself is neutral money. Money is not itself good or bad. It is not something that has any inherent value. Truly, it's what we've assigned and ascribed a value to it. But by itself it means, it means nothing. It's not until you and I show up and give it meaning that it actually takes on some importance. So I think it's important to have it. I think it's important to have as much of it as you are comfortable having. I think in many respects the money we have is really a reflection of our comfort level around money. I'll say that again, that whatever money you have in your life, whatever money I have in my life is just a reflection of how comfortable we are with money at that point in time. It doesn't mean that you won't have a lot more money at some later time when you are more comfortable with it. But until you get comfortable with money and you're comfortable with what it means to you, what you're willing to do to acquire it, until you are at a level where you are, are able to retain more of it, where you're able to use it in a, in a wise way and ethical ways, where you're, you're actually able to do intelligent things with it, that until you're at that place, we'll call that place a state of consciousness until such time, well, then you're, you're probably likely not to get a lot more money. And, and you're also likely not to keep a lot of the money even that you do happen to acquire. And I think that's fundamentally something that I, I wish I had known 20 years ago or 30 years ago, because then as opposed to trying to do things to get money, whatever those things might be, choosing a, a vocation or, or a career or an investment strategy or any number of other things, and sometimes those things include sort of selling your, selling yourself, selling your soul for that almighty dollar, which. I know what that's like because I have done that in my, in my past, in my history as well. If I'd have just known that, to raise my consciousness around money and around other things, that I would have more money as a result of that, well, it would have been more of a, a point of direction, a North Star, if you will, that I was lacking because again, nobody ever said that to me in high school. They didn't say it to me in college. They didn't say it to me when I went to law school. They didn't say it to me growing up. I didn't hear my parents talk about it. I didn't hear my friends parents talk about it. I didn't read it in the paper or see it on TV or anything. This is knowledge, I suppose, through experience and then ultimately through finding the, the kinds of, of people and information that, that would expand my, my understanding and lead me to ask a lot of questions. And, and often I think questions are, are not asked because we, we feel humbled by questions. If we're the ones asking questions, it means we don't know the answers. We don't have the answers, and, and our egos don't like that vulnerable place to be, and it feels disempowering. And yet we don't know much about a lot of things and we just don't ask questions for some reason. But I also believe in the cause and effect between questions and answers. I don't know if you all can relate to this, but to me, you cannot ask a question and not get an answer. It just, it's, they, they, it's, it's the equivalent of, of cause and effect. So the only thing that'll stop you from getting answers in your life to the important questions in your life are the questions you don't ask. And again, we, we just don't ask a lot of questions about, about money growing up and, and often even the people that were asking those questions don't know any more than we know. And so it's sort of the blind leading the blind when it comes to that. So I thought, as we start this new year, I want to be even more resilient today, tomorrow, and in the future. I know you all do too. And part of our resilience is really, you cannot overlook the fact that, that our financial resilience is vitally important. And obviously the context, the timing of this conversation, of this podcast is coinciding with a, a very tricky, uncertain time in, in our economy. There's a great many unknowns. There are people predicting recessions of all kinds, small, medium and large. There are people who are, are predicting that things will not reach that level, that we will avoid, that we'll avert that type of downturn. And yet we're seeing the markets on a daily basis in sort of a roller coaster of up and downs. Again, it's, there's a lot that people are, are feeling anxious about. Maybe they're anxious. Maybe you are anxious in this moment about the state of your portfolio, of your investments. Maybe you're anxious about the state of your career, your job, where you're working, how that company's doing and, and whether they're considering tightening their belt and committing to reduction in force and that that might impact you, impact others around you, et cetera. It could be your own business that you've started or the one that you've wanted to start and the timing of that relative to how people are seeing, seeing the economy and where they are financially and whether their own decisions about spending money will impact your business, your sales, etc. There's so many of those unknowns. So our, our financial resilience is, is really top of mind for me at this, at this season. Not just the season in the, in the economy that, that of course I am, I am a part of, but also the season of my own life and, and where I am at and, and where my family's at, where Randy and I and our kids find ourselves in this moment. And I thought it was a great opportunity to, to just open up this space, open up this conversation, share a couple of things with you today that have been impactful for me. As I said, anything I do share is, has been shared out of, out of my own experience, my own learning. And often it is the case that the better the learnings, the greater the price that we pay for them. What do I mean by that? Oh, well, the price you pay for some things is often pain. It's often you want to get great, great results in the gym. You're going to experience some pain in exchange for those results. I mean that, that's the fact you don't get them cheaply. And it shouldn't be any different or you shouldn't expect that it's any different when it comes to other important lessons in life, including money. And that's the conversation we're having today about money. So, yeah, some of my greatest lessons, the ones that inform my perspective, my understanding, my outlook today, were lessons that were learned in, in, in heaps of Pain. Piles of pain. Major pain and usually that. That we're talking about to be. To be again, one more layer deep here. The pain of losing it, the pain of. Of wasting it, the pain of squandering, the pain of. Of not having the, the consciousness to, to grow it, to hold it, to keep it. As I said before, and, and that takes every manner of shape and form you could think of. I've. I've been involved in businesses that have gone belly up. Thankfully not too many, but, but the ones that have, were, were pretty epic in, in their failure. And I lost, you know, money in those ventures. Some, you know, large sums. I'm talking about investment decisions where the, the partnership or the partners that, that I, I was involved with were not. Were not great partner fit for me. Even some folks that were just not. Not terribly ethical or honest or both, where lack of due diligence on my part, even being a lawyer and just basically doing that kind of work for other people, but, but sparing myself the same, the same good, good counsel led to. To mistakes. Things that could have been. Could have been seen and, and weren't. And, and again, all these things, all these lessons were. Were incredibly valuable. And the price of those lessons was money. It wasn't just money. It was money. It was time. It was resources. It was, you know, it's exponential because when we, we spend our time and energy and resources in one area that isn't a fruitful area for us, the time we're also not spending that same time, energy, resources, in an area that could have been fruitful. So it's, it's kind of a, you know, there's a, There's a magnitude to it. It's like if you, you know, if you travel 10 minutes in the wrong direction, you know, it's not just the 10 minutes that you lost going in the wrong direction. It's the 10 minutes it takes you to get back to where you were. And then the 10 minutes in the direction that you should have been, that's overall 20 minutes. So again, you know, it's exponential. And I say this because the, the scars have long, long since healed. Doesn't mean I, I can't still beat myself up about it or, or have a moment where I I shoulda woulda, coulda on myself. But, but it's, it's. It's far enough in the rearview mirror that I can look back and say, yeah, these were. These were. I understand what the mistakes were and why they were made and what my part was in it and, and and what could be done differently and what would never happen again as a result of having learned those lessons. So again, you know, the, the one thing above all that, that I didn't learn growing up and I know now, like I do know my own name is Adam, it's that we, we have to expand our consciousness in any area that we wish to see greater results. If you want again, greater relationships, whatever that might mean, intimate relationships, more loving relationships, better relationships with, with people that you work with or, or with your family, any of those things with your children, you, you have to expand your consciousness in that area and, and that will produce that greater consciousness with your health, will produce greater health, greater consciousness in your finances, in your things to do with your investing philosophy or your psychology around money, your relationship with money. Greater consciousness in that area in any area, like produce returns that you, you wouldn't otherwise see, that you couldn't otherwise see. So the first thing I'd say here is that we've got to have greater consciousness. Part of greater consciousness is, as I said at the beginning, seeing money for what it is and not for what it is not. It is nothing by itself. It doesn't have any meaning is the meaning we give it. It is a magnifier. So people who are, you know, I've heard people say, well, money makes people, you know, a different, different than they, than they were. And I call BS on that. That's just crap. Money is a magnifier, however. And, and so if somebody is a kind hearted, gentle, compassionate person, a generous person, then more money will only make them that much more generous and kind hearted and, and give them access to share their, their, their compassion using that money. And people who are, are different than that are, are, let's say not as generous, maybe even are stingy or people that are, are angry or are. Take advantage of others or bullies, etc, then more money only creates the opportunity for more of those activities, for more of those behaviors, if you will. So money is a magnifier. So that's, that's a distinction that we have to get right out of the, out of the gate. So don't look at money as the enemy. Take a look in the mirror and ask yourself, who are you? Because if, if you know that you would, you know, you're, you're a person who could do good things with money, then what in. What on earth is. Is in. In would. Would get in the way of you having more money? Meaning why on earth would you get in the way of your own ability to Acquire more money because you'll only do better and better things or have a way to fund those good, those good deeds. So again, we have some conflicts around that, that we know that we could do good things with money, but we've been told that money is bad or that, that too much of it will make you bad. Again, I'm going to tell you that you can trust yourself. Now, I know that it's tough for me to say or tough for you to believe because I don't know you personally. Many of you I do perhaps, but many of you, not obviously, but that's, that's a, it's a truthful statement. Nonetheless. You, you have to trust yourself with it until you can trust yourself with it. Why would you expect that anyone else would trust you with it? Money, I mean, certainly wouldn't expect that the universe would give you more money if you don't trust yourself that you would do, do good things with it. And I think a lot of times when people make mistakes, and they made mistakes in the past with money, maybe they made poor investment choices or what have you, you know, they, they tend to, to feel bad about those things and also lack a, an ongoing trust. In fact, their confidence level shrinks because of those mistakes. So if you've made mistakes like I've made mistakes in the past, you have to get past them. You have to be able to acknowledge that there were mistakes that were made, what your, your part in them was, and then you have to let them go. You have to forgive if you want whoever was involved, first and foremost yourself and, and others. And then you, and you have to also let, let it go, whether that includes your forgiveness or not, so that you can move on. Of course, you move on stronger, you move on more, more wise. Again, those lessons, often the best lessons cost the most. So if you've gotten a costly lesson, well, then the only thing that really would be a shame is if you didn't at some other point get a return on that lesson. What is the return on the lesson? And if you've gotten, at this point, not much return on the lessons of the past, well then now's the time to, to be more conscious of that and allow for yourself to, to apply those lessons so that you can gain the benefit that that was intended all along. The universe is a loving, kind, generous thing. I don't believe it. There's any, any unifying principle. There's, there's no source that has it in for us. The only one that has it in for us is us. For ourselves and, and, and mostly I think for ourselves before we have it in for anybody else. So you got, you got to get past that stuff. You got to get over it, and you gotta move, move into a place where you can try to, to do better, because that's all we have, right? A coach of mine years ago said, when you know better, you can do better. And I think that's fundamentally true. Again, that that is the truth. When you know better, you can do better. And, and again, these are things I'm sure that if you haven't heard before, they just kind of intuitively make sense to you that the truth is easy to remember. I think it was Plato that said that all learning is remembering and the truth is easy to remember, and it's also easy to forget. That's why we need reminders. And hopefully these words are, are serving as a reminder to you all as well. You know, some of the, some of the things that I think we, we can also be aware of are the kinds of strategies. So, you know, fundamentally the difference between rich people and, and people who are not rich is, is, is, is the philosophy, the psychology of, of wealth, the psychology of money. And, and a lot of what I've just shared with you so far is really around that psychology. And because if we have the wrong psychology, the wrong consciousness, in other words, we won't be able to succeed in that area. If we have a limited consciousness, limited capacity, we will, we will likely not succeed. And if our capacity is greater, our consciousness is greater. Again, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that, that our results will be better. And that's as simple as it, as it is, you know, on the surface. And then, and then there is the, the little details, you know, the kinds of things that you do and, and I'll share with you just a few of the things that, that I've been doing and some of the things that I think makes sense. Obviously, I'm not going to be giving any, any financial advice here. No counsel, in terms of, you know, what you all should do with your own funds. I'm not saying that so much as a disclaimer, just as the, as it's obvious that that's not the, not the purpose of this podcast. So, you know, if you do decide that you're gonna do anything with your money, I highly recommend that you, you speak to somebody who, who may have a greater consciousness than you do about that, like a financial advisor, CPA or a cfp, certified financial planner or lawyer or, or someone else, for sure. I'm gonna, I'm gonna stick to some things that are, are, are really tried and true and, and are quite safe and, and you know, even things that have a guarantee. But even, even in those situations, I'm not, I don't have a crystal ball. I don't know what the, what the government's going to do, you know, from, from day to day any more than you do. So, for example, I've, I've invested and so has my wife in something called an I bond. I little I B O N D I bond. You know, people have heard of savings bonds and, and for years and years and years. We know that, you know, there was very, very little interest being paid on bonds and the like. But, but the US Government has something called an I bond that's based on, as I understand it, inflation and, and the cost of living. And as we all have heard, you'd have to be living in a, in a, in a hut, I suppose, and with no electricity, no Internet, no nothing for the last couple of years not to have heard that inflation is really, really on, has been on the rise. It's quite high in terms of. Not so much historically speaking, it's not all that high. You know, we, in terms of. It's not, you know, this is an aberration. It's never happened before because it has happened before. We have had periods of higher inflation and certainly when I grew up in the late 70s, early 80s, we, we had some pretty high levels of inflation then, but we've been living in a relatively low inflation, historically speaking, a very low period of inflation up until just a couple years ago. So in that environment, you know, the cost of living increases as it's, as it's published by the government for the purposes of adjusting Social Security benefits and other benefits and things. You know, those adjustments have been relatively small, minor, and the, and the amounts have been relatively low. And a lot of people figured out that they could get higher returns on that, on their money invested in areas like real estate or in stocks or other things. But in the last couple of years, what we've seen is inflation's been on the rise and cost of living increases have been much higher and an IBON will pay a higher rate of interest. This is a, something that is backed by the US Government. So again, could the US Government default? Theoretically, it's possible. My own personal view is that if the US Government defaulted on bonds or on Treasuries or things like that, we, we would have bigger problems than whether we lost money at that moment. So we definitely don't anticipate, nor would we want to anticipate that, that, that that would happen or I suppose again it could happen, but, but, but highly improbable. So an ibond is something that would pay a higher rate of interest. I'm not sure what the interest rate today is. I know in the last, within the last year I was able to get an I bond, I think last April. April, call it April of 2022 just for historical reference, for when you might be listening to this podcast. But that I bond at that time paid about 9%, which is exceedingly high. And at the time that I'm delivering this podcast now, I think I bonds are, are pegged around 6%, still very, very high. So I bonds being one vehicle, there's a limit to how much you can, that you can invest. I think it's at the moment it's $10,000 per person. And there's some other little details and fine print and, and ways in which you could, you could increase that based on, on tax refunds and other, you know, important details. So you should, you know, you can go to, to the Google and, and just type in US I Bond or United States I Bond and you can get a lot more information about that and what the requirements are and what the limitations are. But it's super simple. Pays very high interest relative to other vehicles that are also relatively guaranteed or safe and safe. And so it's worth looking into. That's the first thing. And again, limits being at the moment what they are, about 10,000 per person, that could change. Obviously it could be different when you're listening to this also, we have been utilizing for now, some, some years something that our son introduced us to and that is online online banking. And that is a bank that is not a brick and mortar bank with the sort of like, you know, you can go stop in and meet the teller and, and all that kind of thing. But it's, it's, you know, a, a platform that is purely digital, has real people and real people work. Work, of course. And, and there's one particular bank that we've been using called Marcus. Again, I'm not invested in Marcus or its parent company. I just have investments, investment dollars with Marcus because it makes sense to have money in a bank account that earns more interest than other places that you could have it. And it's FDIC insured. So again, not 100% guaranteed, but it's guaranteed and backed by the United States of America up TO I think $250,000 per account. So that is also something to consider because at this time, I think the, the interest rate payable on a Marcus account is somewhere around 4%. And so that also has made sense to us and you can look into that yourself too. We look at U.S. treasuries and A, A Treasury, again, there's a higher bit of, a higher level of sophistication that, that might be needed and you want to find out more about, about this, but you can look at treasury treasuries, U.S. treasuries as being an area that is also worth exploring because the interest that's payable on some of these is quite substantial relative to what you could get in a standard bank account and also I think is in excess of what you'd even get in a, in many of the online banks like the one I mentioned a moment ago. And of course there's many of these online banks, so, you know, feel free to do research and, and that kind of thing. But the US treasury is also backed by the United States government. So I have faith, full faith in their ability to, to do, to make good on that, on that contract. And you, you know, contracts can be short or long term. We typically choose about 6 months, 26 weeks is the term that we typically look at. And that means that your money is, is relatively liquid and you can get to it in a moment. You can take it out with, with some, there's some small penalties involved if you needed to take it out early. But six months is usually a pretty good time horizon to determine whether you're going to need that money or not for liquidity purposes. So some portion of, of the, of the pie, if you will, goes into those things. I think that real estate has always been a very good investment depending on when you get in and depending on how long you're willing to stay in. And you know, there's, there's sort of the three rules or the three letters that everybody always knows when it comes to real estate. You know, lll, Location, location, location. And I agree that location, location, location, very, very important when it comes to real estate. But what's also really important is, is when you decide to get in and how long you're going to stay in. And to me, the latter, how long you're going to stay in, almost makes the former irrelevant. Because if you're prepared to buy real estate, whether it's single family, multifamily, whether it's residential or commercial, and you're willing to be in that real estate, meaning you'll continue to own it, operate it, pay the insurance, the taxes and everything else, the upkeep, all of that. And your time horizon is 20, 30, 40, 50 years. It doesn't matter in my, my humble opinion, when you buy it, because over that time horizon of 20, 30, 40, 50 years, that real estate is likely to be considerably higher in value than when, when you initially bought it. If your time horizon, however, is only 10 years or it's five years, then it matters greatly when you buy, whether you're buying at the height of a market, in the middle of a market, when the bottom, when you're, when the market is at a bottom. And of course nobody knows that nobody has that crystal ball. So it makes it a bit more complicated to choose your timing. But again, like so many things, if your timing is forever, then almost doesn't matter when, when you're getting in to a real estate investment. Similarly with stocks for the most part. And I would, would more if I were recommending to anybody today how to get involved in the stock market, it would be through index funds. And, and these are not by the way, when you talk about index funds like the S P500 or something that tracks the S P or tracks the total market as an index, you know, these are not guaranteed by anybody, they're not guaranteed by the government, they're not backed by, you know, anybody's, any, anybody's full faith and credit their investments. You can lose money, you can lose the entire amount of your investment, all that kind of thing. Just looking again historically at the total market or looking at an index of, of a segment of the market like the S P500, over a horizon of 20, 30, 40, 50 years, what you see is, is a market that is always seemingly on the rise. But if you look at any period of time within that 20, 30, 40, 50 year time horizon, you look at five years, you can look at 10 years, you can look at 15 or 20 years, you can find places where the market was flat or was down. And certainly when you're, when you're looking at the market which is made up of different companies, any one or more of those companies can, can be succeeding, can be failing, can go bankrupt. You know, so you know, picking, picking companies, choosing to try to pick companies makes the task even that much more difficult and the timing becomes that much more difficult and treacherous as well. So that said, you know, there's an old expression that the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago and the next best time to plant a tree is now. And that's the way I look at when it comes to using our money and, and utilizing our, our money, whether it's a dollar or it's a hundred dollars or it's a hundred million dollars, whatever whatever it might be, the, the best next time other than 20 years ago to invest is now. And that is to do it in a way that just makes sense, common sense. So if you don't have money to lose, then don't put money at risk. If you've got money that, that could be lost and would not change your lifestyle, would not, would not make you have to leave your, your home or would not keep you from putting food on the table or keep you from paying for your kids dance lessons or any number of other things that, that are are important to you. If you've got that kind of money, a disposable income, sometimes it's referred to as or disposable a disposable portion of your savings, then any number of the things that, that I've just mentioned could become safe investing opportunities and where it's also possible to earn a return and earn a return safely and still have liquidity for contingencies for, for things that might happen that you don't plan on, whether it's a car breaking down and the need for, or it's a new new boiler within the home or, or any number of other things. These are, are really, you know, it's so important that there be those contingency funds. And, and I also think it's, it's vitally important that you just look at, at the, at the opportunity to grow your money as being a way to fund so many things in your life. If you, if you are committed to investing now, then 10 years from now, 15 years, 25 years from now, that money will have grown. And it will have grown in many, in many respects sizably. Because the benefit of interest is that things compound over time. When there's compound interest, you get an exponential return on your investment. So that money that, that compounds at 8% will double every approximately every eight years. It takes a little longer than that, but, but approximately every every eight years money will double it at about that rate. So it just, it's a long game that we want to play. You know, being resilient in, in our finances is to do it, as my wife likes to say, slow and steady. That's truly the way that you win the race. That would be the. If I was going to go back and Whisper to my 25 year old self, it would be to, to do it the slow and steady pat on on the slow and steady pace that to commit to doing that, to taking a portion of of whatever I was earning 10, 15, 20% and and off the top pay that to myself or pay it to to our investing our investing accounts. Had Had I done that had any of us done that when we were 20, 25 years old and continued to do that until we were 40, 50, 60 years old? You know, we have. We have more money than than we would ever want. Really truly more money than we need. And and that money would continue to grow and grow and grow and would be a massive value to us in in helping other people in pursuing our passions in life, our projects, the things that we we want to do that often we don't do because we don't have the time freedom or we don't have the money freedom to do those things. So so all these things are so interconnected and in our resilience and our feeling, our resiliency and the feeling of of being able to kind of weather whatever the storms are of life or the storms are in the economy or the storms in business are relate to this sort of base, this foundational base that we can create by just doing more raising more with our money. I should say raising our consciousness and, and elevating our our money psychology, our money mind, if you will. Because when we do that, then, then we have options that that we otherwise just don't have. And I don't think that there's anything that is. That is sort of worse in terms of of. Of the kind of problems that that you see, you know, in great prevalence than than hopelessness when it. When it comes to life and the pursuits that that will bring us joy and, and the things that will will create har. You know, the lack of hope is is like just. It's. It's punching. It's. It's like a big gaping hole in in. In. In. In the balloon of our. Of our lives. Of our lives. And we need to have hope. Hope is the thing that that, that fills that balloon with with and, and the hope is that that there's, there are ways for us to get to the place we want to get to without that that sense that there's an option. There are ways for us to get to where we want to get. We lose hope. And so often it is the case that when we don't have the financial resources to to get to the place we want to get to, then we feel hopeless. We can't. We can't move we can't create a better life for our kids. We can't. We can't pursue the work that we want to do in the world because it would be risky financially to leave the job we've got or, or we wouldn't have the, the ability to. To take the chance to take the shot, which often means sometimes funding our own pivots, funding these reinvention projects that, that we, we're, you know, interested in. But we don't have the, if we don't have the funds, if we don't have the research and development money to, to lose, frankly, then it's really difficult for us to perform those pivots to, to make, to even start those pivots. We have to have that sort of house money, if you will, in order to sometimes have the boldness and the courage to move in those directions. And when we don't have that, when we lack that confidence, we lack that, that hopeful heart, as my wife Randy would say, it really steals so much of our life force. And that is the place where I think we can use this information, take this conversation to heart. Our resiliency, our really, really is. Is a product of, of our feeling. The, the options that we feel are, are within reach. Even if it's a stretch, even if it's something that we got to work three years for, five years for, to get to a place where we have the money for the things we want, whether it's again to become a homeowner, it's to invest in our own business, or it's to gift money to the people that we love, or the charities and, and organizations that we want to support, whatever those things are, if we can see even at the end of a, of a longer tunnel of three years, five years, or maybe even a little longer than that, that those things are attainable, well, then we have the hope and the resilience to keep moving forward and moving toward them. And then we again are met by the universe, which rewards that activity, it rewards that movement, it rewards momentum. You know, bodies in motion tend to stay in motion. That's physics. Bodies at rest tend to stay at rest. That's physics. So, you know, we just have to utilize these things to our advantage. And that's what inspired me to want to turn on the, the old recording device and do a solo cast with you all today, talk about this area of resilience, resiliency, that being money that, that we don't often talk about. And so I thank you for your time, as always. I thank you so much for the willingness to share your thoughts with us. So if you want to leave a comment about this particular episode, you can go to AdamMarkel.com forward/podcast and leave a comment there for me and I'm be the, I will be the one to respond to it. Just so you know, we don't have any bots set up for that. Also, if you believe that this is information that would help someone else, you know, that might be struggling in the area of money or just not thriving in the way that they're capable of, or you know, maybe they're angry with money and they have a bad relationship with it. Whatever the case might be, you know, feel free to share this episode. If we want it to reach more people, there's one way to do that and, and I get it that it's a bit of a self serving ask here, but if you leave a review, you know, a five star review, we love those five star reviews because they, they tell the algorithm to put this particular content in front of more people. So whatever platform you're using, you can use that platform to leave a review for this, for this show. And, and that will also help us greatly. Lastly, if you want to get more information yourself about becoming more resilient, I wrote a book this year called Change Proof leveraging the power of uncertainty to build long term resilience. Of course you can go to Amazon to buy it and that's fine and fine and well. But if you go to changeproof.com even if you bring your Amazon receipt to that site, changeproof.com you can get yourself some of the bonuses that, that we're happy to provide to you. Also, you can find out more information about our Change Proof digital product digital program on that website, changeproof.com as well. And you can get your own free resilience assessment. It's a snapshot in time. It takes just three minutes. So if you're not a person who's got a great deal of time for, for surveys and things, this thing is 16 questions takes three minutes. It's going to spit out a report that's designed to help you to learn where you are currently at. How resilient are you? Where are your great strengths in resiliency? Mentally, emotionally, physically and even spiritually? And where can you become even stronger in those areas? You can go to rankmyresilience.com directly to get that yourself. A free assessment of your own level of resilience as well as some free resources that come after you get emailed your own personal report. Again rankmyresilience.com for that. So that's it for now. Wishing you a very beautiful, a blessed, happy, healthy and a very prosperous 2023 and beyond. So if you're you're receiving this even well into the future, whatever year you're in, I hope it is is even more prosperous than your wildest imagination. And I tend to think that if you follow some of the some of this guidance, if you raise your consciousness around money even more, if you bless that which you want in life instead of negating those things, that you don't carry resentment about money, but you really see it for its true value and its potential to magnify the best parts of your of yourself, well then I have no doubt that you will have more of it very, very soon. Sending you all the love and all the blessings that I can.

Thanks for listening everyone. We hope you now have even more tools and greater insights to build resilience and become change proofed. Help us inspire others by sharing this episode and leaving your comments over@adammarkel.com podcast. For more Resilience tips and strategies, including support for building change proof teams, visit AdamMarkel.com BecomeChangeproof.

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