Taking Control of YOUR Financial Life in Canada

The key is you. It's all about being accountable and taking responsibility for that direction that you want to go. And taking responsibility for that direction that you want to go certainly doesn't mean that you have to have all the answers in how to get there. That's why you have a coach. That's why you have somebody who can help you along. And so the most important question to ask yourself is that whatever it is in your life that sparks some form of initial enthusiasm, ask yourself the question, how am I going to respond when the enthusiasm dries up? Am I going to be coachable? Am I going to implement what's being taught, or am I going to not do that and then point the finger at anyone but myself when something doesn't go right? Because you're not going to grow that way.

We've been having some, a little bit of rant type chats lately, Jason, you know, off the screen. Yeah. And so I thought we would kind of, you know, a little mini rant maybe on the screen. And recently we've been discussing coaching, but specifically, like, instances where, you know, people who get excited and embrace, you know, whether it's the concept of the process or just getting started in, you know, a different direction in their financial life and whatever it is, life gets in the way or they just kind of lose their. I don't know if they lose their excitement or they just don't engage. And then time passes by because the time's going to go by anyhow. And then all of a sudden you're looking back and you realize, okay, there's a person that's not attend. They're not booking regular meetings. They don't attend any events. They're not engaging in their learning journey. They're not actively participating in trying to make the best financial life possible for themselves. And, you know, this, this does happen from time to time. And so, you know, we were, we were talking a little bit about, you know, an analogy. I think that speaks to that. And, you know, it comes up for me is like, it's like, you know, new, you know, New Year's goals of losing weight or whatever. You know, people want to get healthy and. Well, what do they do? They, they first thing they do is they go sign up at the gym. And, well, because I signed up at the gym, I'm going to go to the gym. And then they start going. They're excited and the excitement's there and they're doing it, and they're doing it. It's like, oh, I really want to take this Up a notch. I'm going to go hire a trainer. And you go get a trainer or someone to help you out. And you know, they're, they're there for, you know, a couple of weeks and they're yelling at you about doing push ups or whatever the, you know, you can do it, you know, lifting the weight or whatever it is you got going on there and you know, you're feeling inspired, you know, and then life comes around and it kicks you in the face a couple of times and you have a couple of bad days, you, you get a little overworked. There's a project, a deadline or whatever and it kind of takes your, the wind out of your sails and you know, you're, you know, then the family's sick, maybe they're down with COVID or whatever. They got one of the nasty flus that's going around and you get taken out of the game a little bit. And then you wake up one day and you get all these messages from your trainers like, hey, we're supposed, you're supposed to be at the gym meeting me. Like it's, if you're 10 minutes late, where the hell are you? Like, what's going on? And then you just don't call the trainer back. You just like ghost that person and never respond to them ever again. Like that would be super weird, right? If you really wanted to get your health goals achieved and you were having some success and you were moving forward, then you were excited and then, you know, life, hey, life gets in the way for everybody. Like I've experienced that. Like we all, we all get kicked in the proverbial nuts a couple of times. It's not okay to just leave that person that you've engaged with to try to help you and to give you mentorship and coaching and guidance and accountability and then just not respond to them anymore. To just completely like walk away from it all. And it's really, really disappointing when you see that that happens for someone in their financial life.

Yeah, absolutely. It's one of the things that we talk about is to be a really good coach. You know, you have to, if you think, think about like a, like a sports team, like if you really want to be a good coach, you have to really love your players. And if, if a player wants to be great, but they don't want to do all the things that the great ones did to become great, then why would there be an expectation of greatness? You know, you've got to do the work. And to use your example, if you Go to the gym. If you're just going there to go through the motions, that's a lot different than going there and actually loving it because that's what's going to create greatness. And in anything in life, it doesn't really matter what it is. We could literally describe anything. It's not because you're dealing with the human condition and you'd love to see everyone succeed, but the fact of the matter is, is that it's, you know, it's not going to happen. If you're not embracing the coaching or you're not implementing the process, then you shouldn't expect, you shouldn't expect anything other than a different outcome.

It reminds me of something in Nelson's book because you mentioned human conditions and this, this book, Nelson's book that we talk about all the time, frequently. It's a, it's a gem. It just keeps on giving. And Nelson spends a lot of time. There's a big section of the book all about human conditions. Five human conditions he discusses. One of the biggest ones I think is Parkinson's law. And he starts off with Parkinson's law. Yeah. On page 28 of the book. But you know, later on the book he references it in a number of ways. And so he goes into an example of twin sisters where they're each setting up a system where they're going to finance all their cars throughout a lifespan. And they started at like age 21, they put $5,000 in and they didn't touch anything for seven years. Well, Nelson did that intentionally. They, they could have been using money earlier. But he's specifically trying to teach the point that show me someone who will capitalize a system of anything, doesn't matter what it is, you will understand the importance of capitalizing for seven years. And I'll show you someone who's conquered Parkinson's law. Right. And you know, I was talking with a couple of other teammates about this recently and they, you know, you, you go to a position where we live in an I want it now mentality in society. Everything and is available at your fingertips and it's buzzing at you 24 7. And you know, it's got your attention, but we have to it sometimes it takes us off that long range thinking. And so this concept, this lifestyle of infinite banking is a, it's a lifestyle, it's something that you, you don't just like start and be like, oh, I'm going to test this out. Like, no, you're, you're thinking about changing the way that you optimize cash flow as it runs through your life for the rest of your life. And ideally, like what we're going to talk about on this coming Saturday, we've got a client coaching session. We're talking about family banking. Ideally going to take this lifestyle and you're going to teach and showcase and share that lifestyle with your family members or with people you love dearly that are important to you, that you also want to see succeed. And you're going to help them embrace the thinking that goes along with embracing that lifestyle so that when you're gone and you've walked off planet Earth or you're six feet under or whatever analogy you want to use, then there is something sustainable that lives beyond you, of value. Now, if you don't have, you know, spouse and kids or grandkids or whatever, if that's not your path, that's totally okay. But we meet people all the time. I haven't met anyone, Jason, yet, to this point in my life who doesn't care about something, right? Whether it's the SPCA or, or, you know, protecting our national forest, like whatever the thing is, maybe it's cancer research or you had someone that, you know, that was impacted by, you know, Ms. Like, there's all kinds of valuable things that people care deeply about. And so if you have the ability to live, work with capital throughout your lifespan, work with more capital than you're going to put into a system, and also leave a boatload of it behind, tax free, that the Canadian government can't get their hands on to support something you love dearly, whether it's family, extended family, or at some other important cause. Why on earth wouldn't you do that? Right?

The key is you. It's all about being accountable and taking responsibility for that direction that you want to go. And taking responsibility for that direction that you want to go certainly doesn't mean that you have to have all the answers in how to get there. That's why you have a coach. That's why you have somebody who can help you along. And so the most important question to ask yourself is that whatever it is in your life that sparks some form of initial enthusiasm, ask yourself the question, how am I going to respond when the enthusiasm dries up? Am I going to be coachable? Am I going to implement what's being taught? Or am I going to not do that and then point the finger at anyone but myself when something doesn't go right because you're not going to grow that way?

There's another question I would say is also very important with that, Jay. And it's who else who's a lifeline that you can call. It's like, you remember that show who Wants to Be a Millionaire? With Regis. Yeah, Regis, right. And it's like, okay, you want to dial a friend, you know, ask the audience, and you got like these three options. I'm like, well, who's. Who's someone that's a supportive force in your life in that area of your life. You're, you know, when the going gets tough, that you can reach out to. When it comes to things in your financial life, ideally, you want someone who's been a coach to you, who's, who's supportive, who can help you provide some guidance, maybe that you just need a swift kick in the pants to get your act together. Like sometimes we all need that. And someone who's willing to be a coach to you will. Will help you with that. And that's part of what we try to, you know, implore doing for our clients, you know, at Ascended. But, you know, I think that you have to recognize in order to have the things that you want in life to. To accomplish things you want in life. You can't get away from doing some hard work, and you can't get away from some activity, some taking some activity. And the more that you, you know, the more you realize, the more you understand what's possible and you see things that are available to you outside of the fringe of your vision. It's like people will walk through life with those blinders on. You know, you see the horses, like in horse races, they put that on there so that the horses don't recognize that there's someone beside them. They get all skittish and they're frantically trying to, you know, flail around, and there's a whole big accident. Well, you know, people are walking through life with, with that going on, but as soon as you crack those open and they can see all the stuff that's around them, you know, you start to be exposed to a whole new way of thinking, of financial opportunity. And the more and deeper you can see, it's like you're. It's like you're just going to the optometrist and you're saying, oh, yeah, hey, you're prescription. Oh, your eyes are getting better. We can reduce your prescription so you can see more crisp and more clear. Yeah. With things as you go. And that's part of what, you know, all the, the content, the video comm we do in our podcast. Those are things that we're trying to do to help give people more clarity and vision around their financial life and what's possible for them. And when you stretch the boundary of possibility in your life, it's, it's amazing the ideas that could be generated in your head. I was in the shower this morning thinking about NFTs and you know, all this stuff is going on with cryptocurrency and recognizing that there's, there's a, there's a whole legitimately a brand new world that's being invented right now as we speak, and there's things that we can't even comprehend that are going to be possible in that world around ways to generate wealth, hold and sustain it in some way. There's a whole host of things that are possible that are, you know, mind boggling to, to a degree. And, but I, you know, I started having ideas, okay, well, what would this look like? What would this look like? And you know, two weeks ago I wasn't thinking about that, but I've been listening to some new material and I'm exposed to more possibility than I had before. And so I'm just, I'm just constantly interested to see how and watching it happen with people who are exposed to become your own banker. They, you know, they read Nelson's book or they watch one of our podcast episodes and then they're reaching out and they're saying, hey, I really like what you guys said about this. Or I was reading Nelson's book and suddenly it dawned on me. Oh, like, you know, I am paying for home and auto, for auto insurance and I do have collision on my vehicle, but I already use my policy system to pay off my vehicle and I've built up additional capital that I have the replacement value of that vehicle now available. I forgot about that. Maybe I should now look at getting a new policy and I should be paying myself the premium to become self insured for collision coverage. Right? What would that, what would that look like and how would that add to my capital base? And if I'm doing it for me, well then can I do it for my spouse? And if I'm doing for a spouse, okay, well, when the kids need cars now we've built up an entire capital reservoir for being the auto insurance, you know, collision mechanism for the entire family. And all of that financial energy that used to walk out the door to some other insurance company is now coming back to one that you own and control. We don't see that necessarily. Might read it like, oh yeah, he said something about that. But then you Read the book again and you're now at a mental space where it's all sudden like, boom, it clicks and like a whole sea of potential opens up for you. It was always there. The sea was always there. You just didn't, weren't. You weren't there standing on the beach, looking at it the same way.

Yeah, it's very true. And it's always something new to learn if you're engaged. And that's the one thing about it reminds me of the backward bicycle video, which, which would be great if. I don't know if there's a way for us to post a link to that somewhere, but I got your back here.

We'll get her. We'll get her.

Backward Bicycle video is just a great way to emphasize, you know, some of the really important truths around knowledge does not equal understanding. And I think that my memory served me right. That's about an eight minute video. So it's a quick watch, but it will, it will impact your thinking and it will resonate with you. And so watch that video.

My job is to make and then watch it again.

And so implementing a process and making a change, that takes time. It takes time to interrupt, not only interrupt the pattern of what you were doing financially up to this point in your lifetime, but to also maintain and develop a new habit of doing things. And that's why it's so important. And Nelson emphasized it rightfully so, that it's important to have a coach, but having a coach and working with your coach are two completely different things.