Stop Your Fears From Stealing Your Financial Dreams!

Hey there, real quick before we jump into the episode, listen, if your earnings treadmill hasn't set you free yet, running faster won't either. Listen, hustle without principles just going to burn you out. So here's what I want for you. I want you to join me for my money machine experience live. It is three free trainings. Deep dive into how to escape the treadmill and build a money machine that actually works for you. All right, grab your spot here by going to moneymachinelive.com and I'll see you in the free training. Have you ever had a situation where you want to make a decision but you just can't? You know, it's a financial decision, it's an investing decision. There's something holding you back. Well, that's what happened to a good friend of mine and a client, and we had this conversation. I walked them through a framework, six stages of conquering financial fear. And this was a live training that I did that help people understand the pathway, the checklist, if you will, to conquering your financial fear. If you're having struggles making financial decisions or investing decisions, or you find that fear coming up because you're afraid to make the wrong decision, this is the episode for you. And that's why I'm taking this live and bringing it to you more broadly, because I think that it's going to serve you. So enjoy the episode, take notes and realize that this is your checklist to move beyond the fear of making the right financial decisions or investing decisions in your life. I'll see you in the episode. Cheers.

This is the Affluent Entrepreneur show for entrepreneurs that want to operate at a high level and achieve financial liberation. I'm your host, Mel Abraham, and I'll be sharing with you what it takes to create success beyond wealth so you can have a richer, more fulfilling lifestyle. In this show, you'll learn how business and money intersect so you can scale your business, scale your money, and scale your life while creating a deeper impact and living with complete freedom, because that's what it really means to be an affluent entrepreneur.

Today. I want to talk about fear. I want to have a conversation with you around this idea of fear, around financial choices, financial decisions. And so here's the thing. This came out of a conversation that I had recently actually over the weekend with a client and a friend who is watching what's going on in the market. You know, last week we had one day alone where the stock market dropped 5%, and they're saying, should I make a decision? Should I buy? Should I Should I invest? But let's just start this. We're going to talk about the fear and everything, but it came out of a conversation with someone who was afraid to make an investment decision to, afraid to make a financial decision. And part of it was what was going on in the market. Part of it was going, what, what is, you know, the market's up, it's down, it's down 5%. It's up 5%. We've got Powell going to talk, you know, the Feds are going to talk and raise rates this week. We don't know how much they're going to raise rates, but that could, could impact the market. FedEx last week came out and said, ah, we don't like the numbers. Numbers aren't going to be good. We're not even going to tell you what the numbers are. And their stock tank 20%.

So there's a ton of uncertainty and certainly the media isn't helping. And so this, this person I was talking to, this client I was talking to was saying, I'm scared to make a decision. And the reality is they're not scared to make a decision, they're scared to make a wrong decision, let's face it. And so, and I totally get it, but here's the challenge. When we have fear, especially now, I'm not talking about fear of bodily harm. That's a whole different game. That's a whole different discussion and everything. I'm talking about fear, fear of making financial choices, money decisions, investment decisions, which is something that a lot of us struggle with, including myself. And. But here's the challenge. When we have fear, we don't fully show up. When we have fear, we don't fully end up in the, in the moment. When we have fear, we're reluctant, we're resistant, we are uncertain, we're tiptoeing. And we're not giving it everything we possibly can. And when we show up half or even three quarters and we don't get the results that we want.

We start to validate ourselves and say, see, I shouldn't have done it, I shouldn't have done it. But did we really try? Did we really give it everything that we had to look ourselves in the mirror and say, yeah, I gave it everything, because I know that there's times that I didn't.

And typically the results weren't really what I wanted, they weren't what I was hoping for. But if we have a vision for big results, we have to be willing. And I don't mean this in the sense of Cost, but we have to be willing to pay the price to get those results. In other words, to do the work, to get those results, to learn the lessons, to run the miles. You can't get in shape without going into the gym and lifting something or running or doing something. You can't delegate that. And so I think that we're in a time, in a very interesting, special time in our. At least in the lifetimes of many generations. There's a lot of. A lot of folks that have never been through a recession, that haven't had the downturn. I mean, 2008 was the last go around. That's, you know, 15 years ago, 14 years ago. So that's probably the most recent memory for many. And now we're now at the age where maybe it means something, because maybe we were younger at the time. I certainly was younger, but not that young. So. So here's the thing that we need to understand is that. And we gotta. You know, I hear someone say, well, you gotta be brave. And I actually don't think bravery's the thing.

I think bravery isn't what we need. Courageousness is what we need. And here's how I see it. Brave is a bold spirit that responds, okay, but courageousness is a choice. Courageousness is a choice. It's the courage to act, the courage to take the steps, the courage to do things that maybe are uncomfortable, the courage to be willing to commit, the courage to step up.

Courage is driven by choice.

Courage is also driven by cause. And this is why. One of the things that I say is that when we start talking about money and finances and building wealth, one of the core components is why. I mean, when someone comes to me and says, hey, I want to have a million dollars or I want to make a million dollars or I want a million dollar year in my business, one of my first questions is why? Why?

Because if the why isn't big enough, if the why isn't great enough.

You won't have the courage to make the choice.

That you need to make.

And that's the thing that I think we need to start looking at this. Because asking how do I make a million dollars? Is the wrong question to ask. Maybe the question we should be asking is, do I have the courage to step in and do the things that million, million dollar investors or millionaires will do?

Because if we're not willing to do that, then that's great, you can have it. It's a desire, it's a pipe dream, it's a vision, but it's not going to be an actuality because you're not willing to do the work that you need to do. If you need to lose weight, if you want to build a relationship, if you want to learn a skill, you got to invest in that skill. I'd love to learn languages, but I haven't committed to it. I haven't taken the chance or the time to learn it. So I think that how to make a million dollars is the wrong question. The question really is, do I have the courage to do what it takes to be the person that I need to be to be worth a million dollars? It's why. The why in all of that that allows us to focus on creating richness in our life versus wealth. Wealth is a statistic. You've heard me see this before. Wealth is a number in a bank account. It has commas, zeros, it's decimal points. It has no emotion. It is, it is a number.

And we don't want the number. We want the richness in life that the number can give us. It's why we did the exercise in the first training of the affluent Entrepreneur experience. If you have not. For those of you who don't know, I'm going through a three day right now free deep dive affluent entrepreneur experience where we're talking about the path to financial freedom. What do you need to do? The time tested priorities, processes and principles that will transcend whatever's going on in the economy, whatever's going on in your world, to give you the tools to educate you and empower you so you can take control of your financial future, your financial destiny. If you're not part of it, you can still get in. It's, it's like I said, it's free. Go to affluencelive.com those of you that are on Facebook or something, you'll be able to see that. But those of you that are on Instagram, can't. But go to affluencelive.com it's free. The first training was last week. I've got another training number two tomorrow, training number three on Thursday. So we got a lot ahead to move you through that type of stuff. But reality is that if we have fear, we won't do the things that we need to do.

Fear. Here's the way I want you to look at fear. Fear is an indication.

That something is lacking when it comes to your ability to make a decision. I'm going to give you a framework. It's a six part framework. I know it's mel. If we don't Have a framework. It's not a training for Mel. So I've got a framework. But it is a process that we go through. It's a stacking process that we go through to make sure that we're prepared to make the right decision. If you're having a struggle making a decision, it's typically. Or there's a fear there. It's typically an indication that something is lacking in your ability to make the decision. And so I'm going to walk you through this framework. We're going to go through it in a way that you start to understand steps. So if all of a sudden you're trying to figure out, I need to make a decision, do I invest in this? Do I not invest in this? Do I start doing this? Do I not start doing this? I want you to use this as your check list. Because when you go through that, you'll sit back and you'll see how the fear is replaced with understanding, confidence, and courage. And so here's the thing. There's six things that I walk through. When someone says to me, I'm not sure about making this decision, I'm not sure about making this decision. And it tells me a couple things, and I will walk them through this conversation in this format. So this is something that I do just the same. The first thing I want to make sure to understand is, is there a lack of clarity? Now, here's what this means when we talk about a lack of clarity.

There's a couple of different places this lack of clarity can come from. Clarity with respect to where you want to go is one. Okay, what are we trying to accomplish? If we don't have clarity of the destination or the direction or the accomplishment or the goal, we're going to have that uncertainty. We're not going to make the right decision. So there's clarity on where you want to go. So one of the things that I will ask is, what does success look like in your world? What does success look like? What would be a win for you?

Okay. And so there's lack of clarity when it comes to knowing where you're going.

The second lack of clarity comes into play in the sense of how to get there. Now, we can deal with that. We're not going to deal with that right here in the moment. But. But typically, if you haven't done it before, there's a lack of clarity on how to get there. Well, we'll figure out how to get there. When we go through some of these other steps, you'll start to understand the how Often we get so caught up in trying to figure out how that we get muddled in the details. The how will reveal itself when we get clarity on the what and the why.

So the first piece is this lack of clarity. Do we have the clarity on where we want to go? Do we have the clarity on why we want to get there? And when it comes to the fear, do we have clarity on actually what the fear is? See, in having this conversation.

With this person, he was involved in real Estate in 2008. He had taken a fair amount of money.

Not just from himself, but from family members. And in 2008, he completely lost it. And he says. He says, I've got investment ptsd. I mean, it. It. He says that's. That's what he calls it, but. But he's frozen in fear. The fear that he's dealing with isn't the fear of losing money per se. The fear that he is dealing with is the fear of doing it again.

Because he doesn't have the clarity. When we started to talk about it, we got the clarity on what the fear is. It's not about making a bad real estate investment. It's about duplicating what happened to him in 2008. Again, when we understand that that's the fear, we can build the courage, the confidence, and everything to that. So the first level, the first. The first step, if you're feeling uncertain or fearful or scared or stuck.

To make a specific financial decision, whether it's an investment decision, a buying decision, a. A money decision, a shift in how you're going to. You're going to use your money, though, all those things. The first thing is to ask yourself, do I have clarity on where I want to go, why I want to go there, the how will it reveal itself, and the thing that's causing the fear? If we don't, we need to dig down. All right, that leads me, then to the second piece of this, is that if I have clarity, then the other thing that can be causing the fear is this lack of information.

Lack of information can actually start to cause fear because we have. We don't know. We don't understand. We don't see it all. And so one of the things that we do, one of the investing rules that I teach in the Affluence blueprint, is that we never invest in something we don't understand, that we don't understand. It's one of the problems that got me in trouble in the Ponzi scheme. I did not fully understand the investment.

Partly because it Wasn't real. But the fact of the matter is that we need to make sure that we have all the information that we need to make the decision. Not knowing what you need to know sometimes is a problem. And if you don't, don't have all the information, then we need to get it, or we don't make the investment, or we don't make the financial decision, or we don't make that. There's a reason that companies and.

And service providers will provide a refund policy or a guarantee or a, you know, those kinds of things. It's too, it's to give you the comfort that if there's something that, that comes into play, that you have a risk reversal there. But at the same time, if you don't have all the information to make an informed decision, we shouldn't be making the decision. And that creates a fear. Even if you didn't understand that that's what the, the genesis of the fear is. This is why we go back to the lack of clarity. Do you know what the fear is? And the fear may be premised on the fact that you don't have enough information. Someone calls you up and says, I have an investment for you. It sounds great on the phone, but do you have enough information?

It's even, it's, it even goes down to your pricing and, and value. I get a call, I do valuations. I do consulting for businesses. I have someone that calls me up and they, they want to talk on the phone, and they say, what do you think the value, value of my businesses? I go, I can't do it over the phone. I don't have enough information. I first need enough information to tell you what it's going to cost me to do the work. Then you got to hire me, and then I'll do the work, and then I'll get you the answer. But I need information. And one of the things that most people will find is that it's the lack of information that keeps them in fear, especially when it becomes a money decision.

So, number one, lack of clarity. Number two, lack of information. Number three. Number three.

This is lack of.

Commitment.

All right? This might rub some people I don't know the wrong way a little bit because it might be confronting. But let's face it.

What are you willing to do to have the success that you want? Let me repeat that. What are you willing to do to have the success that you want? Let me ask it a different way. If you look at it and you say, I don't have the money, I Want, I don't have the relationship I want. I don't have the body or the health that I want. I'm going to ask a question that could be confronting. Have you paid the price.

To deserve that? Now, we all deserve everything in life. That's my firm belief. But there might be a price to pay. There might be things that we need to do. Listen. Many of you know that I got diagnosed with cancer in June of 2019. I went through two surgeries, one in July, one in August, removed a couple of tumors, and then I went through a bunch of treatments. And in December, everything was clear. So in December of 2019, I thought this was behind me, and I go about my way. April 24th, I just finished a three day live virtual event. I go in, and I was going in through the motions, going in for an examination again, another scope and scan, figuring that he's gonna say, oh, you're still clear, you're good, you're good, you're good. And I'm laying on the table, I'm awake, and he's doing the scope, and he's looking around, looking around. And you don't want to hear this from your surgeon, but I hear my surgeon saying, oh, that's something. I'm going, what do you mean, something? And he found another tumor. So here I was thinking I was clear. And then four months later, they found another tumor, which put me in a spiral again. And I was talking to a dear, dear friend of mine. He says, how are you holding up? I said, yeah, you know, I'm not that good if I'm going to be honest. And he said to me, he says, how clear are you on the outcome? I said, on the outcome or the desired outcome? He says, they should be one and the same. I said, well, I'm gonna beat this thing. He says, are you? I said, yeah. I says, so what would happen if you knew that that was the outcome, that. That you were gonna beat this thing? And I said, I would do whatever it takes. So he says, so let me ask you this. Knowing that the outcome from this additional surgery is that you're gonna beat this, how would you show up differently? What would you do to make sure that happened? And that's the thing, that's the difference in commitment. Because that conversation shifted me. That conversation said, wait a second, I'm going to go at this each and every day. Now, I don't know how each day is going to unfold, but I do know what the destination is. So I had clarity, the destination. I had more information because we started to look at other treatment protocols to do it. So I got more information. So it increased my. My level of clarity, decreased my level of fear, and then I increased the level of commitment. The question is, too often we sit back and say, huh.

I'm interested. Interested is not committed.

When we get committed to an outcome, the how will reveal itself. Remember, I said, sometimes we don't have the clarity on the how, but the how will reveal itself when you're committed to the outcome. I sat back and I said, what else can I do to beat the cancer?

Because I didn't expect it to come back that fast.

But I was committed. There was no question. There was no changing it. There was no. No going back.

And so often when we start to look at financial decisions or money decisions.

We may have the clarity, we may have the information.

But we don't have the commitment to do what it takes to pick up the book and read it, to go through the course, to get the coach, to get the mentor to do the things you need to do. Because here's the thing. Look at how we're stacking. This lack of clarity was 1. Lack of information was 2. Lack of commitment is 3. The fact of the matter is that if you're committed and you have a lack of information, you'll do what it takes. You'll digest shows like mine, the Affluent Entrepreneur show. You'll pick up books, you'll go through courses like the Affluent Blueprint. You'll get coaches, you'll get mentors. You'll do what it takes because you're committed to the outcome.

But too often, we're interested in investing. We're interested in building wealth. We're interested in money management. But we won't change our behaviors. And remember, wealth is a behavior.

Not about the money, that our money is really a. Our current money situation is a result of our money behaviors. Our decisions, our choices and our behaviors from the past result in our money. Our money situation. Our money isn't an issue. Money's a symptom or a result however you want to look at it. But the fact of the matter is, is that if we change our habits, if we change our decisions, if we change our behaviors, we change our results in all aspects of our life.

I hope that this is landing for you, but we have to be committed to it. Listen, people will say, well, you know, how fast can you change? Well, if the why is big enough, you can change pretty doggone fast.

When I got diagnosed with a cancer, someone told me, now I was healthy, other than the cancer. I ate healthy. Other than a sweet tooth.

I worked out six days a week. I wasn't a smoker, I wasn't a drinker. I was doing all that. But they came to me and they said, mel, sugar fuels the cancer. And I know you have a sweet tooth.

What can you do to stop that or to reduce that so you don't fuel the cancer? Well, here's the deal.

June of 2019, I said, wait a second. Sugar fuels cancer. So I looked at it and said, I love life too much. I love my wife too much, my son, his daughter in law, my granddaughter, which I didn't know was going to have at the time. I love life too much.

And that pained me. That pulled me through, that said, I'm not ready to let this go. So this idea that sugar was fueling cancer, I said, well, if sugar fuels cancer. So I equated sugar to cancer. I literally went on a three day water fast. Just a three day water fast. The only reason I didn't go five days is because it was before my first surgery and we weren't sure when they were going to call me for surgery and I needed to have sustenance in me before I went to surgery. So we did it for three days. And the reason I did a water fast was to break the connection with the sugar.

And I haven't looked back since. Now I am sure that my diet has had some sugars in it, processed sugars, anything, especially if I eat out. But I am deliberate, I am diligent, I'm vigilant. We look at labels. We don't have, we don't have processed sugar in the house, we don't do any of that. If it's got sugar in it, I turn it down, you know, and. And the reason for it is the fact that I was equating sugar to cancer, cancer to death. And my love for life was too much. My why, my why was strong enough to get me to commit, to do what's necessary. So if your financial destiny, if your financial future is something that is meaningful for you, and it should be, because this isn't about money in a bank account. This is about your children. This is about your grandchildren. It's about the causes, the missions, the movements. You want to get behind the change you want to see in the world that you get a chance to fund. This is about being able to buy back the moments of your life in a way that you get to live it by choice. To have a life that I get to instead of, I have to to be able to do that, it requires you to have the ability to say no to things that don't suit you. Today I don't have to take on projects. Today I don't have to work. Today, Everything I do, not everything, because I still take the trash out, okay? I do by choice.

But it was because I had a commitment before. So I'm urging you to start to look at and say, am I committed to a new financial destiny? Am I committed to a new financial future? Am I committed to a new financial trajectory for not just for me, but for my family, for my legacy, for the movements, the missions that need it and need me to show up differently. Because now all of a sudden, you have lack of clarity. You got lack of information. We've cleared out the clarity. We got more information. We're committed to do what it takes to pay the price that is necessary to make sure that it becomes our way. Listen, when they told me the cancer, if they told me that I had to run 10 miles a day and I'm not a runner, I okay, 10 miles a day with a pit bull on my rear end, I would do it. That's how committed I was. Okay? And still am. I am very, very deliberate in everything we do. So that leads me to the fourth element that will start to conquer the financial fears that hold you back from a new financial destiny. So the first was lack of clarity. The second was lack of information. The third is lack of commitment. And the fourth is this lack of action.

This is a big one. This one is a big one. We'll give it a whole different color. All right, this one's a big one. I, you know, there was a time that I had 20 staff of 29 people working for me. And they used to come in to me and tell me, here's what my priorities are. Here's. Here's what my values are, here's what they are. And I said, I used to tell them the same thing. And I do this with my coaching clients. I don't take on very many coaching clients. I have a handful of one on one clients that I do that I do work with on a regular basis. It's not easy to get in. I don't have, I don't have space. And then I have a small group of group coaching clients that I work with and the rest is in my programs and that type of thing. But one of the things that I will tell them is I said, don't tell me what you're going to do. Don't tell me what Your priorities and values are. I will tell what your values and priorities are by watching your feet, by watching your hands, by watching your action. See, if you tell me.

That you want to lose weight as you're sitting there eating an ice cream sundae, your actions speak louder than words. They do. If you tell me that you want to build wealth and you want to have financial freedom while you're running up credit card bills, your actions speak louder than words. Okay. The fact is, is that actions will precede results.

And sometimes it's those actions that give us the more information that ultimately leads to the clarity that we need. You see how these start to stack on each other? See, the reason we take action is not to necessarily get to the goal, but rather to get better information, to get more perspective so we can make a better decision to go and take further action.

But too often what happens is we stand in inertia, we stay still and we don't try. So let's, and this is the thing that we do with, with clients and this person who said, I can't make a decision because I'm in fear, I said, let's make a small decision.

Let's just, let's just automatically move money into a high yield cash account. Automatically. Let's just do that. 50 bucks a week. Can we do that? Yeah. Yeah, we can do that. All right. Small decision, small commitment, big step.

It's the same reason we use dollar cost averaging to invest in, into the market is that, that we're going to take small, consistent steps over time. $50 a week will turn into $350,000 to the point that I can turn around. If I can turn around and get $1,500 a month put away over 30 years turns into $2.2 million. It's small actions done over time, consistently, that's going to make a difference. But sometimes we're too scared because we look at a big action and we say, ah, no, I want you to do remember, wealth creation is a behavior.

I just want you to start. If all you have available to you is $5, we start with 5. Because here's what I know. When we start with 5 and you exercise the muscle, the muscle gets used to it. And all of a sudden 5 becomes 10, 10 becomes 20, 20 becomes 40, 40 becomes 80, 80 becomes hundreds of thousands.

But we have to start and take action. We have to get in motion. So if there's fear, we, we need to move, we need to do something. Physiology will change your state. Physiology will change your attitude. Physiology will change Your perspective. So we need to then get in there and really start to build. So let's go back through it again. Lack of clarity is the first thing, so we need to make sure we're clear. Lack of information is the second. Lack of commitment, lack of action. Okay, there's two more left. And, and, and this one that. This next one is lack of support.

This one, this one, this one.

So, and this one's a pet peeve of mine because I hear this all the time. Oh, they want to introduce you. And they. In fact, I had this happen where I was going to do a keynote and they wanted to introduce me as a. This, Mel, is self made and just makes my skin crawl. I'm not self made. First off, I didn't make myself something else. A higher power made me. And I'm not. That doesn't get lost on me. Second, there's a whole lot of people around me that love me. There's a whole lot of people around me that probably hated me. There's customers, there's clients, there's you in. In the Internet world, the people I interact with, all of you crafted me. I'm not self made.

No one is. And I think.

It'S egotistical, quite frankly, to think that you've done it all on your own. Because there's no way, if you're making money from people without the customers, you couldn't have done it. But here's my point on this, is that I also surround myself with people who support my vision. I have coaches that I pay, mentors that I'm with, colleagues and peers that are in groups that we meet, that we talk. They're the ones that are going to turn around and say, wait a second, Mel, you told me before that your priorities, your values, you are committed to it. Is this consistent with what you're trying to get? They'll. They'll love me through it, but they'll kick my behind there. It is the reason you all need coaches. It's the reason you all need mentors. It's the reason you all need a community of people that are going to support the journey. And sometimes that support comes in the form of a handout to help you up. And sometimes that support comes in the, in the form of a kick in the behind because you need it. I've had it, I do it, I get it. It's happened to me. And so we need a safe community to have conversations. It's the reason I created the affluent entrepreneur group. It's the reason I put the show out there, and my YouTube channel is so we can have safe conversations. We're demonizing money, but money is nothing. It's a tool.

Let's give you the tools to do it. Let's have the place where you can get support, where you don't feel isolated. We don't feel silent. We don't feel, oh, I got to do this all on my own. No, I didn't do it all on my own. I'm still learning. I still have coaches.

You all need coaches. You all need people around you to be successful. And the other thing about it, quite frankly, success feels so much better when you're sharing it with other people. Ah. All right. So lack of support, that leads me to the last, the last element that will, that will help with this, and that is lack of a backup plan. Okay? Now don't get me wrong on this. This is, this has nothing to do with your backup plan saying, well, that didn't work. I'm going to go get a job or I'm going to drive for Uber. Okay? Not that there's anything wrong with that. Okay. What I mean is that when I do consulting for businesses or when I'm working with someone one on one and they tell me, this is my goal, this is where I want to go. In affluence movement, one of the first things we do is to unpack what their affluence vision is, what their life is going to look like. And then you create the plan in which to get there. Now, I sit on a board of directors of a company that was founded in 1888, okay? And we'll sit there and we will do this. We have a strategic plan. Now, we built that company up to 250, more than $250 million. And the reality is that we're looking forward and we're saying, here's what we want to accomplish, here's my goal, and we have a plan to make that happen. The problem is that most often we have one plan. Most often we have one way to make it success. Now here's the thing. If, if we're looking at our financial future, if we're looking at our. Our success, and all the planets have to line up for it to happen the way we want it, it's probably not, because there's one thing for certain. As soon as you create a plan, as soon as you create a plan, as soon as it is pen to paper or typing on the keyboard, whatever it is, however you do it, as soon as you create a plan.

It'S Wrong.

So here's what I believe we all should be doing.

We all should be coming up with alternatives. So here's one way to achieve my goal. And now we go back and we say, all right, here's another way to achieve my goal. In other words, we create alternatives. We don't find the alternatives when we're in the heat of battle. We don't sit back and say, I'm going to go in, I'm going into battle, I'm going to do this now. I'm in the middle of a fight. It's not working out. Now I have to come up with another plan. No, we get the alternatives before we get into the battle. We have backup plans on backup plans. Here's the thing. I get a note from someone who was asking about, you know, the current market conditions and saying, you know, the market has dropped and their portfolio has dropped. They're up in age. What do they do? And so one of the things that my wealth team does and I will always do is we have the plan. We have the strategic plan for our. For my financial future, for my wife's financial future, our family's financial, the family legacy. We've got the plan built out. But one of the things that an advisor should be doing, and if they're not doing it, shame on them. And if they're not doing it, find another one that does. Okay, Is we literally go in and I just did this a few months ago, I'm flying out to see them and I'm going to be doing it again. And that is this. We stress test the plan. We say, look, the market's kind of crazy right now. It dropped 5% in a day. We might be in a recession, they might be raising interest rates. We might lose 20%, we might lose 30%, we might gain 20%, who knows? So we stress test the plan to say, what happens if the market drops 20%? What happens if the market drops 30%? What happens if the market goes up 10%? What happens if I stop earning income? What happens if I start creating more income? What happens if? And so you stress test all these scenarios and you look at it and say, with all this stress testing, the probability of success is 80%, 90%, 70%, 20%. Now you have something to work with.

And think about the confidence and the courage you have to make a decision. When all of a sudden you have clarity, when all of a sudden you have the information. When all of a sudden you've made the commitment, when all of a sudden you're taking the Small actions that will lead to big results. Then all of a sudden you have a support around you and all of a sudden you have backup plans that have tested. See, too often we.

Conf.

These six lacks with fear of making a financial decision. Where instead if what we did was walk through this checklist, do I have clarity? Do I have all the information to make the decision? Am I committed to it? Am I taking action? Do I have a support team and do I have a backup plan? If we walk through that, the level of confidence, the level of courage and your and the will go way up and the level of fear goes way down. This is your checklist. So if you feel that fear is holding you back from making financial decisions, if you feel like, wait a second, I made some bad financial decisions in the past or I made some bad investments in the past, I don't want to duplicate. And so you're scared and you're not making a decision. The market's all over the place, you're not making a decision. I want you to go back to this and I want you to step through. Do I have full clarity? Clarity, information, commitment, action, support and backup plan. That's it. That's it. Now all of a sudden when you make the decision.

You are more equipped, you're more committed, you're more informed and you understand if things go awry already, the steps to correct it.

Fear doesn't need to steal.

Your financial dreams, and it is. And if we listen to the media, they're going to stir the fear even more.

And the reason is they're not giving you full information. They're doing what they need to do to get eyeballs, ratings, viewers, readers and advertisers. And fear sells, all right? They think it's sex that sells, but fear is selling. And so here's the thing, we're not going to play their game anymore. You now have a recipe, you now have a process. This is a process that I use with my clients. It is what I use with me. It came out of the Ponzi scheme. It came out of. It came out of all of the road rash I got from the bad decisions that I've made, the bad investments, the bad financial system. You get the benefit of my mistakes. So let's not have you make them use this. Help you get out of fear, help you make the right decisions, help you get the right people in your life to help you, nurture you along the way. You don't have to do this siloed or met or self made.

You got a community you got a place to go and, and you've got support. So I hope that this helps. I hope that you found this helpful. Listen, for those of you that just joined or.

Or haven't joined yet, or haven't joined, do me a favor. Listen, I am in the middle of a three part deep dive training called the Affluent Entrepreneur Experience. Totally free, but I'm walking through the steps, the processes, the frameworks that you need to, to, to. To get on the path to financial freedom. Join me, go to affluencelive.com go to affluencelive.com and join me in it for free. And let's go through it. Let me help you, Let me give you the tools, let me give you the workbooks, let me give you the frameworks, let me give you the processes so you can take control of your financial future. It's not about selling you investments. I got no investments to sell you. I'm not selling insurance. I don't have an insurance license. But I am selling you on your dreams. It's about educating you, it's about empowering you. It's about equipping you to take control of your financial future. We don't hand it off to anyone else anymore. We take control. This is a time of great opportunity if we understand the principles and the priorities and the processes to use. More millionaires are made during recessionary times and uncertain times than any other time. 88% of millionaires are first generation millionaires. In other words, they earned it themselves. It wasn't given to them, wasn't inherited. You need to be that statistic. You deserve it. Financial freedom is your birthright. We just got to go claim it. All right? So let's do this together. If there's anything I can do to support you, anything I can do to help you, anything that comes up questions, just like this person that reached out and had the question, just like this, the other person that reached out and said, hey, I'm older, my portfolio's dropped. What should I be thinking about? Reach out to me. Get in the Affluent Entrepreneur Facebook group. Reach out. Let's have the conversations. Let's do this together. You're not alone. I got you. The group's got you. The community's got you. And that's what we're here for. All right. I hope to see you in the training tomorrow. Training number two is tomorrow. If you join@affluencelive.com you'll get a chance to go to the all access page, watch the replay from training one, catch up don't worry about it and get into training number two. And number three is going to be later this week. So with that, with that, I'm sign off. But I'm going to sign off, as I always do, to always, always live a life that outlives you. Cheers. I'll see you soon.

Thank you for listening to the Affluent Entrepreneur show with me, your host, Mel Abraham. If you want to achieve financial liberation to create an affluent lifestyle, join me in the Affluent Entrepreneur Facebook group now by going to melabraham.com group and I'll see you there.

And that's it for this episode of Building youg Money Machine, where we help you learn how to master your money, eliminate financial stress, and live a life of choice. If you found this valuable or helpful to you, here's what I'd love for you to do. If you do me a favor, go to Apple, Apple Podcast or wherever you're listening to this podcast and rate and review the show. It helps us tremendously to keep us at the top of the list so we can continue to get this information and this message out to people. Because I truly believe that financial freedom show your birthright and I want to help each and every one of you claim it. Thanks so much.