Destroy Financial Scarcity with Kim Butler

Super easy to fall into complaint mode. But in my head, sometimes I do it out loud. I just took a moment to be grateful. We got food and it was hot and I didn't have to cook it. Right? So that's a good example of just playing the gratitude game and digging out a positive out of what could be a negative.

Kim Butler, welcome to the Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books podcast. When I go back to the beginning of my personal development journey, I started with Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki, and I noticed in the back of the book that he's endorsed your work before. And, uh, that book just taught me that the traditional public education system fails most people because it doesn't teach personal finance. And although I And the reason we started with that conversation is because I had showed you that, yeah, I have a little bit more room to grow, I think, in that area of life. But I know more than maybe the average person does because I've invested in books like yours and books like his. And I think that reading is such a fantastic way to learn.

And isn't it awesome that today we have Audibles so that if somebody really struggles with learning, they can still consume those amazing books And get the actual, in many cases, author speaking into their brain. In fact, I don't know if you have heard this. I'm trying to think where the source is of this statistic, but it is that individuals have a closer relationship with people that they listen to their podcasts of than people that they watch YouTubes of. Now, we know that many podcasts are on YouTube as well, but The reason is because they're literally in their ears, right? They're with headphones on. And so that connection, that human connection, which we're well aware of, we're missing a bit of in today's world, is actually closer with a podcaster.

Ah, that's fascinating. I would have thought it was the other way around because I've, I've learned that when consuming books, that 80% of the input to our brains is visual. And so by default, if you're reading, you have a better chance at retaining. And so I would have thought if you're watching, you have a better chance at forming a relationship than just listening. But I'll have to dig that up and understand a little bit more about why.

Yeah, well, it is super fun since we're showing books on the screen here. Um, this particular book is on Audible with an AI voice.

Oh, cool.

And Audible, the proper company, just opened the door for that to happen literally about a month ago. So prior to that, as I'm sure you're well aware, Audible would not let you have an AI-read book on their system. Like it wasn't allowed. And they opened up a little beta window, which I'm so grateful I was able to access. In fact, my podcast co-host found out about it for me. And so podcasting, book reading, right, in Audibles, we were able to get in that beta. And so we picked voice number 8, like literally that's what they called it. And so this book is read by voice number 8 in Audible's AI system. And you and I both know what's coming soon. And that's where Audible will let our own AIs read the books. And I'm super, very much looking forward to that.

Yeah, well, that's very cool. We will put a link in the show notes of your book on Audible so people can Click through, check that out, listen to an audio sample and hear what voice number 8 actually sounds like. That's really cool. So Kim, go— let's go way back to the beginning. You're the author of how many books now? 11?

Yes.

11 books now. What was the first book that you decided to write and why?

It is called Live Your Life Insurance. And I wrote it because I have lots of clients that have purchased whole life insurance, which is an asset, and term insurance, which is an expense. Thanks to Tom Wheelwright for that one. And they don't remember how that asset works. So I took a little— Yes, I understand. I took a little FAQ, right? And this is, I want to say, about the late 1990s. So it's before the internet exists. So maybe mid-1990s. I, I took a little FAQ and I spread it out on the carpet floor. I don't know why I wasn't using a table, but I have an image of this, right? And I organized the book, and it's a tiny little book, and I put it together. And the company that Amazon now owns called CreateSpace published it. And so Amazon has this whole self-publishing platform. Well, that didn't used to exist, but CreateSpace was brand new. So that book came together right at about the time the internet launched, which is right around when Kiyosaki's first book came out too, his first book self-published and not on the internet. That Live Your Life Insurance book was specifically written for my clients. I hadn't intended it at all to be something out in the public for others to benefit from.

What's the process like today to have a book go live compared to back then? I mean, I imagine it's just so wildly different.

Yes. I literally think if you and I wanted to, by 5 o'clock tonight, we could have a book on Amazon. There would be like a couple-week, you know, delay while they went through their system. But it is incredibly fast, so beneficial. Everybody that has that, I think I'll write a book someday, in the back of their head should absolutely positively write a book. And I've helped my daughter when she was a, I want to say, 10th or 11th grader. She's got a book on Amazon. I helped my— I had a little roommate for a while. I lived in 2 states, long family thing that's irrelevant. But I had about, I want to say she was about 70 years old. And I helped her write a book. I think it's called something like My 5 Husbands because she was married 5 different times. I think that's still on Amazon. I mean, the capability today is amazing and fast.

It really is, which means that there are more books entering the space every single day. And so it's harder to differentiate each new book that you put out. So tell us what's unique about Busting the Scarcity Mindset. Why did you decide that there was a need for you to write about this subject?

Well, in some ways, I wish it had been the first book that I wrote.

Oh, really?

Yes. However, as a late 50-year-old business owner and woman and mom and, you know, professional person out in the world, I have a lot more wisdom to share around busting the scarcity mindset than I did when I was in my early 20s. Nevertheless, there are some things in my 20s that I adopted as mantras. I don't even know why, I just did, that enabled me throughout all of my professional life to bust the scarcity mindset. And so it's unique to me to think about Well, it could have been at the beginning, but it's sort of at the end. Of course, it's never the end, right? Not until the day we die. Um, but it's at the end of a period of time of writing books, and I'm so grateful for my co-author, Kristin Huguenin. She was very helpful in this space, and she's on the younger side, but the wisdom that comes from living a life on Earth for 50-plus years. Is, I think, more valuable than a 20-year-old writing about, well, this sounds like a good theory, but does it really work?

If, if you were to have to guess, just totally guesstimate, what percentage of the American population deals with a scarcity mindset, what do you think that answer is?

It's 100%, without a doubt, because even me, with all the knowledge that I have, Absolutely, positively still deal with that from time to time, and it's a daily, possibly even hourly thing, right? I mean, just the other day I was struggling with that scarcity mindset, monkey on your shoulder, you know, whatever you want to call it, about one specific issue. And I had to pick this book up and put it to Use. And so it's over and over and over. And, and the question to me isn't whether you are dealing with the scarcity mindset. Now, clearly some people deal with it more than others, but it's what do you do about it when it shows up?

Because it is literally a daily or sometimes even hourly thing that can show Well, I will jump into the natural follow-up question to that, which is, what the heck do we do when it shows up? But first, I wanna commend you on your vulnerability and for sharing that you still deal with scarcity on a regular basis, even an hourly basis. Because I think a lot of people would look at you, Kim, the author of 11 books, a successful business owner, a professional personality, and say she has it all together. And you're saying that's not the case.

No.

You're saying, I use the book that I wrote as an accountability partner to hold myself to a higher standard. And I think that's really cool.

Thank you.

So tell us, what do you do when the scarcity creeps in? And I know there are a lot of things that you could do, but what comes to mind first? What's always your first go-to solution?

Absolutely. So for me, prayer is a very immediate go-to And I focus on my prayer being praise, not plead. So yes, I do love words that start with a P: prosperity thinkers, prosperity parents, prayer, pleading.

Ah!

Nevertheless, I think so much of us—and this is not a religious commentary; it's more of a spiritual commentary. We look at prayer as a space to plead, and I don't. I look at it as a space to praise and be positive. There's another P word. So the way that I go about doing that is I play the gratitude game, and I have learned that the more specific I can make my gratitude The better. And then if I can uplevel it a notch, it's even better. So do we have time for a quick example?

Oh yeah, of course. Okay. By the way, gratitude— I, I have 3 or 4 different gratitude tattoos. It's my obsession. So you're talking to the right person about this.

I love it. It's so important and it is so easy to not have it, right? So to me, one of the opposites of gratitude is complaining, and our society is skilled at complaining. So I work hard to do the opposite, to be grateful, to dig. Sometimes it takes real work to find that one specific gratitude thing that I can. So I'll, I'll maybe share a couple stories, but a real fun one, because I talked about upleveling the gratitude. So a real fun one that's easy, and I think a lot of people can relate to, is animals, right? Like our dog, our cat, whatever. We have alpacas also, so they're kind of fun. So I can be grateful for the dog, right? The dog brings joy. The, the dog is soft to pet, right? Well, those 2 things, the soft to pet is obviously a material value that the dog brings. The joy or the love is the spiritual value or the inspirational element of the dog. And so as I'm looking for things to be grateful for, so here's an example from last night. We, uh, we live way out in the country, so when we go to town, it's kind of a big deal. So we go to town, we have to pick some stuff stuff up and we decide to grab a drive-through dinner at a restaurant and we pull up, right, order the food, and the girl's like with it. Like her brain is on, her batteries are included, and she's doing her thing. How cool is that? Because we all know we can drive up and have somebody that's really the opposite of that. So We are grateful, and then we get the food and there are some mistakes, right? So super easy to fall into complaint mode. But in my head, I try not to be overly obnoxious about this because in a family situation it can get a little much. So in this case, in my head— sometimes I do it out loud— I just took a moment to be grateful. We got food and it was hot and I didn't have to cook it. Right. So, that's a good example of just playing the gratitude game and digging out a positive out of what could be a negative.

Yeah. It's focusing on what you have instead of what you lack. It's focusing on the fact that you have the hot food, not the mistakes that may have been made in preparing it. And for anybody watching the video version of the podcast, thankfully for the audio version, you know, I was muted, but I just blew my nose because I have a little bit of a cold today, and I could focus on the cold and I could think, ah, I can't believe I have it. But it reminds me of the times that I'm not under the weather, and I have so much gratitude for the fact that my systems are working well and I'm, I'm dealing, you know, the inflammation is my body healing itself. And, uh, you know, same kind of thing. Instead of focusing on what I lack, I'm focusing on what I have, which is a body that's doing its job.

Yeah, and that you work from home so that you don't have to deal with that extra element. I mean, you can really pile on the elements of that gratitude game. And sometimes I'll challenge myself, like, come up with 20 things about the one instance, right? Or make a list. Sometimes— You asked for some examples earlier. sometimes I'll force myself to write them down because— and not keyboard, right? That's valuable too. But there's neuroscience that shows today that when we're physically handwriting something, we can get even better results. And then one last thing that I will often turn to as well is even more physicalness. So like affecting my physiology. And that could include Literally standing up and doing jumping jacks, or I sit on a stool kind of like a bouncy ball. I won't do it because it gets obnoxious in the video, but I can literally bounce on the chair/stool that I sit on. Sometimes that's all it takes is to shift the physiology to then shift the mental space to then shift your voice and the capability that you're bringing to the table.

And one of my favorite takeaways from your book, and I talked about this online, is the idea that what you appreciate appreciates. And so, by focusing on it, it will grow and take over a bigger space inside of your beautiful brain. I have a couple of things that I'll share with you related to gratitude, and these are useful to the audience as well. Number one is that When I first got into the personal development space, I read a couple of books that focused on gratitude, and so I started to journal three things that I was grateful for on a daily basis. And just like you highlighted, I would write those down. It had such a profound impact on my life. It had such a profound impact on my life that I got the numbers one, two, and three tattooed on my wrist so that I would see these all the time. Now, of course, today I'm wearing a watch and it's covering up the tattoo, but I would see these all the time. And it would help me refocus on gratitude. Now at BookThinkers, we have a team of 10 behind the scenes, and every day the team has the ability to write 3 things they're grateful for or more inside of our gratitude channel in Slack. And so it's part of my daily routine to share what I'm grateful for and then to read what my team is grateful for, which is such a fun activity. And I could go on and on and on about the different ways that we've incorporated gratitude into our lives, but Tell us a little bit more about how gratitude is the antithesis of scarcity.

Absolutely. So, you've done some work with the Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy books, Who Not How, et cetera. So, I started Strategic Coach with Dan Sullivan about 30 years ago. I think it was—

Oh, wow.

Yeah, 1994, actually. And I learned from Dan something called a positive focus. So it's essentially what you just said. And so our team meetings, and we have 10 as well, that's fun, start with what we call a positive focus, and it's one personal, one business. So it's very interesting when we get a new member on our team, and we have a fairly experienced team, so we don't get new members very often, how easy I hear them bring in scarcity. While they're trying to do the positive focus.

Oh, wow. That's funny.

And it's scarcity's little way, right? So whether you want to call it scarcity thinking or the devil or, you know, that monkey on your shoulder or that little voice in your head, it is its way to try to worm itself in to our environment, first into our heads, of course, and then, as you've indicated, sometimes literally into our physical selves. And so the positive focus, which is, again, we do it one— every meeting starts with one person, one business, go fast, be specific. I try to encourage people to keep it to a sentence. And it absolutely Positively does not allow room for the kind of thing that us human beings are just defaulting to. So an example, I love your shirt. Ah, this old ratty thing, right? How about thank you? But us human beings often default to the complaining or the scarcity space. And it just takes a new habit. And I love that you've got a reminder of how important that habit is. And there are examples in the book, the one that you talked about earlier with the focus wheel that I have, which lists out faith and freedom and finance and some other things that you can give yourself a score with? Any mnemonic device, any habitual help? Have you read BJ Fogg's Tiny Habits book?

I have not. I've read almost every other book on habits, but I haven't read that one.

Well, I think it's maybe 2, 3 years old. I'm sure a lot of them share the same idea, which is tying one habit to another. It, it's just habit that we're in. We're in the habit of a scarcity mindset. And so we must develop— I think the easiest way is to develop new habits that then push those bad habits off the table. So think about your kids, right? Like, yours isn't old enough to run yet, but what do all kids want to do around a swimming pool? They want to run. So as adults, what do we say?

Stop running.

Run, right? Or stop running. Well, the kid just hears the run word. They don't hear the stop word or the don't word. So instead, what could we say? Walk, right? So that's a habit thing. You just change your language around. And what's fun is if you start to catch yourself on this— and I'm still guilty of it, I catch myself on my own podcasts saying things like, don't forget. Well, that's basically a double negative. Why don't I just say remember? So that's a whole nother element of a game. And if we look at it as a game, it will be so much more fun So to kind of wrap a paper around this particular part of our conversation, fill your space with the good habits that you want. And that is what lets you bust the scarcity mindset. It's the same thing that you brought up earlier. The appreciate is what you appreciate. And so this is a lifelong endeavor that we literally get to work on. Every single day. I love that.

What an amazing— what everybody should go back and listen to that again, Kim. So thank you. And I love that you've been in Strategic Coach now for 30 years. I just wrapped up year number 1. I'm headed into year number 2. I find so much value in Dan's program. So we have that in common. Filling your space with positive habits and positive language. You do mention briefly in the book Positive affirmations. So talk to us a little bit about how you use affirmations and how they reinforce what we just talked about.

Well, there is a definition of Father, Mother God. So those are the terms I'm gonna use. Your listeners can use all kinds of different terms. Could be nature, could be Mother You, could be, you know, fill in the blank, right? But there's a definition of Father, Mother God for me. That says I Am. The definition of Father Mother God is I Am. And so that means that starting a sentence with I Am, like, think of it like a capital I, right? Not because the English language starts sentences that way, but as a representation of Father Mother God brings that into the discussion. And as it says in the Bible, In the first part of Genesis, not chapter 2 where it brings in all that scarcity stuff, but in the first part, that I was made in Father-Mother God's image and likeness. And so I am scared is not a Father-Mother God thing. Father-Mother God is not scared. So I'll use that. space around affirmation— affirmations to switch the language up, right? So, I am at peace. I am confident. I am capable. Like, what opposite words can I find when that other scarcity word comes up? Or, I don't know what to do. Well, I am is full of love. I am listens. Not good English, but you get my point. And so with that, I know that I will figure out what to do because my goal includes love. And I mean like a capital L, not human love, but the ability to love on the human race and provide good utilizing the talents that Father Mother God gave me. And that's one of the reasons that I think we so desperately need to retire the word retirement, because we were put on this earth to serve and we were all given talents. My sister, Tammy Brannon, she has an awesome quote that she got off a Chinese fortune cookie, actually, I think. And it says, when you were born, a problem was solved. I don't know if I have that quote in the book, but it sure belongs, right? Which is the beauty of doing podcasts and blogs because we get to kind of add to it. So I'll use those words around affirmations. If the scarcity thinking is coming in my head, I will literally just apply the opposite word and put I am in front of it, and therein lies What many people will say is a beautiful recipe for an affirmation.

I think that is beautiful. Your, your language, Kim, reminds me of Napoleon Hill's Outwitting the Devil. And you mentioned earlier scarcity. Maybe you could use the word devil, devil on your shoulder. I think that you're right in that 100% of people drift. 100% of people allow that devil to have more of a voice than it should. And what you're saying with Father, Mother, God, uh, that the, that the love, you know, the positivity, the good versus evil, uh, is the opposite. And so identify the scarcity, name the opposite, and now you have your affirmation. I am the opposite of that devil on the shoulder. So that's a really fun way of thinking about it.

Thank you.

Yeah, Kim, we're already, geez, over half an hour into our conversation, I think, and this has been an amazing conversation so far. What else can people learn from your book? Who is the target reader for this book?

Well, the joy of writing Busting Scarcity— Busting the Scarcity Mindset is that the reader space is so wide. So all of my other books deal with a very specific financial topic. Maybe it's life insurance, maybe it's mortgages, maybe it's retirement plans, maybe it's budgeting, which doesn't work, don't do that. Maybe it's college planning, fill in the blank. They're all very specific to an American financial topic. And consequently, the Busting Retirement Lies is going to be more for people that are interested in learning about that space. The Busting the Life Insurance Lies is going to be more appropriate for people in that space. Busting the Scarcity Mindset, I'm going to go with 3 years old to 103. And the reason I know marketing people tell us you got to have a narrow audience, riches in the niches and all that. Yeah, I get that. And how important it is as elderly people. I see this in my parents and my in-laws. Both of them are in their 80s. Some of them are still working, which I highly recommend, even if it's just part-time. But, you know, you would think an 80-year-old that has still got their health enough to work and has finances enough that some people would look at their lives and say they're retired. Wouldn't have much to complain about, and yet they've got more scarcity mindset stuff that crops up than you can shake a stick at. Well, go to the other side of that table, right? That 3-year-old is already starting to deal with the greedy gimmies in the grocery store, right? They're already starting to deal with the word no. Because that's what happens in a parental household. You know, they have to be told no to keep them safe, etc. And other areas of scarcity, you know, the whole toy trade thing, etc., etc. And so for the Scarcity Mindset book— now I don't know if we ran it through Word what grade it would say, what grade level. you can read this at. It's probably in the high school space. Nevertheless, if you're a parent, you can apply some of the things to that 3-year-old. And if you're in that close to 103 space, how awesome that you are still learning. Because to me, the day we stop learning is the day that we die.

I think that's all very true. And I think there are benefits to reading this book to a 3-year-old in the way that it's written anyway. Uh, so we'll get into, uh, some parenting stuff in just a moment. So if you are a parent, stick around. But Kim, for those that do want to learn a little bit more about you or grab a copy of the book, where, where should they go? What should they do?

Well, the book is on Amazon, it's on Kindle, it's on Audible. Voice number 8, as we talked about. And of course, there's a physical copy that you and I've been waving at the camera here and there. And yes, thank you. Appreciate that very much. So that's the first thing. And as you know, there are extra treats for people that go to the book's website. So bustingscarcitymindset.com has— A 52-tips document that is a summary. So like we talked about early in the podcast, you know, there's people that just really don't want to read and they may not feel like they have the time to listen. And I think priorities are always interesting. Nevertheless, if that's how they feel their priorities are, understood. And if they'll go to bustingscarcitymindset.com, They can grab those 52 tips, which then basically gives them one tip for each week to work through their life. So that is a great addition. And then we also did some special things for your listeners, and we have those on a website. I'm sure you'll put all these in the show notes. Um, that is prosperitythinkers.com/bookthinkers. Of course, that's how we did it. I had to think, did we use your name or did we use Book Thinkers? But, um, I believe we probably have it as both, probably /nick and as /bookthinkers.

Okay, perfect. Yes, we'll definitely have those in the show notes today. Well, moving on to the last part of our conversation, Kim, something that we talked about before we pressed record was prosperity parents, because I was telling you I have an 8-month-old baby and we try to treat him like an adult as much as we can. And so making sure that he focuses on abundance and I think a little less on scarcity is important to us. Tell us a little bit more about Prosperity Parents.

So prosperityparents.com, whole nother website. Again, yes, love all words that start with P like Paul, or in this case, P like parents, is a community for parents that are— or grandparents that are dealing with children literally like from age 1 up to Age 30, because we have a lot of children, right? Adult children that are still needing financial competency. So financial competency, because you can't homework money, is what we teach in the Prosperity Parents space. And there's 2 specific things that I want to share with you. The first is Ditch the idea of chores and allowance. Ditch them. They are both associated with family fights, socialism, and a space that your family does not want for financial competency. And interestingly enough, since financial literacy is commentary that gets used a lot these days, A lot of financial literacy spaces talk about chores and allowance, and I categorically— and again, this is the value of living on earth for a while— disagree with creating chores and allowance. It is detrimental to children. So what do you do instead? You work with the 3 E's. So the first is expectations, right? Even a 1 to 2-year-old child can have 1 or 2 expectations that are part of them living in the home, the family home, that has things that have to happen, such as brushing teeth, such as being clean, like washing our hands or something like that, right? So those are expectations. So that's the first E. Then the second E is the ability to earn, E-A-R-N. So this is what we call gigs, and expectations are the base level, things that they don't get paid for, things that they do in the home because they're a part of the family. Earnings, or extra pay if you will, if that's an easier E to remember, are what are created when extra things are done. So again, even at those young, young ages, unloading the dishwasher, right? It's like right down there at their level. Or maybe it's loading the dishwasher, little things like that. Now, as a teenager, unloading and loading the dishwasher would shift from an extra pay to an expectation, right? So as your child gets older, you have more and more expectations. of what is a part of them being in the home. But this opportunity then to earn or have extra pay is where the capability exists for doing things over and above the expectation. All right, and then the 3rd E— I'm going to keep a secret. You have to go to prosperityparents.com. There's a free community And there's also paid-for courses that anybody can join. And we have people all over the country that are driving financial competency with their families. Sometimes it's the children, sometimes it's the grandchildren, to get better results in a way that enable them to have the kind of conversation that you and I had at the beginning. of this call where we're talking about money in a healthy space. And this Prosperity Parents community enables the work around material things, right? We're human beings. We want clothes. We want toys, etc. But also around the spiritual and the emotional value that we want our little humans To be creating, and it works at all ages. It's a ton of fun to work within this space, and we're hearing such good results from families that say, you know what, before we had chaos in our house, and every Saturday to get the chores done right was a nightmare. And after, there's peace. And there's prosperity because the Prosperity Parents parents can learn how to cut the cost of raising a child in half. It's about $200,000, not including college. And of course, it depends where you live and your lifestyle and all that. But our children are investments, but there are still monetary things around there. And within the Prosperity Parents community, because of the value that their children create at age-appropriate levels, they're able to go out in the community and earn that extra pay. So we have lots of fun in this space.

Yeah, it sounds like it. Everything you just said makes total sense to me. And maybe we'll title the podcast Chores Are Socialist or something like that. Yes. Which, I mean, it Listen, I love your line of thinking, and I think everything you said makes a ton of sense to me. I've never liked the idea that, uh, you should force your kids to do things that they don't enjoy. It should be an expectation as part of living in the house. I love the opportunity to earn. What are your thoughts around paying your children to read personal development books?

It's a great question. So again, have some expectations at their level that they read one, or, you know, have family reading time where everybody reads and they don't get paid for that. But if they'll do a book report, then they get extra pay.

Yeah, I like that.

Or if they'll do a presentation to the family, like if their superpower is talking, right, let them do the, the book report that way. It doesn't have to be in the form of a written-out paper, or, you know, again, age-appropriate, maybe it's drawing. They, they draw a summary of the book. So, you can always have the expectation, and then there's extra that earns the extra pay.

You have a beautiful way of describing things, and that makes total sense to me. So, I'll be checking out the community. To wrap up, Kim, thank you so much for your time today. It was a pleasure talking about busting the scarcity mindset and also about everything else that we covered. I think our audience would have so much more to learn from you. So we'll put a link to your Amazon profile so everybody could check out the other books that you've written in case there's something more niche that also applies to them. Uh, but one more time, thank you so much. I appreciate you. Thank you for spending time with me today and sharing so much incredible value.

Thank you, Nick. It's been a joy.