How to Shift Your Money Mindset

Jenna [00:00:06]:

So I grew up in rural Illinois, and down there, there just weren’t a lot of high paying jobs. So my experience with money was what I made from babysitting and was always so excited to take it to the mall and buy what I wanted. But as I graduated college and got out and got my first full time paying job, I got so excited. Here I am applying for a credit card, knowing that now I had access to all of this income, I was so excited. So what did I do? I went out and spent it. And I spent it and I spent some more till those credit card bills come in. And then you realize, oh, I actually have to pay this back. And that’s when I learned at 22 that there was an important lesson not just in spending money, but how to use it.

James [00:00:56]:

Welcome to Diary of a Worthy Pursuit.

Jenna [00:00:59]:

Where we talk about how to get what you truly want in life and business.

James [00:01:03]:

Today we’re talking about how to shift your money mindset.

Jenna [00:01:07]:

So clearly the money mindset that I had when I was young was spend, spend, and clearly on the wrong things. A 22 year old is not looking to use money as some kind of tool.

James [00:01:18]:

Yeah, you know, it’s interesting, mid forty s, and I can remember in my 20s, you’d see some guy roll up in a Corvette and you’re like, midlife crisis. And I’m learning now he just can afford it now.

Jenna [00:01:31]:

Right.

James [00:01:31]:

I wanted a midlife crisis in my twenty s, I just couldn’t afford it. So I’m like, oh, different mindset, right.

Jenna [00:01:39]:

But he to do some kind of shift to get to a point where he could afford it. Right. Because if you went through life as I did as a 22 year old, if I continued down that road, I wouldn’t have been able to afford a Corvette in my 40s. So it is really interesting how I think, as we learn, we can either apply these lessons or we can continue to do what we’ve always done, right.

James [00:01:59]:

Or I guess this alludes to our first point here. Don’t get rich, build wealth is because I assume that guy can afford the Corvette, but maybe he’s leasing it, maybe it’s debt.

Jenna [00:02:08]:

So what does that mean? Don’t get rich, build wealth.

James [00:02:11]:

So the don’t get rich, build wealth is rich is what you see. Wealth is what you don’t see. And wealth is essentially sitting in a bank, right? It’s sitting in stocks, or it’s sitting in real estate, or it’s sitting in things that people, the general public doesn’t see. And a lot of times when people are rich, they want to be showy, and they may show that they have money, but they may or they may not actually have any money.

Jenna [00:02:36]:

Yeah, I heard. I don’t remember if it was from you or for someone else that was saying that. Rihanna’s financial planner said, do I have to be the one that tells her that if she continues to keep spending her money, she’s not going to have anymore.

James [00:02:50]:

Right.

Jenna [00:02:50]:

But it is so interesting because I think even we hear these stories about people who win the lottery, and they’ve got all this money and they’re so excited, and then they spend, spend, spend it. And what happens when you spend it is now you no longer have it.

James [00:03:03]:

Right. It’s gone.

Jenna [00:03:04]:

Yeah.

James [00:03:05]:

It’s interesting because you wonder I always joke with someone, if somebody just gave you a bag of money, $100 million, you can have all that money or you get none of that money. In order to keep that money, you have to spend it all in one day. Could you spend $100 million in one day?

Jenna [00:03:23]:

I mean, I just got back from a tropical vacation, so I’m sure I could buy an island or something.

James [00:03:28]:

Can you do it in a day?

Jenna [00:03:29]:

Fair? That’s a really great point.

James [00:03:33]:

A lot of that stuff, the bigger stuff, is built. I mean, who knows why? There’s probably different middlemen in there involved, but it’s not a light switch.

Jenna [00:03:42]:

Right.

James [00:03:42]:

I can’t go to a restaurant and just buy the restaurant. Right. I can buy everything on the menu, but I can’t buy the restaurant in a day. So it’s interesting how we think, like, look at that. This is rich. We could have that, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right away, right now. But a lot of times when it comes to wealth waiting, I guess the patience.

Jenna [00:04:02]:

And I think the core issue here that I struggled with as a 22 year old, I shouldn’t project it on everyone else, but I think there’s this feeling that if we have the money, we’re going to spend it on things that are going to make us happy. If I’m going to save up enough money so I can buy that new car, I’m going to save up and buy a house. And then maybe there’s almost this use of it. Like, maybe if I save up enough of that, then I’ll be happy. Or maybe I’ll feel like then I’ve arrived once I’ve bought the Corvette. Right. But then what people find is the stuff doesn’t fulfill you, but you can’t tell someone that you almost have to experience it for yourself after you’ve spent your money and realize that, nope, in here hasn’t changed at all. It might look different to the outside world, but this whole idea of your money mindset is an internal shift. And this whole idea of don’t be rich and be showy is really an ego thing, I think, because we’re thinking about if you have money, being rich is showing everyone that you have it. But being wealthy is this idea of being okay with having it and building it for a delayed gratification, knowing that you’re going to use it to retire well or build generational wealth, something like that. What is the Warren buffett with the whole idea of, like, he’s clearly a wealthy man, but still lives in the same house that he did many years ago. Just a small thing. Doesn’t have to be showy with his money. And I think it’s interesting. What lessons has he learned that he could teach the rest of us?

James [00:05:37]:

Warren is a very interesting character because he’s got a ton of cash, right? Billions of dollars. But the majority of his money he made in the last ten years when he’s over 80 years old.

Jenna [00:05:50]:

Oh, my goodness.

James [00:05:51]:

And it’s because money can build money. So when you’re building with a billion dollars, it’s much easier to get to 2 billion. I read a book, t. Boone Pickens had a book. He made his money off oil, okay. And it said, the first billion is the hardest. And the idea is that once you claw out I say claw because in my world, it was a little difficult. Once you claw out of what I would call poverty and you get yourself too stable, and then you build up so that you can start tucking away some cash, and then you move to the point that you can start tucking away enough cash that you’re not worried about pandemic or anything because you know that you can essentially afford the problems that are going to come. There comes a point where you’re just saving way more than you’re earning. And you get I guess now you have this mindset that, I got it. There’s no problem. We’re back in my college days when you’re like, how much is rent, right? I remember getting a speeding ticket and thinking, okay, I have to work more to pay this off, but I’m already working 70 hours a week.

Jenna [00:06:59]:

This does not add up.

James [00:07:00]:

I was going to college full time, and I’m like, I’m running out of hours to work, right? Running out of and I’m speeding on my way to work. Which is one of those, like, well, that’s not ideal.

Jenna [00:07:11]:

Well, I think that that leads well into our next point, which is focusing on the value or the service that you’re providing to get money, right? So we’re usually given money in return for something that we’re doing, providing some value or service. So as a business owner, maybe you’re a service provider. You are providing consulting or you’re making widgets or jewelry, whatever it is. But what’s interesting here, though, is that you’re not going to get usually you don’t get money just for showing up. You have to do the thing that someone’s paying you for. And so I think that when I was younger, living paycheck to paycheck, I was focused more on the money I was getting and not on the value I was providing to get that money right. Which is a shift, because the more value that you provide for said service, the more money you are likely to get in return in raises or in bringing in more business.

James [00:08:07]:

There’s a couple of things I don’t want to touch on there. One of them is that trading time for money, I feel like, is one of the worst exchanges you can make because you have a finite amount of time. You can’t go to the store and buy more time, and you’re essentially selling that to your boss or company that you work for to get the money. And a lot of times, people are cool with that, but then there’s a ceiling, because you can only have so many hours that you can work. There’s only 24 hours in a day.

Jenna [00:08:32]:

Right.

James [00:08:33]:

You have 24. I have 24. Warren Buffett is 24. Bill Gates is 24. Same 24 hours. We don’t get to get more. If Warren Buffett could buy an extra hour a day, he probably would.

Jenna [00:08:43]:

Right.

James [00:08:44]:

But he can’t. So when you’re trading time for money, you’re essentially trapping yourself, in my opinion. So my strategy that I tell people is to find a multiplier, whether that’s having employees work for you or selling something a product or service or software or something like that, that can be multiplied. Where time is not a factor directly, it may be in the equation. Right. Because you have to spend time to create the product or whatever it is, but avoid trading time for money directly.

Jenna [00:09:14]:

Well, I think that’s hard for a lot of business owners. As you start a business, your business is usually your time, and time is your most valuable asset because you don’t have a lot of money, so you’re providing that time. But what do you do when you start to grow your business? That’s really where this becomes a core issue, is you have to learn what’s the smartest way to scale to capitalize on trying to earn more.

James [00:09:36]:

Yeah. The whole thing, what got you there won’t get you here or vice versa. So, I mean, maybe you had to scrape by and do all this kind of stuff to trade time for money, but that can’t scale.

Jenna [00:09:46]:

You have to move beyond it. Yeah.

James [00:09:49]:

The other point that I wanted to talk about really quickly was the perception of value. I’m going to tell you a really quick story about jewelry.

Jenna [00:09:57]:

Okay.

James [00:09:57]:

Because you have a ring.

Jenna [00:09:59]:

Yes.

James [00:09:59]:

Okay.

Jenna [00:09:59]:

I’ve been married almost eight years.

James [00:10:01]:

Nice. Congrats.

Jenna [00:10:02]:

Yeah, thanks.

James [00:10:02]:

Boom. So I gave myself or I’m sorry, I gave my wife a ring, but I’m cheap, and jewelry really has no value to me. I walk in a jewelry store, and I kind of like, I don’t understand why you exist, but clearly people do. I’m in the minority there. So because I’m cheap, I go to a pawn shop, and I find a ring. That’s pretty nice. Looks good. Most important, it was big. I couldn’t even tell you if it was a real diamond in there. Sure. Don’t know, don’t care. What was interesting is that I go on ebay then, and I buy a Tiffany’s box, and I stick that pawn shop ring in that Tiffany’s box. I have it all gift wrapped. Beautiful. I go to my wife, I get down on one knee, and I show her this ring, right? And what do you think she does?

Jenna [00:10:49]:

Oh, my gosh. She gets so excited, right?

James [00:10:52]:

Super excited. So I give her the ring. We get married. We’ve been married 21 years. And funny story, because I’m cheap. Or I guess not necessarily because but I am cheap. I’m also not that smart. I never threw away the receipt for the pawn shop. So we end up moving, I should say. She’s got this ring. She’s showing it off, right? Yeah, it’s a big ring and whatever. So when there’s pictures, people like girls do that little thing with their leg showing that ring, right? It’s always in there.

Jenna [00:11:25]:

Yeah.

James [00:11:26]:

And when you’re eating dinner with friends and stuff like that, right? That ring is right there to show off to the world. So anyways, ten years later, she finds the receipt, right? Just embeds the table. We’re moving houses, we’re cleaning out stuff, and she’s like, what is this? When did you get a ring at a pawn shop? And then she looks at the date on the receipt, and instantly I’m trying to think like, what can I tell her that this is not? Like, how can I make this go well? And the answer is, you can’t. There’s no. So I’m like, funny story. Yeah, I got a pawn shop. But you love that ring, right? You show it to everyone. For the past over a decade, you’ve been excited about that ring. Instantly, the value of that ring, in her mind went away.

Jenna [00:12:09]:

So instantly.

James [00:12:10]:

So now in pictures, is she showing off that ring? No, man. Hands are behind pocket. Cover it up at the dinner table. Hands run to the table.

Jenna [00:12:19]:

Interesting. Same ring, right?

James [00:12:21]:

But the perception of value changed. And I’m like, what was the difference? What was the difference? The ring is still the same ring, but the perception of value changed, right? Which when we think about that, we’re like, whoa.

Jenna [00:12:34]:

Right?

James [00:12:35]:

So now when we perceive different brands or different items, you’re thinking, is that real or where am I getting the mental picture of the value?

Jenna [00:12:44]:

There, right?

James [00:12:45]:

Crazy.

Jenna [00:12:45]:

That’s so interesting. Where I was going before you started that story was, my kids are into rock, shells and minerals right now. So we’ve got this national Geographic book we just read last night about what a diamond looks like when it’s pulled out of the ground. And it’s not pretty. It’s like this black rock or whatever. Maybe it’s not black, but it comes from carbon. And so it’s this whole idea that we have built this whole industry around what that looks like when it’s shaped and polished and cut in all these certain ways. And that’s what provides the value, because otherwise it’s just a hard rock.

James [00:13:20]:

Right?

Jenna [00:13:20]:

So it is so interesting, and I think what we can learn from that when we’re talking about what’s the value here is, when you’re thinking about trying to earn more money, you need to think about how can you over deliver the value so that the good money follows. And we’ll talk a little bit more about that here as we move forward.

James [00:13:40]:

Yeah. We can also talk about the I have a blog that I wrote called The Values and the Price. So I had a student at business planning class. She was doing, I want to say cranial sacral massage.

Jenna [00:13:53]:

Oh, interesting.

James [00:13:54]:

And she was charging, I think it was $17 an hour. This is a woman, so she’s in this right. I can tell right away. You’re like, what? So she’s putting together a business plan.

Jenna [00:14:04]:

Okay.

James [00:14:05]:

And I don’t know much about cranial sacral massage. What I do know is that she listed in her business plan all the things that she can solve. We’re talking migraines, stress. I mean, there are people that were coming that came to her with rashes that she’s solving with this cranial sacral massage. I mean, everything, and charging $17 an hour. And she’s trying to build this business so that she can leave a job working for the state. She’s got a state job. She’s got a husband that’s sick. So her state job that has this health insurance, phenomenal health insurance.

Jenna [00:14:36]:

Yeah.

James [00:14:37]:

And she’s attempting to leave it by doing this job for $17, $17 an hour. So this is one of those, like, let’s get the whiteboard out. Let’s do a little math, and let’s figure out, okay, how many of these massages can you do in a day? And she’s like, five, or whatever the number was. Okay. Five times 17. Now let’s figure out how much money you’re going to make in a year. Best case scenario, assuming that there’s not a pandemic or something like that, assuming you never take a vacation, assume, assume, assume, assume, assume. Best case scenario, this is how much money you’re making. How much are you making now at the state? And the number was, like, triple that easily. Triple it.

Jenna [00:15:14]:

Wow.

James [00:15:15]:

And now we haven’t talked benefits. Now we got health insurance on top of that. How much is health insurance, especially with your sick husband? Oh, let’s talk about that now. Do you ever want to take a vacation? Okay, well, we got to knock that number down. And she’s just looking like, boom. I can tell that I’m beating her up a little bit. And I’m like, okay, you are stuck at the $17 an hour, but you’re offering all these cures for $17 an hour. If it can truly do that stuff, which you’re saying that it can, why wouldn’t you charge $300 an hour?

Jenna [00:15:45]:

Right.

James [00:15:46]:

And she was like, no, no way. I couldn’t possibly charge that. Tell me why. Well, because I want people that are having a hard time with their money. I want them to be able to afford the service. And I challenged her and I said, what if you charged $300 or whatever number to make the math work? What if you charge $350 an hour, but you were able to give away 10% of your services to people that couldn’t afford it? And then the light bulb starts going off on her a little bit, but I could tell that she just had this head trash in her head that her service was not worth enough for her to leave her job.

Jenna [00:16:25]:

Yeah.

James [00:16:26]:

Which is a huge like I understand the pricing for your own business is tough.

Jenna [00:16:30]:

It is.

James [00:16:30]:

But if you were to go into any restaurant and you saw, let’s see your cheeseburger, whatever is $12, or you get this other mystery burger for a penny, would you be like, I’m still.

Jenna [00:16:39]:

Going to buy the $12 cheeseburger. Right?

James [00:16:42]:

It’s thousands of times more expensive.

Jenna [00:16:44]:

Well, nor do you ever question the price. When you go to a restaurant, the price is what it is as it shows up on the menu. So two pieces of advice that I’ve gotten as I’ve started my own business. One is what is in someone else’s bank account is none of my business.

James [00:17:00]:

Correct.

Jenna [00:17:01]:

So I will charge what I feel is fair for the kind of life that I need to lead and the goals that I have. And here are the prices, and I can provide them, and they decide whether or not they can afford that, but whether or not they decide that is not my business. My job is to show the value for what I provide. But the second piece of it, which I thought was interesting, was, how dare we all get stuck in our own head trash and not offer the value that we provide? Because we’re stuck not providing those cures, providing that value to someone who really needs it. So meanwhile, while I’m over here stuck in trying to figure out how much I’m going to charge, there’s people out there who really need what you’re doing, but you’re too stuck in the logistics of it all to do what you were called to do and help people. Yeah, but I think the other point there that I want to make sure that people don’t miss is this idea that rather than looking at what is your time worth, which we talked about is not a fair trade, what is the value of the end result? Right. So people have a certain problem. What would they be willing to pay to solve that problem? Right. If I have a toilet that is leaking overnight and flooding my house, I’d pay a lot more for that problem than just the value of the plumber’s time.

James [00:18:22]:

Totally. Or just the little gasket or whatever. Right?

Jenna [00:18:24]:

Exactly.

James [00:18:25]:

Yeah. It’s interesting you say that, because I challenged the woman as well. So I’m like, how many people are going to believe that your cranial sacral massage can do all this for $17.

Jenna [00:18:34]:

Fair.

James [00:18:35]:

You’re like, no, you can’t do all that.

Jenna [00:18:37]:

It’s like the Penny Burger, right? Yeah.

James [00:18:39]:

But if she charged $300 now, you’re like, oh, tell me about this massage.

Jenna [00:18:43]:

So the perception of others, of your service changes when you see your value, right?

James [00:18:51]:

So the value a lot of times is in the price.

Jenna [00:18:53]:

That’s so interesting.

James [00:18:54]:

Which is a lot of times when you see fancy cars rolling around. Or let’s just take a Mercedes, right?

Jenna [00:18:58]:

Yeah.

James [00:18:59]:

Same option, same power and all that kind of stuff as a Kia. But Mercedes puts their badge like a Volkswagen bus, just huge. And Kia’s, like Kia, mercedes is charging two, three times what Kia is. Even though it gets you A to B, the Kia has all the bells and whistles that the Mercedes does. You could argue which one is better car. In the end, it doesn’t matter.

Jenna [00:19:24]:

Price difference, all in the perception. The tip box or the pawn shop receipt. Right? All right, so the next thing that we recommend is using debt as a tool, especially as a business owner. What does this mean?

James [00:19:36]:

James the idea is that debt, a lot of times people have this perception that debt is bad. And broadly speaking, I would agree with them. But on a more precise scale, with business, I can use debt, or any business owner can use debt and have that debt. Whatever you’re buying with that debt pay for itself. So, for example, if I were to buy, let’s say, eight unit rental property, if I were to pay cash for that, that would not be very practical. One, because it’s a lot of money, right? And two, with that money, let’s just say that I have that bag of money hanging around. That $100 million, I could buy, let’s say ten, eight units down payment on each one and using debt as leverage. So now I have the rents from those multiple eight units paying for the remaining debt. And then once it’s paid for, then it pays down my down payment. And once those are paid for, then I can get more debt using equity from those buildings. So you’re just using that leverage from debt. Now? The difference is, if I were to go buy, going to buy a Ferrari, that Ferrari is not going to pay me that’s bad debt. But if you can find debt that’ll pay for itself and build equity, totally good debt, totally worth it.

Jenna [00:20:49]:

So we think about this as business owners, as like capital expenses. So what are the sorts of things that we need to do our business or maybe take us to the next level, but we need this kind of investment, right? So my dad was a self employed contractor. He built houses, did remodeling build sheds, that sort of thing. And every year about the end of the year, we were always looking at the tax situation. What does it look like? And so one of those capital investments for him using debt as a tool and a tax situation was to go out and buy a skid loader. And we didn’t do this every year, but it was just a situation where he could do more jobs, he could do more of his own excavation and not have to sub that out if he had this. So is it debt? Absolutely. But does that debt allow him to do another service, to take on more business? Absolutely. So that was a tool for business growth, right?

James [00:21:35]:

Yeah, great point. Debt is a tool. Just like a hammer. If you hit your thumb, it’s not going to work. But you hit a nail in the right spot.

Jenna [00:21:42]:

Right?

James [00:21:42]:

Good things happen.

Jenna [00:21:43]:

Exactly. All right. So then the last point here is that we’d like you to think abundantly, not scarcely. I think we’ve all heard, hopefully by now people talking about this abundance mindset, but it’s really this idea that acting as if there’s enough in the world, there’s enough money to go around, there’s enough business to a go around. We don’t all need to fight each other for it, but rather things will come to us as we do the right things and live in a positive way. So how does this apply to money?

James [00:22:17]:

Well, a lot of times people have some negative connotations about money, right? Money is root of all evil. Money doesn’t grow on trees. People with money are evil. All this kind of stuff, right? First thing you see when you see somebody in a fancy cars, you’re like, I wonder who they had to kill to get that. Or whose toes did they step on, or who did they run over? Whatever.

Jenna [00:22:35]:

What is their job? What do they do?

James [00:22:37]:

They’re probably not worth whatever they get paid, right? Clearly they’re doing something wrong.

Jenna [00:22:42]:

Right?

James [00:22:43]:

This alludes to a story that I had in my book. We’re heading up north to Dor county. We’re on 151 and there’s a lot of traffic. And we are in my wife’s Prius Sea, which is no problem with hybrid cars. That car is just a cheap. It was like you’re sitting on a peach crate. Anyways, Ferrari Rolls Bias. The license plate says boss man.

Jenna [00:23:09]:

Oh, interesting, right? Yeah.

James [00:23:11]:

And I’m in traffic and this Ferrari super cool, but it’s not going anywhere because we’re all stuck in traffic, right? So we’re getting better mileage being stuck in traffic, I guess. But I said something like, that’s awesome. And my wife is like, no, that is not awesome. What a jerk. Right? So we’re both making all these assumptions about this person with two pieces of information. One, that guy’s in a Ferrari and it’s got the license plate boss man. That’s it. And we’re telling ourselves stories about this guy with no other evidence, which blows my mind. And then I’m like, well, that guy probably passed us and he saw this Priuse. What’s the story he’s telling himself about us?

Jenna [00:23:50]:

Fair. Yeah.

James [00:23:51]:

With this little piece of information and not a vanity license plate. Right. So it’s interesting how every time he walks to that car, he probably thinks that’s pretty cool.

Jenna [00:24:03]:

Yeah.

James [00:24:03]:

And every time I know, every time I got my wife’s Priusee, I think, I hate this thing. I hate it.

Jenna [00:24:13]:

Well, but I think what’s really interesting about that is that I’m assuming that he had an Abundance Mindset, and that’s boosted every time that he gets in that car.

James [00:24:22]:

Totally.

Jenna [00:24:22]:

Right. There’s no way someone with a scarcity mindset would be buying a car like that. So when I think scarcity mindset in terms of money, I think money doesn’t grow on trees. We have to save everything we have because some of us grow up that way. We’re given the mindset we have about money where it’s usually inherited from our parents or the people that we’re around. So there’s a lot of habits sometimes that we need to break. And this whole idea of scarcity there’s not enough money to go around is one of these that I feel like is instilled, depending on how you grew up.

James [00:24:53]:

Totally.

Jenna [00:24:54]:

And it’s really hard to break because typically, at the beginning of your career, you’re trading time for money, and so you only have, again, going back to what you talked about, so much time. So there’s only so much money. So you have to be smart about those things. And sometimes we even feel like we create our own prison by the money that we have available. They used to call when we were building a house or I’m sorry, buying a house. We didn’t build the term house poor.

James [00:25:20]:

Oh, yeah.

Jenna [00:25:21]:

I don’t want to be house poor. I don’t want to put ourselves in handcuffs to a point where we can’t afford to do anything else because we’ve got this house payment. But again, that’s a scarcity mindset. I’m not attracting what I need to live the kind of life that I want.

James [00:25:35]:

Yeah, I suppose there’s somewhat of a thin red line between those two. Right. Because you want to get something that’s nice, and you don’t want to be house poor.

Jenna [00:25:44]:

Right.

James [00:25:44]:

But you also don’t want to have the mindset that, I can’t earn this. But if you get too much of an Abundance Mindset, then you’re totally house poor.

Jenna [00:25:53]:

Right.

James [00:25:53]:

2008 happens all over again.

Jenna [00:25:55]:

Exactly.

James [00:25:56]:

Equity will go up. There won’t be any problems. I had a friend that got an interest only loan on a house, which was right. When he told me that, I’m like, Are you trying to go bankrupt? Are you? And he did. But it was interesting because he loved that house. Yeah, it was wonderful for him. I mean, it was big, whatever had everything. And I remember thinking, this guy’s got this pretty cool house. I have our little whatever house. I’m like, it does a job. I’m. Cool with it. And a house, to me, isn’t really that important. And I could never see myself like, I don’t want to be in debt forever because the house, to me and there’s probably real estate agents that will argue this, it’s not guaranteed to grow in equity and there’s no money that’s paying me. In fact, I have to pay to keep the house going and maintenance and stuff like that. So I would rather have debt in a business or some other apartments or something like that, rental units, whatever that can bring me cash instead of a house that like, you get to sleep here.

Jenna [00:26:59]:

Well, and that is an interesting piece, too, because I think as I watch, people who, again, are building wealth aren’t showing off their richness, but are building wealth, are the ones who are more content to live with function and not something flashy. So, again, Warren Buffett probably drives a very functional car, lives in a functional house. It’s nothing fancy, but it gets the job done.

James [00:27:22]:

Right.

Jenna [00:27:22]:

And I think it’s this sometimes we live in this world, it’s like, keep up with the Joneses. What’s the nicest thing you can do? Is your house decorated in the most beautiful modern trend? Whatever, does your kid have the newest shoes or wearing the newest clothes? And it’s like, well, is that necessary? Or do we need to look at what’s functional, what works? Like, no, I don’t want my kids going to school in rags or shoes that aren’t going to keep their feet warm, but at the same time, they probably don’t need to be wearing Air Jordans that I’m going to buy six of every year.

James [00:27:53]:

Right.

Jenna [00:27:54]:

So I think there’s a prioritization, as you’re thinking about your money mindset and what are you willing to spend a little bit more money on if you’re going to do a little bit of splurging, where are those splurges going to be? So I think everyone needs to make their own determination. So my husband and I, we would rather buy experiences for our kids for Christmas, for example, or spend money on travel to show them things. And I care a little less about they’re in hand me down clothes, and that’s fine because they don’t know the difference.

James [00:28:26]:

Kids are just going to get destroyed anyway.

Jenna [00:28:28]:

That’s so true. Absolutely. All right, so we’ve talked about how to shift your money mindset, and I think there’s been some really interesting things here. But ultimately this is important because as we’re building businesses or maybe looking to start our own business, we have to have a relationship with money, and having a bad one isn’t going to get you past that five year point.

James [00:28:49]:

Right, yeah. Money is a tool. It’s a useful tool, but you have to be smart enough to know how to use it.

Jenna [00:28:54]:

Wow. Otherwise you can be and to that, a smart man once told me, how to be good with money is to not spend it.

James [00:29:00]:

Smart woman. Smart woman. This is diary of a worthy pursuit.

Jenna [00:29:04]:

Where we help you get what you want in life and in business. Thanks.