Episode 1215: How Money affects our Desire to Ask for Help

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks

[00:00:00] for joining me on episode 1,215 of the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:00:08] Jeff Finney: I'm Jeff Finney, and I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talents and your treasures to live out your calling, having the ability to fire yourself and find freedom in your calling is key.

[00:00:23] And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend,

[00:00:28] Scott.

[00:00:29] Scott Maderer: And again, when they were prying with thoughts about money, they were less likely to offer help to others either. It's why in our own life, if we begin to become focused only on the money, only on what we can earn only on what we can make. If we're thinking about money each and every. Welcome and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:00:55] If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you [00:01:00] must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast, who will learn to invest in yourself. Invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:16] In today's episode about impacting the world through stewarding your treasures. I talk with you about the self sufficiency bias. I share an experiment from 2009 on how money affected our desire to ask for help. And I share how this affects us every day. As we talk about stewarding your treasures, wouldn't it be great.

[00:01:37] If you could support this podcast and do it without costing yourself an extra dime. Turns out you can. All you have to do is use inspired stewardship.com/amazon. When you're ready to make a purchase via Amazon and a small commission will come back to support the show. If you enjoy the show, when you're ready to buy from Amazon, just use [00:02:00] inspired stewardship.com/amazon self sufficiency.

[00:02:05] We often think of that as a very good thing, and it is often good to be self-sufficient to be able to get things done on your own and use your own abilities to do what you need to do yet. At the same time, there are times that we can actually have help available to us and not ask or avail ourselves of that help.

[00:02:30] We can become so focused on doing it all ourselves. That it actually causes trouble for us. I don't know about anyone else, but I often want to do it all myself. I don't like asking other people for help. I don't like having to get others to do things for me. It's easier. I think if I can just do it all myself, take care of everything.

[00:02:55] And it turns out that our view on money directly [00:03:00] affects how we view self sufficiency. There was an experiment done at Yale back in 2009, and it was actually structured around monopoly money, but they've done this since with other kinds of ways that use real money. And the idea still holds true.

[00:03:19] It's this idea. If money is a priority, you're going to try to be more self-sufficient and you're less likely to ask for help. So one group of sub subjects entered a room and there were lots of reminders about money around there was monopoly cash on the table. There were sayings and expressions about money on the walls.

[00:03:44] There was financial conversation going on by other people in the. And in the second group, they entered a room and money wasn't mentioned. There was no visibility of anything to remind anyone of money. The room was structured in a [00:04:00] different way. And then both groups were given an impossible task, something that was literally impossible to do by yourself.

[00:04:11] They were also given the instruction that help was available. All they needed to do was ask if they needed. and it seems what's funny is the money related group, even when it was impossible to do the task by themselves would spend much, much longer trying to do the task solo before they would ever ask for help while the other group where they weren't primed with ideas about money would ask for assistance much.

[00:04:46] And the conclusion was that when money is made the focus, we try to become more self sufficient. We try to depend upon our own needs and our [00:05:00] own desires and our own abilities. Before we interact and reach out to others. This Yale study measure measured how money affected a person's. Behavior in these two different environments.

[00:05:16] So what's funny is they also did it the other way and they looked for opportunities for them to offer help. And again, when they were primed with thoughts about money, they were less likely to offer help to others either. It's why in our own life, if we begin to become focused only on the money, only on what we can earn only on what we can make.

[00:05:41] If we're thinking about money each and every day, it will begin to prime us to both be less likely to help others. And. Less likely to ask for help ourselves when we legitimately need it. It tends to make us much more [00:06:00] self focused as opposed to other focus. And that affects how we view and do everything the way that I've talked about scarcity this week, the way that I've talked about this study on time and how we see, or don't see things that are around us.

[00:06:18] That impact our needs. The same thing happens when we program our mind with a view about money as. All of these are probably tying into some of the same subconscious things that we view in terms of how we view our relationships with each other and with ourselves and how our finite resources of time and money affect those views.

[00:06:46] Because when we view them as scarce, we're affected more than when we view those as abundant. Thanks for listening.

[00:06:56] Thanks so much for listening to the inspired [00:07:00] stewardship podcast as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you like this episode on the stewardship of treasures. You can sign up for our treasures tips by going to inspired stewardship.com/treasures or text in the us 4 4, 2, 2, 2 treasures tips.

[00:07:34] And we'll send you five weeks of our best tips on stewarding your treasures until next time invest your. Your talent and your treasures develop your influence and impact the world.