00:00:00 Thanks for joining me on episode 610 of the inspired stewardship podcast. I'm Shelly Lombard, founder of Millie money learning how to invest. We'll give you options for your future and to help others get inspired. One way to do that is to listen to this podcast inspired stewardship with my friend Scott Mader. And there are times when it causes me anxiety and I will tell you it's been both a good thing and a bad thing at times. There are times where that anxiety causes me to say, well, you only live once,
00:00:43 right? You gotta grab the moment. And I ended up spending money that perhaps I shouldn't on an experience or on something enjoyable. And then there are other times where it's taught me the good lesson of learning that welcome and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you 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,
00:01:18 invest in others, and develop your influence. So that you can impact the world. And today's episode about developing your influence through stewarding your treasures. I talk with you about your money memories and I'll share one of mine why your money memories affect you even today and how this can affect your feelings of anxiety at times. As we talk about stewarding your treasures. Wouldn't it be great if you could support this podcast and do it without costing yourself an extra dime? It turns out you can. All you have to do is use inspired stewardship.com/amazon
00:02:03 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 inspired stewardship.com/amazon anxiety about money. You know, surveys say that one of the top stressors in America today is about money and I've seen other studies from different countries that always list money in one of the top three if not number one of the things that cause stress in our life.
00:02:37 So the truth is financial worry, financial stress is always very high on the list of things that we worry about.
00:02:45 And right now if things are a little more crazy than normal, that anxiety has to even go up even more.
00:02:54 And money becomes even more of a concern. Even if you've got your job right now and you haven't lost it,
00:02:59 there's no real risk of losing it. I know that people are still more worried than normal about that possibility.
00:03:07 You know, as the economy struggles, we worry about what, how that will affect us and what will we'd be doing.
00:03:14 Will our job go away? Well, we have to struggle to provide for our family. If you've lost your job,
00:03:21 then money obviously becomes an even bigger concern. Even if you've done everything right, the odds are good that right now there's a little bit more stress than normal about money and what's going on.
00:03:34 And one of the things I wanted people to think about and what we're going to talk about today is the fact that your family of origin and your historical memories with money affect that anxiety that you feel.
00:03:49 So you, one of my earliest memories, I think I've shared it on the podcast before, but if not,
00:03:53 I'll, I'll share it now. Or if you didn't hear that earlier episode, I'll share it now.
00:03:58 One of my earliest memories is I was quite young and I probably even remember the stories I've been told about this even more than I remember the actual event.
00:04:08 I don't know exactly how old I was, but less than 10 years old and I got some money for a gift or an allowance or something and I had five,
00:04:18 maybe $10 that I took with me as my mom and I went to the mall and I begged her to let me go into the arcade and buy some tokens and spend some time playing some video games.
00:04:33 Yeah. Even back then I was into video games and computers and an arcade, you know, where they had all of these machines with the lights and the sounds and the whistles were just made to attract a young children's child's attention so that they would begin to drop quarters into the games game after game.
00:04:51 And I'm not sure what game I played or at which games I played, but I proceeded to drop all of the money that I had earned into quarters and into those video games.
00:05:04 And my mom let me do it. She knew that my personality was such that I would beat myself up about it.
00:05:11 She knew that this would be something that would cause me some, some angst down the road, but she still let me do it because she wanted me to learn the lesson in a deep,
00:05:23 meaningful way about what I was doing with my money. And she knew letting me have that feeling, even though it would hurt her was still worth it because at the end of the day I would learn the lesson more deeply.
00:05:41 And so what happened is I dropped all of my money and then all the way home I beat myself up and complained and wailed in the back of the car about how I'd wasted my money,
00:05:53 how I'd spent all of my money on something that just wasn't worth it. Now I had nothing to show for it and my money was gone.
00:06:04 Okay. And like I said, I still remember this today, or at the very least I remember the stories I've been told about this to this day.
00:06:12 But that the truth is that that money memory and that story is something that still resonates with me today.
00:06:23 And there are times when it causes me anxiety and I will tell you it's been both a good thing and a bad thing at times.
00:06:29 There are times where that anxiety causes me to say, well, you only live once, right? You,
00:06:35 you gotta grab the moment. And I ended up spending money that perhaps I shouldn't on an experience or on something enjoyable.
00:06:44 And then there are other times where it's taught me the good lesson of learning that, you know, if I plan for the use of my money,
00:06:53 if I, if I put some money aside to save and some money to give and some money to spend,
00:06:59 that I can have the experiences and enjoy things with the money. And yet also not stress out about not having it when other things come up.
00:07:09 And I try to focus on that good part that I learned from that money memory. Cause see the truth is you're just like me.
00:07:15 You've got experiences with money that came before. Maybe when you were a kid, maybe when you were a young adult,
00:07:22 maybe just last month or last week. And those experiences, those memories affect how you feel about money.
00:07:30 They affect your relationship with money. They affect your mindset, your beliefs. Whether you think of money as something that's good or bad,
00:07:39 something that you have or something that you don't have. How you think about your money is affected deeply by your personality and by your history.
00:07:51 And these things affect your, your feeling of anxiousness too. Because you know, if you grew up where money was always a struggle and a fight,
00:08:01 you heard your parents argue about it, there was never enough and you constantly struggled. Well then money is something that to you,
00:08:11 causes that worry. Even if later you have a ton of money and you shouldn't worry, at least not,
00:08:20 you know objectively you're still going to worry about that because of the history that you have. And so what I'm encouraging you to do is think about that history.
00:08:32 Think about those memories. What is your earliest money memory? What is your normal relationship with money? How do you think about it day to day,
00:08:41 week to week? How do you relate to it? Do you think of money as a good thing or a bad thing?
00:08:48 Do you think of money as something that you never have or that you'll always have? It's not a matter of is a good or a bad way.
00:08:57 It's a matter of recognizing how you see money and then from there you can begin to think about, do I want to change that?
00:09:06 Is this way of seeing money accurate? Is it truthful or is it just the way I've come to believe it to be?
00:09:16 And if so, where did that come from? Did it come from an actual event in my past?
00:09:21 Did it come from something that I said, something that I did or something that others said or did?
00:09:28 Where did it come from? What's the source of that memory? And then from there you can begin to think,
00:09:35 you know, is this true? Is this real? Is this something that I want to keep in my life or is this something that I need to let go of?
00:09:46 And as you work through that, you'll notice that your anxiousness about money begins to go away because you begin to take control of the things that you can control and begin to do things like live within your means.
00:09:59 Keep a budget, save money, pay yourself for all of these things that have been shown to actually reduce your anxiety,
00:10:08 become easier to do because you begin to understand why you do the things you do, how you do the things you do,
00:10:16 and you begin to make decisions with intentionality that allow you to change the things that you should change and live within your means.
00:10:26 Thanks for listening. Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast. As a subscriber and listener,
00:10:38 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.
00:10:48 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 U S four four two two two treasures tips,
00:11:09 and we'll send you five weeks of our best tips on stewarding your treasures. Until next time, invest your time,
00:11:18 your talent, and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world..