Episode 770 Financial Return is a Result not a Cause
[00:00:00] Thanks for joining me on episode 770 of the inspired stewardship podcast. I'm Rob Berger, author of retire before mom and dad. I encourage you to find your own journey to true financial freedom. And one way to be inspired to do that is by listening to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Mader.
[00:00:28] favorite expressions is oftentimes doing the hard things today. Makes it easier in the future while doing the easy thing today makes it harder in the future. And I would say that's true more often than it's not. Being able to recognize that and recognize that what you do today is the cause of your own future.
[00:00:51] Welcome and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God [00:01:00] 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. We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you.
[00:01:15] Can impact the work
[00:01:23] and today's episode about developing your influence through stewarding your treasures. I talk with you about why having a return is a measure of what you've done, not the cause I also share how recognizing this allows you to focus on the right things first. And I also share how you can use this to help grow yourself.
[00:01:44] 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't. All you have to do is use inspired [00:02:00] stewardship.com/amazon. When you're ready to make a purchase via Amazon and a small commission, we'll come back to support the show.
[00:02:06] If you enjoy the show, when you're ready to buy from Amazon, just use inspired stewardship.com/amazon. One of the principles that comes about when you look at investing, when you look at making money for the future is about measuring your return, looking for a return on investment or R O I, and I think this actually applies broader than just a money investment, but let's talk a little bit about what happens with money.
[00:02:37] If you invest in. An asset, something that goes up in value, let's say buying your house, you buy a house. And over time, that house goes up in value. And as long as you've been paying down on the debt that you owe for the house, assuming that you have a mortgage on it, eventually when you sell the house, you make more money than you paid into it.
[00:03:00] [00:03:00] And if you can do that in a wise way, you can make enough money that you can even buy an even better house. And you can do this again and again, it's a measure of the result of having a larger house or a better house or a house in a better neighborhood comes from wisely in buying real estate in a good place, holding onto it for a long time paying on it.
[00:03:25] If you owe a mortgage. And the asset appreciating and value. This comes, whether you're talking about investing in the stock market, investing in other assets of different kinds. If you look at rental real estate and all of these things, it comes down to this sort of wisdom. And one of the things about real estate that I've been told is the real truth is the money is made at the buy.
[00:03:49] Scott Maderer: [00:03:49] It's how well you buy a piece of real estate. How low do you get it for? How much do you invest in it? How little debt do [00:04:00] you have audit? All of these things affect what you make over the long-term and the same is true of the stock market or Bitcoin or anything else. You see it when everyone gets excited about it and then everyone buys into it.
[00:04:13] But that's buying in when the item is already at a high value. It has to keep going up before you can get a return, but in this case, a lot of times it's better to buy it when folks aren't buying it and then hold onto it. But other times, if you buy something that everyone's not buying, it's because it's not a good product, it's not a good stock.
[00:04:34] It's not a good company and you lose money. This is what makes investing so difficult and so challenging for people. But I think the idea here to focus on is. Doing your research, doing your work up front is where the real win comes from it. It's not just holding onto it over time and it's not [00:05:00] just buying something that's cheap.
[00:05:02] It's about. Finding things that are really quality things that are in alignment with what you really know and what you trust and what you want out of life, and then investing in those things. And it doesn't matter whether it's a stock, whether it's a piece of property or whether it's other things like investing in yourself, spending money on your own education, whether it's building your own company, whether it's investing in.
[00:05:27] Your children and helping them, whether it's investing in your own retirement and the other things, insurance, all of these things are about having the wisdom to recognize that what we do now matters a lot for where we are in the future. Paying off debt today helps you in the future. Saving money today helps you in the future, not spending everything that you make helps you.
[00:05:57] In the future, but it's [00:06:00] all too easy to sacrifice our future so that we have a little bit more pleasure today recognizing that the real win the return comes after you've done. Something allows you to begin to focus now on doing those things. This allows you to recognize that when you begin to put effort into something, it's not going to come easy.
[00:06:27] When you begin to work on yourself, it's not going to come easy when you work on changing your behavior so that you can get out of debt. It's not going to come easy when you work on changing your behavior so that you can invest for the future. It's not going to come easy. None of these things come easy.
[00:06:46] But you can use them to recognize this and to begin to grow yourself over time, you can use this to do the hard things today so that you can have more success in the [00:07:00] future. One of my favorite expressions is oftentimes doing the hard things today, makes it easier in the future while doing the easy thing today makes it harder in the future.
[00:07:12] And I would say that's true more often than it's not being able to recognize that and recognize that what you do today is the cause of your own future. It gives you power. It gives you control. It gives you the ability to do something, even if you're in a really difficult situation, even if you're in a really challenging situation, they're still action.
[00:07:36] You can begin to take today. That makes it better tomorrow. Not perfect, but better and improvements, slow and steady improvement is what we're after. We're not after perfection. We're after progress. That allows you to begin to invest so that your future is always better than you are today. [00:08:00] Thanks for listening.
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