Episode 775 Don’t Do What You’ve Always Done
[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining me on episode 775 of the inspired stewardship podcast. I'm Scott Brookens from Scott brooklyns.com. I encourage you to find the way to be inspired to start your dream business and find freedom. And one way to do that is to be inspired by this the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend Scott Mader.
[00:00:30] the gaining control the consistency part. And once you have consistency, then you can worry about optimization. But the funny thing is what we often try to do is we try to put in automation and optimization at the beginning because we think that will somehow create a new result. But the only thing that changes things is you welcome.
[00:00:54] And thank you for joining us on the inside fired stewardship podcasts. If you truly [00:01:00] 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 call in the inspired stewardship podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact.
[00:01:18] The word.
[00:01:26] Today's episode about impacting the world through stewarding your treasures. I talk with you about why the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. I share why not doing what you've always done. Isn't the same as being inconsistent. And I also talk about how to balance consistency with not wasting your efforts.
[00:01:48] 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 [00:02:00] do is use inspired 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.
[00:02:10] If you enjoy the show, when you're ready to buy from Amazon, just use inspired stewardship.com/amazon. One of those expressions that gets given to a lot of different people as a quote, Tony Robbins, I've heard it, Mark Twain. I've heard it for others. Einstein is this idea that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and then expecting different results.
[00:02:39] The truth is that is one of those things that. As human beings, we do a lot. We hold onto things and expect that if we keep doing them this way, because we've always done it this way. Somehow this time it'll work. When it comes to our money, we do this. We'll spend money or we'll set up [00:03:00] a budget or we'll do certain things on patterns of behavior.
[00:03:03] But this time it'll work I'll willpower my way through it. I'll focus more and I'll get it done this time. But the truth is it doesn't work that way. The truth is that if you do it the same way over and over again, typically you get the same or similar results. And when it comes to our money, that means whatever it is we're doing will continue to happen that way.
[00:03:31] Until you make a change, you've got to change your behavior. You've got to change something about what you're doing. You got to change something about your plan. You got to change the way you're executing that plan. You've got to put a new routine or a new structure in place. Something has to change or else you can't really expect different results.
[00:03:54] And a lot of times the pushback that I get from folks is they say I don't want to change all the time. I don't [00:04:00] want to change too much. It's being inconsistent and that's true. It's true that if you just bounce from goal to goal and thing to thing, and you don't focus, you don't make much progress.
[00:04:12] This is one of the reasons that techniques like the debt snowball or the debt avalanche work is because, or the baby steps that Dave Ramsey
[00:04:19] shares
[00:04:19] Scott Maderer: [00:04:19] or the refocus gain control and set a plan methodology that I use with clients, all of these things work because they give you structure and they allow you to focus on one thing at a time.
[00:04:34] And that focus is important, but it's also important that you measure the results that you run experiments or tests, or do things where you set out and you look at them. And then if you aren't getting the results you want, you either change or tweak until you do get the results you want. So shifting things because [00:05:00] of information.
[00:05:01] Is not inconsistency it's adaptation. And the truth is you want to balance this. If all you do is try something new every single week, every single month, every single day. That's not enough consistency to really know what's going on. You have to make a commitment to do something for long enough. And with enough consistency to see if you get the results.
[00:05:28] And you can balance that so that you end up not wasting your efforts. I've had folks that when we're doing the monthly review or the annual review right now, and you're looking back at the year before you find that you've changed directions financially 20 or 30 or 40 times in a year. And that's way too often, you can't get any sort of traction.
[00:05:50] You can't really make progress on any goal. If you shift goals that often. But I have other folks that have fought tooth and nail [00:06:00] about making changes to their behavior. And when they look at it at the end of the year, they're more or less exactly where they were at this time. Last year, they haven't made any progress on their goals.
[00:06:10] And by the way, COVID or no, COVID, you can still make some sort of progress on your goals, even if you've lost your job. There's things that you can be doing, your goals would shift, but you'd still be making progress on those new goals. You can be in control. You can take responsibility, you can make a change in the goal.
[00:06:31] You can shift the experiment, but you do it based on information. You don't just do it based on Willy nilly. You don't just do it based on a whim. This is how you balance consistency, doing something over and over again so that you can see what results you get. That's consistency. And then when you find something that you're consistently getting good results, you may want to look at how can I tweak it or [00:07:00] improve it?
[00:07:01] How can I make it even better? But it's no longer about just throwing it out and trying something new. It's no longer about burning it all down and starting over from scratch. Usually instead it's about modification, tweaking, improving refining. And the truth is when it comes to your money. Those refinement optimization is what I call it.
[00:07:24] That comes second. The first thing that has to come is the actual foundation, the gaining control, the consistency part. And once you have consistency, then you can worry about optimization. But the funny thing is what we often try to do is we try to put in automation and optimization at the beginning because we think that will somehow create.
[00:07:47] A new result. But the only thing that changes things is you, you are control of you. You are the one thing that you have control over and you are the one thing [00:08:00] that you can really control. And that means that is the thing that fixes your life. You are the thing that fixes your life. Not who's president, not who's in your local office, not whether or not.
[00:08:16] COVID is going on, but you, and that doesn't mean it's easy. Trust me. That doesn't mean it's simple. That doesn't mean it's fun. That doesn't mean that only good things happen to us, but it does mean that whether something good is happening or something bad is happening, you have control over your response to those things.
[00:08:36] And out of your response is where the good things come. How are you going to respond to 2020 in your finances? What are you going to do different so that you get a different result in 2021? And that different result could either be a better result because you already got a good one or it could be a good result where you've had a bad one.
[00:08:59] Thanks for listening.
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