Episode 945: Money Isn’t About Money

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 945 of the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:00:07] Chris Mamula: I'm Chris Mamula. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to take control of your money is key.

[00:00:20] And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott.

[00:00:26] Scott Maderer: you get on the same page about your values and priorities. Then the communication gets easier and the way the money plays out gets easier as well. But all too often, folks focus on the math. They focus on the debt. They focus on the spending. They focus. Fights about how you're overspending and that's, what's causing us to have this struggle welcome.

[00:00:51] And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcasts. 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 and the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you.

[00:01:14] Can impact the work

[00:01:16] in today's episode about investing in others, through stewarding your treasures. I talk with you about why your money. Is it really about your money? I share how it's all about your values, your priorities and communication. And I also share how we often mistakenly think it's really about the. As we talk about stewarding your treasures.

[00:01:38] 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. When you're ready to make a purchase via Amazon and a small commission, we'll come back to support the show. If you enjoy the show, when you're [00:02:00] ready to buy from Amazon, just use inspired stewardship.com/amazon.

[00:02:05] So I met with a prospective client a few weeks ago, and we had a conversation as we were talking about working together on some financial coaching about what was going on, what does success look like for you? What is the struggle today? And what's going wrong for you and what do you hope would go?

[00:02:24] And the interesting thing is even though we're talking about financial coaching, we're talking about money. The real truth was what came out wasn't immediately about, oh, I wish I could get out of debt or I wish I could have more money in the bank, or I wish I could take the good income that I make and do something smart with it.

[00:02:43] Instead. It was about, I wish I could have better communication with my spouse. I met with another client just last week and the same conversation came up. And both the husband and the wife said, we're going through some struggles right now. We know part of it is because we're not [00:03:00] communicating well about our money over and over again, you get into these situations where people are talking about their money and it turns out to not really be about their money.

[00:03:12] And the truth is when we're talking about our money, what ends up happening is often the money is a simple. Not the actual cause if we're fighting about money, it's usually not really money that we're fighting about. If there's communication problems around money, it's usually not just the money that's creating the communication problem.

[00:03:33] The money shows up the problem show up in the money the overspending, the debt, the struggles, the feeling like I make way too much money to feel this broke all the time. Those are the symptoms, but the real cause the root cause is being out of alignment between your values, your priorities, and your methods of communication.

[00:03:53] It's more about really sitting down and saying, what are the things that are important to me? [00:04:00] What are the priorities that I want to make sure happen? No matter what are my values? What are the things that I say should come first, second in third. And then of course, for communication, it's actually about committing to having a system and a process and a method and a time to actually talk to each.

[00:04:21] About our values and our priorities and how that's showing up in our money. It's about getting on the same page about the deeper things. And strangely that actually usually fixes a lot of the money problems. Now don't get me wrong. This isn't easy. This isn't something that happens overnight. This isn't something that just magically makes you say.

[00:04:42] Completely out of debt and have everything going well. And everything's perfect there still going to be struggles there, still going to be fights. There's still going to be times when you're not on the same page, but if you get on the same page about your values and priorities, then the communication gets easier.

[00:04:59] And [00:05:00] the way the money plays out gets easier as well. But all too often, folks focus on the math. They focus on the debt. They focus on the spending. They focus on fights about how you're overspending and that's, what's causing us to have this struggle, or you're not earning enough money. And that's, what's causing us to have this problem.

[00:05:21] If we would just stop doing this, then everything would be better. And more often than not that this is something that the other person needs to do. We think about it in terms of the money. We think about it in terms of and income. And we look at it from a math perspective. We think if we invest more than we'll make more ensure that on the surface is true, but not if you're also digging a hole on the other end, then your net worth can remain zero, even though you're in bed.

[00:05:53] The truth is that there's a lot more than just the math. If you're going to think about what is important to [00:06:00] you, this is why I say everyone's budget is personal. You can't go through the budget and look at it and say, everyone should cut cable. Everyone should work to lower their rent. Everyone should buy a house.

[00:06:13] There aren't any everyone's because each of us have our own lives, our own values, our own priorities. I've seen people who work in their budget and deeply sacrifice so that they can afford to put their children in private school because that's a priority and a value of theirs. And they cut things out of their budget that most people would look at and say, you're crazy for cutting that out of your budget, but they do it so that they can get right side up and they can afford to pay for the thing that they put first, which in this case is putting their kids into that private.

[00:06:50] And I've seen other people who keep things in their budget that most of us would look at and say, really, that's what you're keeping in the budget. That's what you're affording. [00:07:00] That's what you're spending your money. But if it's something that's in alignment with their priorities and their values, then what they say yes to is so much more important than what they say no to.

[00:07:12] We often look at our money in terms of what do we have to say no to what are we cutting out? What are we saying no to how are we not spending? But the truth is, if you look at what you want to say yes to the nose, get easy. Because the nos become no brainers. They become, obviously this is something I'm not going to spend money on because it's more important that I spend the money over here.

[00:07:35] This is why the math, isn't just the math. It's about looking at the numbers and making sure they're aligned with your values and your priorities. And then you have a way of communicating about that and getting on the same page with anyone else who's in the household. Thanks.

[00:07:55] Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast, [00:08:00] 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. You're 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 U S 4 4 2 2 2 treasures tips.

[00:08:32] And we'll send you five weeks of our best tips on stewarding your treasure. Until next time, invest your time, your talent and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world. .