Do you feel wealthy?
I guarantee most of you will say you don’t, but have you ever thought about how you’re defining wealth? Most of us look at things like the size of our house or the number of cars we own, but really the only measurement that matters is internal.
In this episode I help you to abandon your need to keep up with the Joneses, and start addressing the real question of what matters most to you.
What makes you happy? And how much money do you need to achieve that?
After this podcast, you are going to start refocusing how you measure your own wealth, and I hope you take the exercises I talk through in this episode and use them to kickstart some lasting, positive changes that put you on the path to your wealthy life.
Links & Resources:
Highlights from this episode:
(01:20) How are you?
(03:36) Turn your house into a home
(07:34) Success is NOT this
(12:40) Financial assets explained
(16:18) Are you glass half full, or glass half empty?
(19:09) Become an expert of resourcefulness
Has this podcast started you thinking about what A Wealthy Life might look and feel like for you? Why not spend another 3 minutes and take my online audit called Readiness to Retire Wealthy based on the five principles discussed in The Wealthy Retirement Plan book and episodes of this podcast? The assessment provides you with a personal score and report to help you take back control of your financial future – something business owners and employees both forget – but for different reasons.
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Browse Books by Vicki:
Using Other People’s Money: How to invest in property 4th edition
Make More Money from Property: From investor thinking to a business mindset 2nd Edition
Property for the Next Generation: Securing your future in uncertain times 2nd Edition
The New Estate: Insights from the 22nd century
The Wealthy Retirement Plan: A revolutionary guide to living the rest of your in style
Or read the following Ebooks on VickiWusche.com:
9 Critical Property Principles
The De-Job Yourself Manual: Break your reliance on a monthly wage
The Values Manual: Understand what your values are and how they can be key to a successful business
The Goal Setting Manual: Create meaningful and practical goals then achieve them
Episode 012 Transcript – Are You Focused on the Gaps?
Wow. I can’t believe we’re already at Episode 12, welcome. Today, we’re going to be talking about, “Are You Focused on the Gaps?” This is the third of the Five Principles for Wealthy Life. And in this episode, what I want you to really understand is that you have more than you think; in fact, much more than you think.
How are You?
And I really want to get your heads into recognizing and appreciating all that you have, how successful you are, how wealthy you are already; how much you’ve achieved already. I speak to an awful lot of people and we go through all of the maths of their money. And at the end of it, I asked them the question, do you feel wealthy?
And most people say no, they don’t. But I can prove to you that both they are, and you are, much wealthier than you think. I remember when I was taking coaching and my coach said to me–and I’ve mentioned about coaching before. And I think what I probably had done was answered the question–he’d said something along the lines of “how are you?” –and I probably moaned about what was wrong.
And how many people do that? It’s like, when we say to you, “how are you?” a lot of the time people don’t really care how you are because they’re focused on themselves. But because the typical answer of “how are you?” is to moan, my coach reminded me that I was focused on the gaps.
I said my house was a mess or something. And he said, “but I have a house. I’m lucky to have a house, to have a roof over my head.” Not only that, in my case to own–obviously with the help of the bank, with a mortgage–but at that time to own a house. A lot of people didn’t even own a house. So why was I focusing only on the fact that the house was a mess and not being grateful that I had a house?
And I think I mentioned something about my mum was annoying me and he pointed out I was lucky to still have my mum with me. And actually, maybe instead of seeing what she was saying as annoying, seeing it as a lesson. Sometimes coaches can be very annoying, can’t they? They can hold that mirror up to the things that you really probably should be thinking. But he had a really good point. I just felt that I didn’t have enough, and I think that was the point at which he planted the seed for me. And it’s grown to the point where I realize that I have plenty.
Turn Your House into a Home
And I think that if you were to look at my life, to look at my house; some people would be impressed, and some people would be like, “yeah, whatever.” And some people will be like, “oh, that’s not all that, I thought she was supposed to be a property investor. I thought she was supposed to be successful.” Because we measure people, don’t we? And actually, do you know what? The only measurement that matters is the measurement inside you, the measurement in your heart.
It’s not, you know, is yours bigger than his or hers? Do you have more than him or her? It’s not that, that’s not what matters. It’s do you feel that you have a wealthy and successful life? Have you achieved living the life that you want? And if you’ve achieved living the life you want, the size of your house or the newness of your car or where you choose to take a holiday is really none of anybody else’s business, if you’re happy.
A lot of the time, half of me has wanted to live abroad, but because my value of family is so important, I have to take the adventures as holidays, because I want to live near my family. Where we live now is up the top of the hill from where my daughter lives with our now two grandchildren.
And when she said she was moving–she previously only lived maybe 20-25 minutes away–she was now only going to live maybe half an hour away, but that half an hour crossed over two motorways. In order to get from my original house to her, I would have to cross maybe the M25 or the M4.
And we know what motorways are like anywhere in the world. If there had been an accident and she needed me for some reason, to help with the children or to help her; or invited us and we couldn’t get there, that would have made me sad. So, we made the decision to move, to be closer to where she was with the children.
So, we found the house at the top of the hill. She’s down the bottom of the hill we’re, probably, if we stick to the speed limits, a whole seven minutes away from her. We could probably walk it, but we’d have to walk back up the hill and I’m not ready to do that yet.
Success is NOT This
So, my house and what it looks like to other people is really unimportant, because this for me is the anchor point of my home, my family, my life. This is the physical location of my Wealthy Life. This is the place where I am happy. This is my garden. This is my door, my front door, my colour wall, my pictures, my memories on the wall. And that can’t be measured against what someone else has, because what matters to them may well be different. Where they want to live may well be different. What they are prepared to spend on a house may well be different.
I know that my mentality was very much about buying an old house that we had to do up and it has been the oldest, ugliest house going. And that’s why we’re doing a development to make it into something that we want, but that can’t be measured against what you have. And what you have can’t be measured against anybody else.
And we got into this–I think it might’ve been sort of the sixties, although I’m quite sure if we looked in history, we can find it absolutely everywhere–there’s a phrase of “keeping up with the Jones.” It’s keeping up with the neighbours. If the neighbours got a new car, your parents, your grandparents would probably have gotten a new car.
And I think that was to do with there being so much more wealth around in those days, more money around. People were moving from being pure factory workers, blue collar workers, as they would have been called at the time. And we were having this industrial revolution that then invented a thing called “supervisors” and “managers” and they own more and they came home from work clean. And because they had more money, they were able to buy more things. So, they would have had the TV and the car, and they may have been the first person on the street to get electricity or the first person to get a fridge or whatever it was.
And that, again, talking about historic myths that created this myth of, you know, all of a sudden someone down your street is doing better than you are, or apparently doing better than you are. But you see, I think what you’ve got to think here is that we can look at a lot of celebrities, a lot of very, very successfully apparent, externally successful people, and some of them look successful. And then it’s only a matter of months or years later when you hear how sad their family life has been.
If you turn on the news and you’ve listened to celebrity stuff, there is an endless trail of people that we have put on a pedestal called a “celebrity,” somehow paid a lot of money because they were in a film or musical, a sport, and their lives have deteriorated into drugs or alcohol because they’re unhappy and they’re filling a gap. Or they’re insecure and they’re in an environment where those things are available and so they go that route. Or their relationships with parents, siblings, partners start to fall to pieces. And so, it’s not about the size of your bank account, the newness of the car that you’re driving, the size of your house.
That’s not what success is about. And if you think that it is, then you are going to be forced down a path where the gaps between you and whoever you have on a pedestal is larger. Whereas actually, if the pedestal is removed and what is in its place is that thing that you are focusing on, back to this all the time, because it’s that life that you want to live. And your distance from that life, how close are you to living your ideal Wealthy Life? That’s the only measurement that counts because that is a measurement made of elasticity, magnetism; it pulls you forward. And I want you to know that you have more than you think. The issue is whether your resources are actually aligned with the life that you want to live.
So, I suppose another way of asking the question is: do you spend your time, your money, your energy on things that will lead you towards the Wealthy Life you want to live? Well, if you don’t have Clarity and Control or you haven’t had Clarity and Control, then maybe not. And now you can see why those are the first two Principles, because they are skills and subtle shifts in the way that you’re thinking that contribute to the crystallization and the crispness and the sharpening of your focus about what it is that you want.
And all the time I’m saying to you about this focus that’s in front of you, it could be just a month away. It’s not 20-30 years away like it might’ve been, if you’re thinking in old fashioned ways about retirement. It’s actually there, it’s within your grasp. And all you need to do is get, as I say to you, the finances, the time and the energy all lined up so that you can achieve what you want. Now, that’s where the measure is. That’s what’s exciting.
Financial Assets Explained
And there is no way if you’re doing that, that you can be focused on gaps, because the idea of understanding your Resources is a focus on what you have, not a focus on what you don’t have. So, what we need to do now is get a pen and paper, dig deep and get resourceful, make a list.
You know I love a list. If I love a spreadsheet, I’m going to love a list. Lists, lists all the time. And this time, what we’re going to do is we are going to list all the time you have and how you use it. So, how much time do you spend traveling to work? How much time do you spend at work? How much time does work intrude into your family life? How much time do you spend watching telly, down the gym, in the garden with the children, with your partner, meditating, exercise?
Now make a list of your money, where you’ve already got that if you followed along on the episode last week, and you’ve got your Control organized and you’ve got your spreadsheet out and you’re completing it. And you’ll have had many opportunities to do that over the last 12 episodes. And what I asked you last episode, last week, was to look not only at what you’re spending, but how what you’re spending contributes to your focus. So, how is the money being used to support your focus?
And now let’s do the same thing with knowledge; what do you know? And same thing with contacts; who do you know. Experience; what have you done? What have you done that other people haven’t done? What have you overcome? What challenges have you overcome? That sort of stuff. And now what you can do is you can get into the real, tangible and intangible financial assets. And I’m saving this to last and getting you to think about your time, because that’s quite easy to. I’m getting you to think about your money because you’ve been doing that on and off over the last 12 episodes. Then I’m getting you to think a bit more creatively about the knowledge, the context, the experience you have before hitting you with the hard bit, which is the–not hard as in it’s difficult–but the solid bit, the financial assets.
What do you own that has a value? And then, is there a debt to offset? So, do you own your own home? If the answer is yes: do you have a mortgage on it? How much is the mortgage? Then what we can look at is you have an intangible, in a sense, financial asset of a house, because it’s intangible because it’s got a value that can’t be realized until you sell it. and then there is a loan on it, however, there is the tangible possibility of equity. And that is the difference between the value of the house now, minus the mortgage, if you paid it off. So, there is a tangible possibility that you have got real equity in the house that you live in. Now, the only reason that this isn’t something super exciting is because in order to release the equity, you’d have to sell the house or re-mortgage it.
You can remove it–obviously take financial advice, et cetera–but that’s going to cost you, and there’s a consequence to that. Well, you can sell the house and there is obviously a cost to that; an even bigger consequence in that you now don’t have a house to live in and you’ve got to go and get another house somewhere else.
But then there’re going to be times in your life where—well you’ve probably already been doing it–you work your way up the so-called property ladder. So, you might start it in rented. Then you might have got a flat then you might’ve got a smaller house. Then you get a family and you’ve got a bigger house. Then you get a better job. Then you got a bigger house in a different area.
And then there comes a point where the kids leave. And if you’re really quick and that point at which they leave, before they come back again, you might downsize into a smaller house somewhere else. And eventually, you might move yourself down into a bungalow or a flat as you get much older. So, we move up and down. So, these aren’t things to get emotional about. Again, I feel that a house is actually a liability until you make it an asset, but that’s a whole other property story.
Now let’s think about a car. Do you own a car? And if you own the car, do you own it outright or do you have a loan on it? What about art? Do you collect art? Do you either have shares or trade in shares or cars or wine? So, I’ve spoken to clients who do all of those things. They buy art and they have nice art on the wall, but that art has a value that could be sold and to be realized.
I’ve got one client, he’s heavily into wine. And he buys wine by the case and he’s got this incredible wine cellar in his garden. You spiral down the stairs and there’s all his wine stored flat in the dark, temperature controlled so that it’s at its optimum storage position. And then people who like cars and more buy into vintage cars. And then those things are also stored off in a shed somewhere that is humidity and temperature controlled, which is, I think, quite funny, really, because wine should be drunk and cars should be driven; but not when they cost so much that they become an asset with a value and of course, property, what else.
Are You Glass Half Full, or Glass Half Empty?
So, get yourself a list, and I think that you will then see–in fact, I think I know that you will then see–that you have, and have access to, a lot more than you thought. And now let’s just go back ‘round the loop again, and just think so: are you normally focused on the gaps? And what I want you to do here is to start listening to the way that you speak.
Are you half-full, are you half-empty? Do you sound and speak like someone who is wealthy and successful and clear about what they want in life, and you know, on the path to get it? Or are you a bit mean and grumpy? And I’m sure you’re not mean and grumpy, but sometimes I listen to people and you can hear in their language, it’s almost a jealousy, you know, watch out for when you sound jealous.
So, if I said to you, oh, “someone I know has got Google light bulbs in their house” and you would turn around and go, “wow, that’s a waste of money. They must have money to burn.” That sounds a bit mean, doesn’t it? It’s not sounding uber generous, whereas if you went: “oh wow, I wonder if that saves them money? I wonder if there’s, if there’s actually a payback?” You invest in the Google lights and because you can speak to them and turn them on and off or control them better that it’s better for security or it’s better for the environment. Or, “are the LED lights better or something like that?” Become conscious of your words.
Behind the words will be meaning, and that meaning can be unpacked into whether you feel wealthy and successful or when you feel grumpy, greedy, or jealous. And I’m sure you don’t, I’m sure you don’t, but I bet you, there are moments when you do. And I know I have it and because I listen to the way I speak; I have an overdeveloped sense of self-analysis. So just, I’m a weirdo, but that’s fine. I’m my own sort of weirdo, but I can pick up on it after a while. If something’s not going my way, if things spiral out of control, then I can start to use a language that means that I’m starting to turn my head and look at the gaps. I’m starting to look at what’s going wrong. That I’m not back the other way, looking at how successful I’ve been and what I’m achieved.
Become an Expert of Resourcefulness
And that takes practice. Remember, I’ve been doing this for goodness me, 22-24 years now. So, this is, well, maybe if you’re really lucky, something you can learn overnight. But it’s also something a bit like riding a bike. You know, when you first get on a bike, it’s going to be uncomfortable. It’s going to make your backside sore. You’re going to get off and your legs are going to ache. Maybe your hands are going to ache. And you will have been a bit wobbly. But give it, you know, a hundred miles of riding and you’ll be an expert.
And that’s what I want you to do. I want you to become an expert at being resourceful and there is a smattering here of gratitude. So, if you start the day acknowledging all that you have and all that you’re grateful for–which could well tie in with some of your values–and you end the day grateful for all that you’ve experienced in that day–all that you’ve achieved in that day–and those are your first and last thoughts, it really can reprogram your mind.
And there are two words that I want you to think about as the last piece of homework here. So, the last two episodes have been quite heavy with homework. Two words; I want you to think about the first one it’s “try.” And good old Yoda, the little creature with the big ears from Star Wars films, said something to the effect of “Do or do not. You cannot try.” And the way to prove that to you is I would like to ask you to try and stand up or try and sit down. You can’t try you either do; you either sit down or you stand up. There is no place at which there is a try. I could ask you to attempt to jump a wall, and you may or may not be successful at it, but I asked you to try and jump a wall. I think it confuses our minds because “try” is not a verb that is actionable, is it? It doesn’t mean, “do” it doesn’t mean “don’t do” it means, I don’t know, faff about there on the edge.
So, look at when you’re saying the word “try.” So, if I say to you, “I would like you, in these exercises, I would like you to create a list of all the resources,” and you turn around to me and say, “I’ll try,” I know for a fact you won’t. And not only will you not even try, you won’t even attempt it, because that’s what the word unconsciously means.
The second word I want you to think about is “but.” when you use the word “but” you are rubbing out everything that came in the sentence before it. So, for example: “will you make a list and, and feel resourceful by the end of it?”
“Yes, I’ll have a go at writing the list,” okay, some hesitation there, “but I’m not sure if I’ll have enough time.” So, let’s be honest. That sentence just means “I’m not going to do it because I won’t have enough time.” I’ve already decided in advance I haven’t got enough time to write the list. So, new homework, make your list and watch out for the words, “try” and “but” at where they’re appearing in your life, because that will tell you something about yourself.
You’re going to be such a brilliant self-coach at the end of this. But you’re also going to be living the most amazing, Wealthy Life. So, the biggest part of feeling resourceful is recognizing the resources that you have, and therefore your mindset, the idea of gratitude of focusing on what you have rather than the gaps in what you don’t have.
And the language that you use are absolutely key to this specific principle. And mindset, as I’ve said to you before, is key all the way through all of this. So, I am telling you that you have more than you think, and now I want you to prove me right. I want you to pay attention to your language and at the same time, notice how more assets are going to reveal themselves to you over the next few weeks, and add those to your lists so that you become resourceful. Look at what you notice and how you thought or spoke about that asset, and how you can think and speak about that asset in the future.
So, there we go. The end of the Third Principle, Resourceful and Resources. This is our third little seedling. And I want to leave you with that. So again, you have more than you think, and now you need to go and prove it. You need to go and find them.
So please, as always make sure that you sign up for the Fan Club, subscribe to the podcast, put next Thursday in your diary so that you can listen to the Fourth Principle, which is Leverage. This is the skill that you need to partner with Resources so that you can speed up your Wealthy Life and achieving the thing that you are focused on.
Thank you very much for your precious time listening to a Wealthy Life podcast. My name is Vicki Wusche and I am a liver of A Wealthy Life. As in, I’m not a sliver of a liver, I am a liver of A Wealthy Life, and I hope that this episode has brought you some much need “Whoosh” in your life. Thank you.
You’ve been listening to Vicki Wusche, wealth strategist, author, and property investor with a name like Wusche spelt, W-U-S-C-H-E, I’m easy to find on all the usual social media channels do come and connect.
Been loving the podcast? Then join the Listener Fan Club where I will share extra insights and host webinars. Links to this and more of my story are both in the show notes and on my website, viskiwusche.com. See you on the next episode.