Ep#98 Securing your financial future

Dex (00:00:09) - Hi everyone. My name is Dex Randall and this is the Burnout to Leadership podcast, where I teach professional men to recover from burnout and get back to passion and reward at work. Hello, my friends, this is Dex, and I am glad you're here for this week's episode on your financial future and flourishing. And there's never a time where you can really ignore the finances, right? So, let's talk about today how to make it the best scenario that it can be. But of course, what we'll do here today then is coach on money challenges that you may have. And that could be a little bit painful for you if you're in burnout. And it might also be slightly premature to consider if you're struggling at the deeper level of fighting for survival, just trying to keep functioning. I'm offering here a vision for your future that it might be a little bit hard for you to relate to right now, even though it IS available to you post-burnout, I promise. So perhaps if that's you, ask yourself.

Dex (00:01:13) - If it is painful to think about, perhaps does coaching fit into your money future? How might coaching help you create this faraway future vision? Because just to drop this in, I work with clients in two parts. Part one is to effect a complete burnout recovery. And part two is to turbocharge your future prospects, including, of course, your career and money. So my aim really is for clients to earn back ten times what they invest in coaching, because your coaching experience really needs to be extremely ROI positive, not just financially, but also in terms of enjoyment, engagement, reward, relationships, and just general contentment and ease at work and in the rest of your life. Because I want to support you to create a better future in every respect. So if that's you, hang on in here if you like. Otherwise, come back later. Maybe you want to check out, if you're in burnout, the first few episodes of the podcast to get you started in your recovery. Let me just tell you quickly here about one of my clients, a cardiologist.

Dex (00:02:29) - So he came to speak to me first a couple of years ago, and at that time, he didn't have the money to invest in coaching. He had a lot of college fees coming up for his kids. And he was in a pretty dark place at work. He had a lot of conflict and a lot of obstruction there, and he was he was having a bit of a grim time. And he had as a consequence of all that struggle, he had very low confidence about his performance and his job prospects. And really after that conversation, it was very positive. But I really didn't expect to see him again because I knew he didn't have the money. But actually what he did is he waited one year and he came back and hit me up again, and then he started the program. He was mad keen and pretty soon he did start to overcome his obstacles and he did start to thrive. And when that happened he had a turning point where he suddenly started to have thoughts for the future, when he got enough energy and enough enthusiasm back. He started

Dex (00:03:29) - changing his view of what was possible for him at work and in his career, and he opened up a bunch of career choices for himself. And really, he started to investigate all sorts of different projects, passion projects for him, stuff he was really excited about, multiple revenue streams. And he started to develop that out a little bit, although he was still in his original role as well. He just had a lot of extra energy and enthusiasm and wanted to connect with more people who are entrepreneurial and had ideas like him. And I asked him at the end of his coaching time with me to reflect back on his journey and what had happened for him. And he he basically concluded he was very excited about the whole thing. He'd really come a long way. It created a very good situation for him at work. He was just brimming over with enthusiasm, really. But the last thing he said is that the investment in coaching was the best money he'd ever spent on anything, ever in his life, and that included his professional training as a cardiologist, which kind of stunned me a little bit.

Dex (00:04:41) - But I was very excited about what he created. So, if you are in burnout listening to this and you're thinking about money or wishing you didn't have to think about money. I just wanted to share with you that I regularly see clients coming in to see me. They're feeling pretty battered. They're usually unable to see past the difficulties and the dread of work, the exhaustion, the roadblocks. They're usually in despair about their future, not really able to imagine that it could be better. And yet they do recover, and they do go on to create more, to be more passionate, to earn more, to enjoy their work again and create a better lifestyle, better security and better options going forward in their career. And I do like to point that out because I know there's a despair that comes with burnout, that tells us that nothing is going to get better. That that really isn't the truth of it. That isn't the way that it needs to pan out. So if you are at the end of your rope...

Dex (00:05:45) - Okay, now it may be hard to reset your financial future right in this moment, but do come and talk to me about getting out of burnout so that in a couple of months time, when you're back on your feet, you can reset your money and career landscape into something you find exciting and enjoyable again. And also, have a look at episode number 85 of the podcast. It's in the show notes, about how Burnout Recovery upgrades your career options, just to give yourself a little twinkle of hope for a better future. Also, when you're examining your own financial landscape, if you'd like to have a set of worksheets that are really going to help you unearth the truth about your financial blocks, places where your financial performance is at, where you'd like it to be. The worksheets can be great for kickstarting you into a new financial regime, a new set of habits around money, and you can download those worksheets via a link in this episode's show notes, so have a look for that. And I think the first question for anybody who's in a financial position they don't love; in a financial squeeze;

Dex (00:07:03) - Not doing as well as they'd like, maybe worried about maintaining the pace of financial income and resilience. The first question to ask is, okay if we're not in a good position, how did we get here? And for one thing, of course, we've been staring down the possibility of global recession really since Covid times. And back then, many of us saw a reduction in our general sense of security in the world, in our families, our homes, society at large. As our world tilted a slightly off axis and some of the conditions of life that we took for granted, that we relied on, went unexpectedly into a state of flux and work culture shifted towards the gig economy and work from home, another kind of instability. And I think of Covid really is a period of enforced alienation almost, that left us slightly on the margins, pushed back on our own resources. And during that period, for many people, new strains on finances emerged. And I think this applies for people who are employees, contractors, consultants, business owners, whatever.

Dex (00:08:17) - It was kind of across the board. And we've also seen during the past maybe 5 to 10 years, seismic shifts in the way some industries operate. I'm thinking about job security and conditions, organizational structure changes, regulatory changes, insurance changes, HR and recruitment processes. Speed of evolution of job descriptions. Even if we're in a job, the job changes and also expectations. Increasing revenue targets. Changes in the gig economy. DEI, mental health, cultural shifts. Really a lot has been happening and that's, I think, still accelerating. Of course there's nothing in the world as certain as change. And change doesn't need to be unwelcome for you. You might have not have a big appetite for it, but you're a pro. You already know how to adapt and make the most of conditions and opportunities. However, temporarily whilst you're in burnout, you might feel a bit blindsided, caught a little bit off guard. Not really resourced to address a whole bunch of changes because because you're fighting fires at a deeper level, it feels more like survival.

Dex (00:09:44) - Fending off threat. And really, all of that is just simply because you've lost energy and power in burnout and you're not operating at your true potential, your true capacity. So it may be a time when finances are at the forefront of your mind, especially if your job is also under threat. And to be fair, some clients do come to me with financial pressures, but some don't. Some have job insecurity, or they're between jobs or suspended. Or maybe they've yet to get a foot on the career ladder and some don't. Some are fine, but I think the common stressor in burnout is career trajectory and underlying that will always be a set of beliefs about what's possible. And I've talked a little bit before about financial security on the podcast. You might see I've put the relevant episodes in the show notes for this episode on things like recession proof in your career and creating career growth. Because on the downside, not only does financial worry play into and increase the pain of burnout, but also let's look at the upside, where I focus very strongly with my clients on positioning for ongoing success

Dex (00:11:03) - post-burnout. Creating solid career growth in whatever direction will give the biggest reward. It's really vital, on emerging from burnout, that the reset includes creating the kind of future you actually want that suits who you are, your desires, your aspirations for how your career is going to play out. It's that the recovery from burnout needs to have a really big upside, for my money anyway. Otherwise I wouldn't bother. But also, I think you'll be thinking about how you safeguard your financial future in recovery. Create an environment where you're going to thrive, relishing the challenges and making the level of contribution at work that is its own reward. So I think it's a great time coming to the end of the year, as we are right now, for us to go again on how to set yourself up financially for the most secure, sustainable and even growth year as the new year begins. And remember this one thing if your brain is currently flooded with doom laden thoughts of recession, financial challenges, bills to pay fire sales.

Dex (00:12:23) - Most of the biggest long term successful companies sprang up and grew in a bust time. Not in a boom time. And you can too. That's the way you can position yourself as you pivot your beliefs about your finances. And once you're able to reset your financial beliefs a little bit to support that growth, what's going to happen is you're going to spend less time ruminating on financial worries and have more time to think about what's coming up for you and how to create change. Which of itself is going to create a feeling of increased control. Boosts motivation, action and reward around money making activities. Going to create a stronger confidence, position and clarity, focused on achieving goals in a way that reaffirms and reassures you. And as a byproduct, you'll optimize things like communication, leadership, performance, and productive relationships. If you're a business owner, you'll be able to position yourself more intentionally for growth. Stand a bit more in your authority. Be clearer about your position. Increase marketing and sales confidence and success. Hone your financial best practices, planning and spending and make the most targeted use of your time and resources towards your goals.

Dex (00:13:47) - Set this firm pathway to business growth, and I think even though we think we've got our career under control or our business under control, there's always room for development in that area. And all of that growth is possible when you take a look at your beliefs around money and your future and give them a bit of a tweak. So let's start there. What are those beliefs? Well, I think the first thing to think about is what is money? What do you think? What do you believe money is? Because when you think about it, money is just an abstract concept. It's not gold. You can't hold it in your hand. It's relative. And we don't control its value. I think, well for me at least, blockchain's given me a new perspective on what money actually is. So one way you can kind of unearth what you think about money is if you are explaining money to a child, what would you say? Your money beliefs, it's my position, are are not entirely of your own making because money is cultural.

Dex (00:14:57) - You have inherited a set of beliefs about money. The way you think about money and your relationship with money is just a collection of thoughts you have about it. How much you can earn. Hold. Save. Spend. Invest. Lend. Borrow. Gift. are all limited by your thinking. By what you think is possible or appropriate for you. This is why we often don't have a radical shift in our finances even over our lifetime. He is an obvious example. How much money do you think it's okay to earn? Six figures? Seven figures? Eight figures? More? Would you feel comfortable being a billionaire? Is that your destiny? You see it that way. I think about lottery winners. There's another example who quite often in a year or two, have returned to their steady state, their previous comfort zone, by blowing all the money. So if you really don't know what your money beliefs are, let's take a little look together, because now might be a great time to get clear on that.

Dex (00:16:08) - So let's look at as an example your belief about your earning power. I gave you a few different money beliefs about money in different ways. But let's let's look at earning power to start off with. And we'll extend that to other money beliefs in a minute. So earnings. I asked you just now what it's okay for you to earn. And you must have answered that internally. So each of you listening will have grown up with different beliefs, probably inherited from your parents or other early influences in your life. It would have likely given you expectations of the lifestyle you grew up to create. And they might also have set "moral limits" on, for example, how much you could earn without being greedy. Or how much you could earn if you gave some away, supported others inside the family, for example, or through philanthropy. Or that you wouldn't need to earn money because they already had plenty. Or they might have suggested what career you should choose to make the best money. Or that choosing a lower career would be a disgrace.

Dex (00:17:18) - Or you are a person who "should" do something apart from earning money. Whatever their beliefs were about earning, guaranteed they had some and told you about them. Because money beliefs are very self defining. We're this kind of people, not that kind of people. And that means it involves the ego. And once the ego is involved, we all protect our own beliefs like crazy. And we tend to regard them as irrefutable facts that everybody should be operating from. And when we do that, it makes it very difficult for us to see beyond those beliefs, to extend ourselves. You know, it's just: "This is how money works." End of story. And my money background is my own father grew up in poverty below the breadline, supporting a big family in his teens, and he was determined to make that work because, well, what other choice was there? Even though his family wanted him to leave school at 14 to earn money. He went on to attend a tech college part time and then became an aircraft engineer, and he enjoyed enormous success throughout a long career at Rolls-Royce.

Dex (00:18:33) - Later in life, though he did manage to lose his pension to gambling. And my mother, on the other hand, was a teacher from a middle class background, and she resolutely refused that any of her family would earn what I would consider to be a decent wage, because we shouldn't be greedy. And she actively discouraged my career aspirations when I was in school. Well, I did have a paper round as a kid. None of my sisters did. Somehow that was pitched not really as earning money, but more as a service and obligation and cultivating a good work ethic. So that was kind of my background starting out. So right now think about your money beliefs growing up. Who influenced you the most and how? What did they suggest? You should earn both the minimum and the maximum. What was the window you're working inside? Because we all have this notional lower and upper limit on each of our money beliefs. I should earn at least this, but not more than that. Could be dependent on career stage, of course, or a whole bunch of other dependencies and factors.

Dex (00:19:48) - For example, I was taught growing up that when I got married and started having children, that was the time to think about buying a house. So what do you think your earning window rules were? Did you stick to them or did you flip out? Rebel? Are you still living them out? What factors have changed your views, if any, over time? And above all, whatever those earning beliefs are. Do you want to now keep them or trade them in for some new ones? Because those beliefs are yours, right? They're just yours alone. Once you see them, you can do whatever you want with them. If you want to increase your lower and upper earning limit, simply ask yourself where to and why. You have to like your own reason, really, because if you like your own reason, you're approving of your own decision. If you're disapproving of your own decision, you're going to be in conflict with yourself. Not the easiest way to go ahead. So let's say you've considered your own earning limit.

Dex (00:20:53) - For the sake of argument, let's say you want to double your upper limit. And how we do this is the same as all the work we do in coaching, which is changing your beliefs, it's just choosing to think a new thought about whatever the subject is. So choosing to think a new thought about your upper earning limit, choosing to think you're going to double your your earnings, then liking your reason for doing that and starting operating from that new belief as if you'd always had that belief. So this is becoming, or being now, the person who earns double your income. Step into that person's shoes who has double your income. Envisage or imagine, see in your mind's eye, yourself earning double your income. What do you think that feels like? Where is that person? Who is that person? How do they look? What is that person doing? What changes in their decision making about money? What new things are they doing now and what things have they stopped doing, to support this new vision about money? How are they talking about money? About work? About time, about people? About success? What's front of mind for them? 

Dex (00:22:11) - Money is just energy, isn't it? So how is that person using that energy? Really see if you can contact that and bring it out very vividly in your mind's eye. And when you can clearly see that person and it's an exercise you might want to repeat and repeat. Maybe you want to do it every day for a week and see if you can tap in deeper and deeper into that energy. So when you can see that person clearly, ask yourself. What supporting beliefs do you need right now in order to practice being this future you with that belief. For example, how will you have a new sense of your own worthiness and value? How do those need adjusting? This is where self approval really becomes critical. If you want to double your earnings but inside you feel like it's greedy, you don't deserve it, you're going to subtly, silently undercut your own efforts at growth. Your subconscious will effectively save you from yourself by holding you back. Yes, that's what's happening now, right? You can't earn beyond your limits.

Dex (00:23:25) - Only with your new blessing can these new beliefs take root. So. If you think it's greedy to earn more or you don't deserve it, what new belief can you bring in there that will support you to move towards that? And I think one thing is, perhaps, look at  all the evidence of value you've already created in the world. And often you've overlooked a lot of it. So look at things like how you support your family, how hard you've studied, worked, learned, taken risks, grown at work to put out the value you have in your role. Until now, what good has your creative energy brought into the world? Look at how much you've supported team members, colleagues and clients already. And how much you've given at work over the years. How much you've sacrificed to be there when people needed you. Perhaps investigate how it empowers you to support others, your family, your kids, education, your community or church, your work team, your clients. Often making more money buys you back time.

Dex (00:24:38) - And it's time that you can spend on supporting others through mentoring, volunteering and so on. And find a wealth motivator. Anything at all that sits well with you. And don't give any thought at all to the approval of others. You probably won't get it. You don't need it anyway. It's okay to just want what you want. You don't need to justify it. You just need to be in alignment with it yourself. So just spend time thinking about who the future you is and why you want to be that person. And although of course we just spoke about the upper limit, you can also increase the lower limit. What amount of money or earnings am I no longer prepared to put up with? What's my lower limit? Because then if you set a new limit, your brain's going to kick in to find strategies to not go lower than that. It will automatically try and keep you above that line. So what we did there is we talked about earning beliefs. And I think you can see that this process applies to any belief.

Dex (00:25:46) - So if you need to work on how much you can hold, spend, save, invest, lend, borrow or give, follow the same process. And I'm just going to step it out for you again here. Step one find out what your beliefs are now. Notice them. Make them conscious. Step two notice who gave you those beliefs and why. Just to be more intimate with the dynamic of them. Not to blame anyone, of course, just to really go and dig into the depths of them. Why do they have those beliefs? What was the supporting idea for them? And notice if your current beliefs are bringing desirable or undesirable effects in your life. Check if they subtly block you or hold you back from achieving your dreams. That was step two. Really get close to your beliefs. Understand them. Step three is decide if you'd like to change your beliefs. And step four is understand why you want to change them, what that would mean for you.

Dex (00:26:53) - Who you will become with new beliefs. What becomes possible with new beliefs. And then  step five is find a way to approve your new beliefs internally. Now make a case for them. Give yourself permission to make that change. And six. Envisage or imagine the future you, who already operates from these new beliefs. Who is this person? How do they look? How do they feel? What can they do now that they couldn't do before? How are they using their money? What's different about their decision making around money and what's become possible? Step seven. Then adopt the new belief and act as if you are that future you now and make all your current decisions from that place of being that future vision. Make it happen. Take the right action to make it happen. Make the right decisions to make it happen. And step eight. And I love this one! Is ask your future self if they have any advice for you now because they're living in that financial future. They've got there to that goal and they know more than you and quite often they can

Dex (00:28:04) - see what we're doing wrong and they're drop a few tips back to us. So that that was the set of steps. And that's what I've got for you today. I really hope you're going to do the exercises here, because it's such a big boost to remould your financial outlook and goals, just voluntarily, intentionally, just choose them. And as I said, to support this work, you can download the Money Beliefs worksheets from the link in the show notes today. Those worksheets are going to help you become really clear on your beliefs, the effects of them, whether they promote good or obstacles in your life, whether they converge or diverge from those of your partner, your family. What are your blocks to changing beliefs and habits, and your reasons for why you would like to change those beliefs? Worksheets are incredibly illuminating for most people. It's probably something you haven't done before, and they pave the way for you to adopt those new beliefs and create a secure financial future that you really want. Because changing your money beliefs

Dex (00:29:10) - changes everything. And if you're in burnout right now, go to Dexrandall.com. I invite you to come and talk to me about how to recover quickly and sustainably and get back to your best performance, leadership, financial stability, and success. And most of all, of course, enjoyment inside working out. If you have enjoyed this episode today, please help me reach more people in burnout by rating and reviewing this podcast. I truly do appreciate your support in this. And if you know someone who's heading towards or in burnout, you can just send them this podcast link. It's packed, as you know, with practical tips for burnout recovery, and I recommend that new people listen to the first five episodes to get started. Thank you so much for joining me here today, and I wish you well in your burnout, recovery and your financial future. If you're in burnout and ready to recover. Come and join my Burnout to Leadership program. You can book in to talk with me, a burnout.dexrandall.com and just tell me what's bugging you and let's make a plan to fix it.