Overcoming Financial Scars: A Deep Dive into Intentional Financial Planning

In this episode of the "Cash and Sass" podcast, host Lisa Marie, the "sassy wealth queen," chats with Chad Hufford, who has a diverse finance, athletics, nutrition, and performance psychology background. Lisa shares her journey through financial struggles like bankruptcy and foreclosures, emphasizing the importance of acknowledging past financial scars while moving forward. Chad discusses the concept of a "money story" and how past experiences shape our financial views. They both stress the importance of intentionality in financial planning and that it's never too late to start making positive financial changes.

Bullet Points: 
Personal financial journeys and experiences, including challenges like bankruptcy and foreclosures.
The concept of a "money story" and how past experiences shape financial perspectives.
Overcoming a scarcity mindset and the importance of acknowledging past financial scars.
The significance of intentionality in financial planning and decision-making.
The idea is that it's never too late to start improving one's financial situation.
Practical strategies for setting financial goals, such as opening dedicated savings accounts.
The importance of self-honesty in assessing financial habits and priorities.
Common investment mistakes include the confusion between volatility and risk.
The value of taking small, consistent actions toward financial goals.
There is a need to focus on the present and take actionable steps to shape a better financial future.

Born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska, Chad grew up in the financial industry, but also developed a strong background in athletics, nutrition and performance psychology. Chad brings a coaching mindset and the heart of a teacher to financial planning and investing as he strives to both empower and educate his audience to not only become better investors, but to live more intentionally and create an abundant life. Chad is Dave Ramsey’s SmartVestor Pro and owns a boutique financial planning firm, Veritas Wealth Management, that manages $500 million dollars and serves several hundred families across the US. In addition to finance, he regularly teaches and speaks on fitness and faith, seeing these as all important aspects of a purposeful and abundant life. 
 veritasalaska.com
 facebook.com/VeritasWealthManagement/https://www.instagram.com/veritas.alaska/ 

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Transcript

Lisa Marie Robinson 00:00:00  Welcome back, my sassy friend, to another episode of Cash and Sass. I'm Lisa Marie, the sassy wealth queen and the brains behind the sassy Wealth coach. And of course, this podcast. And today I have with me Chad Hufford. And he was born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska. He grew up in the financial industry but also developed a strong background in athletics, nutrition, and performance psychology. Chad brings a coaching mindset and the heart of a teacher to financial planning and investing as he strives to both empower and educate his audience to not only become better investors, but to live more intentionally and create an abundant life. My favorite thing in addition to finance, he regularly teaches and speaks on fitness and faith. Seeing these is all important aspects of purpose purposeful and abundant life. I love that. Welcome to the show. Thank you for being here and as always, my friends, we are going to dive right into the to the questions and the discussion. you had mentioned that you had scars from a scarcity mindset, and I want to kind of go into what do you mean by you have scars from that?

Chad Hufford 00:01:06  Well, we all have a money story.

Chad Hufford 00:01:10  We all have experiences that shape how we see and view money today. And while those wounds heal, the scars remain. And I think it's important for us to be mindful of those things in our past that might be affecting how we see things in the future. They're they're biases. They're, they're filters. Some people call them sunglasses. It changes how you see things. And sometimes we can't necessarily remove that bias, but just being aware of it, that I'm going to have a tendency because of a past experience, maybe even a past trauma. I'm going to have an experience of this type of a situation a little differently. So just think of it like, you know, if you have a bathroom scale, you know, it's off by £4. Well, it may not be completely accurate, but knowing that it's off a little bit in one direction or the other, you can adjust how that scale is reading, or at least your interpretation of how that scale is reading, knowing that it has a little bit of a bias.

Chad Hufford 00:02:12  But I, actually was talking with, with, Dave Ramsey, I'm sure you're familiar with, with Dave Ramsey, a few months ago and, and just talking about his own scars and the some of the things that he went through like a bankruptcy, he says. Yeah, yeah, that that guy who was on the verge of losing everything and his marriage and going through bankruptcy, like, those are scars. They're still there. And I think we all have them. And if we're not aware of that, it can. It can cause us to remain in a scarcity mindset.

Lisa Marie Robinson 00:02:46  Yeah, very much so. you know, part of the thing I tell people is, is, is we have is to acknowledge the past, but don't be stuck in it like, you know. for example, I've been through a chapter seven bankruptcy. I've been through two foreclosures in a short sale, and several repossessions. And I don't say that as, oh, nonchalant. There's nothing wrong with it. I say it as it's part of my life in the 50 years.

Lisa Marie Robinson 00:03:12  That is what has happened in my life. And I've learned from it. I've grown from it. Some of the things were not completely in my control. housing market crashed, fiber optic market crashed. And there were some things that were in my control from decisions I made that I could have made better if I'd have known better. Right. So acknowledging. Yes, those are scars and that and we've, we've I've grown from them. I think that's the important thing is growing from them and realizing, okay, let's what lesson can we take from that and move forward with? Because I learned that you're right, that if we don't acknowledge it, then we live in that scarcity mindset and we don't move forward, to, to grow from it. Right. and so I do I think that's really, really important. I tell my clients all the time, y'all. Nobody has. No. Everyone has something that they've learned from it, whether they want to recognize it or not. We've all had money mistakes, right? especially with, you know, us not having, the conversations, like, like we should.

Lisa Marie Robinson 00:04:23  you mentioned, you know, like, part of yours was not being able to pay bills or afford to put gas in, you know, the car that leaves a mark. And I get that because there were so wasn't all that long ago I was on food stamps and I was having to, Before the food stamps, I was having to decide what what bill I would pay so that I could put food on the table. Or was I going to be a put all the food on the table? So, you know, it's one of the things that I love about working with my clients that they're like, okay, you get it? You've been there, you get it. And I think that's, I think that's really important. One of the things I want us to dive into is sometimes we think that it's, we should start with financial planning, but then we think it's too late. So what are some things that, Well, one. Where does someone start with that? And is it really too late?

Chad Hufford 00:05:23  Okay.

Chad Hufford 00:05:24  It's never too late to start doing the right thing. Obviously, the sooner you start, the better it is. There's an old Chinese proverb that says the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The next best time is today. And I believe that fitness and and finances are very similar. They're a part of your life, whether you want to pay attention to them or not. You can ignore your fitness, you could ignore your finances, and they will both deteriorate without intentionality and purpose. So you don't really get to choose whether finances are a part of your life. You don't get to choose whether your fitness and health are part of your life. You have to take care of both of those. Ignore them. They will go away. So that that's the premise for what I'm about to say. you can still start making moves towards a better future and and start chipping away at maybe some of the holes that that you've dug for yourself. Maybe, you know, maybe you're deep in debt or maybe you've never started saving.

Chad Hufford 00:06:25  Well, you're going to have to work harder, and that's okay. But you can still make positive movements towards a better financial future, and it doesn't matter so much. well, I mean, it doesn't matter what you've done in the past, but your new future can start today.

Lisa Marie Robinson 00:06:44  Yeah. I mean, here's the thing I didn't say when I was younger. Hahaha. But now we're going. This is candid cash for y'all, So I'm I don't have I don't have a problem baring it all. I didn't say. And, you're right to, you know, the next best thing, the best time to do something about your fitness or your finances. And I'm big on mental and physical fitness. I think, those are hugely important. Mental just as much as physical. and the people that follow me and our clients of mine know that it. You know, I have my oldest, has mental health disorders. So mental health is is huge. Okay. and I also know that it's not too late.

Lisa Marie Robinson 00:07:33  you know, especially, like, what you're saying with fitness. Let's see. I've had my business going on seven and a half years, so come probably by the time this will air, it'll now be eight years, which means it'll be seven years that I've worked with my trainer. When I started working with her, I could not do a lunge without holding on to the back of a chair. I want people to actually visualize that I could not do a lunge without holding on to the back of the chair. I got out of breath, getting up and down off the floor, and I was almost 44 years old. I am now 50 going on. I'll be 51 and I'm in the best health of my life. I'm about to do a 16 mile hike in Mount Zion. By the time this airs, that means I've already done it. Because I literally go in, like a week. and, as my trainer says, yes, it's going to be hard, but you can do hard things.

Lisa Marie Robinson 00:08:27  And if I would have imagined, you know, 20 years ago, someone had told me at age 50, I was going to do a 16 mile hike. I would have literally offered to buy you a straight jacket that was, you know, and I am I'm I'm going to do it. And I've been preparing for it and I've been training for it. And, you know, finances are the same way where I've made mistakes. Some of it was my fault, some of it wasn't. Decisions I made, you know, would I change them? Probably some of them. I want you to acknowledge that you made the best decision at the best time. Was that the best decision? Probably not. And hindsight is 2020 going forward though, like Chad said, we can do something now. Okay. What can we do different now compared to what we were doing before with the fitness? For me, it was to get off my butt and do something. If I didn't want to have the health issues that was in my family.

Lisa Marie Robinson 00:09:24  If I didn't want to be out of breath when I was getting up and down off the floor with my kid, what did I need to do differently? It was move. and I knew I need accountability. So it was reach out and get accountability. And that's changed the trajectory of my business and my health mentally and physically. Forever. so it's never. It's never too late. I've seen so many people be able to change their mindset, their trajectory on their fitness and, you know, their money, and not realize, oh my gosh, you know, I'm 55 or I'm 60 or I'm in my 40s and it's it's too late. Really. Honestly, it's not right. I mean, am I going to be able to save as much in an IRA plan as someone who's been doing it since their 20s? No. And can I still put money up? And as my business grows, keep putting it up. Absolutely. So it's it's it's possible.

Chad Hufford 00:10:22  It's possible. And and it's again, it's do you want to improve your life and are you going to be able if you're if you're 55 years old, you never saved a dime.

Chad Hufford 00:10:32  You're probably not going to be a multimillionaire by age 65. Do you need to be? Maybe not. And can you still make your life better? Absolutely. But it has to start today. You have to make a decision today that I'm going to start living differently, making different choices because I want something better for myself in the future. And we had a guy, one of the oilfield guys, that, we, we talked with he he was 50 years old with a negative net worth, and it felt like it's too late. It's too late for me to do anything. So he had about about $100,000 of negative net worth. So debts were 100,000 more than than his assets. And by the time I talked to him in his late 50s, it was been about nine years. and he was a millionaire. And that might be a little extreme, but. And he made huge sacrifices to get there. It didn't come easily, but he he made a decision. His first thing was, I am not going to take on any more debt, cut up all his credit cards and refuse to take on any more debt.

Chad Hufford 00:11:36  So he stopped the bleeding. That was the first step, and he started envisioning what his life would look like if he never had to collect a paycheck ever again. That was the motivation to keep pushing. And he works in the oil field. So I mean, this is like up in the Arctic Circle, North Slope. We're talking like Santa Claus and reindeer land. there literally is a town called North Pole.

Lisa Marie Robinson 00:11:58  I know, and I'll never go because it's too cold.

Chad Hufford 00:12:01  I know I've been up there and it's like 55 below. And these guys working.

Lisa Marie Robinson 00:12:05  Exactly.

Chad Hufford 00:12:06  Men. men and women who for two or 3 or 4 weeks at a time, they don't see the sunrise. I mean, it's it's intense. It's depressing. It was. Well, and it's, I guess the point being, like he made sacrifices. This is wasn't like a magic wand that he waved. Right? But he decided that starting today, I'm living differently because I want a better future for myself. And it was it was a it was ten years of a lot of hard work, a lot of sacrifices.

Chad Hufford 00:12:34  But it's paid off. Is he where he would be if he had started that in his 20s and 30s? No. But does he have a better financial future than than 90% of Americans? He does because he made tough decisions. So it's never too late to start doing the right thing.

Lisa Marie Robinson 00:12:51  Yeah, absolutely. And and I want to make a big key here. The right thing for the client he was talking about may not be the right thing for you. Your life situation may be different. Your wants may be different. And I talk about this in all those wealth codes. It has to be aligned with your values, your desires and your goals. If your goals are to be that multi-millionaire, then yes, you're going to have certain things you're going to do If your goal is to, start your own business, or if your goal is to get to a new income level, or if your goal is to save for a vacation or save to put your child through college, whatever it could be.

Lisa Marie Robinson 00:13:35  Start. You know, I have one client who says, I don't know how I can start putting money away to make sure I have an emergency fund for my business. And I looked at it very simple and I said two things you can do. She said, what? I said, open up the account and move money. And she just looked at me like, what? And I was like, open the account. Nickname it. So, you know, that's what it's exactly is for. And I go into that all the time. Having it just say savings don't mean crap. You want your brain to see all the time. What specifically for and just move money. I don't care if it's $5. I don't care if it's ten. I don't care if it's a thousand. Just move money and then consistently. Oh, excuse me, consistently move the money so you can't do $100 a month okay. Do ten. You can't do $1,000 a month, but you can do 100 okay. Do 100.

Lisa Marie Robinson 00:14:30  The kicker is, is if you start now and get in the habit as you have more, you're going to start putting more. And I started doing that with an account called My Girls. Now you said you have six. So you'll you'll get this. Okay kids, school supplies are expensive. Okay. And school clothes or clothes period. I have a 13 year old and a 21 year old and my 13 year old. I swear she just grew out of everything she owns. Like within a matter of a couple of months, we seriously have to go shopping. Like shorts or two. Short pants look like they're high, high waters. Like, I just had to buy her a pair of shoes. And I think they were a shoe size and a half bigger than what she was before. And I'm like, where? Where? How did this happen? I have an account that's called My Girls. I specifically put money into it for the school supplies and the clothes, so that way it doesn't mess up my what I call my cash flow for my personal, And it has saved me.

Lisa Marie Robinson 00:15:36  You know, I have enough money in there that I can go and buy her. Basically, I swear, it's almost a whole new wardrobe. like. And I'm not it's not gonna it's not going to stress me. It's not going to hurt the cash flow. It's not going to do anything because the money is there. And when I started it, did I start putting $300 a month in there? No, I started with five. I had I knew it needed to be done because school supplies were killing me. That was when both of them were in school. and it so it had to be done and I and as I started doing it and not touching it because it said girls. Right. So I knew it was for it started mounting and mounting and it just compounded and it grew. And I only touch it when I need to, when I need to go and get the school supplies. And so just start. I think that's I think the misconception is, is if I can't put $2,000 a month up into a savings account, then I can't save.

Lisa Marie Robinson 00:16:41  And that's just not true.

Chad Hufford 00:16:44  Yeah. We can't we can't let perfect be the enemy of done. Thank you. You know, and and we have to focus sometimes on progress rather than perfection. So I'd be great if I could put.

Lisa Marie Robinson 00:16:55  My trainer actually says progress over perfection. She tells me that all the time, every time she introduces something new to me and I'm like, oh, she goes, progress over perfection, Lisa.

Chad Hufford 00:17:08  Well, because too many times, especially people who are maybe more towards a perfectionist mindset or just have a lot of fear, the tendency is to to let perfectionism actually be, a thinly veiled disguise for for fear and for procrastination. We get to kick the can down the road because, my budget isn't perfect, my diet isn't perfect yet. I need to do a little bit more research and do a little more planning. I need to find a little bit better investment so we don't even start. So I want to point out three things for your audience from what you just said.

Chad Hufford 00:17:43  Number one, you you started, you took, you took the smallest step in the right direction, which is still better than any step in the wrong direction. So even if it was small, you took the next meaningful step towards your desired destination. And that's the other thing is your actions, even if they were small, were in alignment with where you said you wanted to be in the future. And and that's huge. A lot of us aren't aren't in alignment our actions. And this is way beyond money, but our actions aren't in alignment with the person that we say we want to become or the life we want to have. We need to get our current actions aligned with the future. And then the last thing was intentionality. You said this money is specifically for these things. A lot of people do money in life on accident, and they wonder why things don't go well. You're not going to be financially independent on accident. You're not going to have a great business on accident. You're not going to have a great relationship on accident.

Chad Hufford 00:18:40  But you were intentional and specific. Our mind, the human mind loves specificity. You give it vague goals. You're going to get really vague results.

Lisa Marie Robinson 00:18:50  I love you because yes, I tell people all the time, they're like, well, I just have a savings account and I just put money in and then I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, be specific. And my brain needs the specificity because if there's if there's not a thing on there for it, then my brain thinks, oh, I can take it from whatever, y'all. That's how I paid for my daughter's. my oldest is autistic and she graduated high school. She's on the higher end of the spectrum, but she's on the spectrum. And she graduated high school. And the one thing. And and she she also has a mental health source. But one thing she wanted was she wanted to go on a cruise. She doesn't like people, but she wanted to go on a cruise. I still joke about that.

Lisa Marie Robinson 00:19:30  she had a blast. I made it happen. How? She told me in her junior year, and I had an. I set an intention. Okay? That's what she wants. We're going to make it happen. I opened up a savings account, and I called it graduation Graduation Cruise, and I started chunking money in there. I had a year and a half, so I backed, backed it, figured out how about how much it cost, backed it, had the plan in place, set the intention and I started it, I didn't. I put it on a credit card to earn the points, but I immediately moved the money to the credit card to pay it off. I didn't have to charge anything and then pay it off. Over time, I had all of the money needed because I set that intention. And then I went with the plan. And I think that's really important is that it has to be aligned. And you're right, our a lot of times our actions aren't aligned with what we say we want or how we say we want to live.

Lisa Marie Robinson 00:20:29  And if you say, I want to say for a vehicle, I want to buy a house and you're spending $500 a month going out to eat, there's nothing wrong with going out to eat. I am not judging in no way, shape or form. I'm judging. I'm proving a point though your actions aren't aligned. Now what I suggest is okay, you're spending $500 a month going out to eat, and a lot of times people don't even realize they're spending that and they're like, oh crap, how much do you want to spend going out to eat? How much can you cut off of that? Oh, well, I don't want to do more than 150. Well, there you go. You now have $350 you can chunk into a savings account towards your goal. And now your actions are aligned. And that's where we're talking about is you have to. I tell people all the time, you don't have to be honest with me. You ain't got to be honest with Chad, but you got to be honest with yourself.

Lisa Marie Robinson 00:21:21  Are your actions aligned with how you're saying you want to live your life and how you're wanting to be, and the things that you want? And if they're not you, you got to get real and say, okay, what do I need to do to change it? And and it may be you're like, yes, I want to spend frivolously. I want to do this. Okay, great. And know that you're not going to reach those things. That's going to be the I mean, it's going to be the reason why that again, there's no judgment. It's just that's how it is. I could have this conversation all day because, fitness and finance and, aligned with our actions is like, honestly, I could see that can be a whole nother podcast. So I'm, I'm I don't want to delve into that too much because I already have wheels turning. What I would like is what is something we can what's a costly mistake that some people make when they go to invest that maybe that our, my listeners can avoid.

Lisa Marie Robinson 00:22:29  and I'm going to tell my listeners, make sure you stay tuned because we will dive into the other part in another episode. I got wheels spinning already.

Chad Hufford 00:22:38  I think one of the biggest mistakes investors make is they mistake volatility for risk. They assume that volatility is the enemy. And, and it's actually tied to another misconception. And we we mistake currency for money. Money is not cash. It's not current. It's not units of currency. It's purchasing power. Because if I have $100 today, and I put that money in a safe, and in ten years from now, I pull it out, I still have $100, but it will not be able to buy as much as it did. So, in a very real sense, I've lost money. I still have 100 units of currency, but. But in a practical sense, I have.

Lisa Marie Robinson 00:23:23  It's no longer worth what it was.

Chad Hufford 00:23:26  Yes, I've lost money. So if I, if I look at money, is purchasing power. And this is where financial independence comes from.

Chad Hufford 00:23:34  Income. It doesn't come from the value of all your assets at any given time. That's your net worth. But you don't. You don't go to Costco, bringing your IRA or your 401 K statement. In retirement, you bring your income. So financial independence comes from having an income that that supports your current lifestyle and gradually rises at least the rate that your expenses do it. It keeps inflation. It pays his inflation. So you can't bring a fixed income into a into a rising cost world without expecting some disasters. But people, as they get closer to retirement, especially seek relief from volatility by going into fixed income. And they treat volatility like the enemy. And and that's a real problem because it causes people to make mistakes. It causes people to conserve or maybe even cripple their long term income instead of instead of growing their wealth, growing their income over time. So another way to think of this, Lisa Marie, is they choose short term comfort over long term security. And and it's scary, I get it.

Chad Hufford 00:24:43  I mean, your 401 K starts looking like a 301 K. It just a couple of years ago in 2022, we saw almost every major index go down at least 20%. And you can look at that and say, oh my goodness, like the sky is falling. And, you know, Armageddon is coming, whatever. Or you can look at it and say, well, the best company in the world just went on sale. And, you know, maybe, maybe temporarily, my account has declined. But if I stay on the path, if I stay invested, if I if I stay diligent, it will come back and I can buy at a discount in the meantime. So it's just it's the same experience, but looking at it through different lenses. And if we if we treat volatility as the enemy, the chances are we're going to select more and more fixed income type investments which actually harm our income and our financial financial security. That's that's one of the biggest mistakes I see people making.

Lisa Marie Robinson 00:25:40  Yeah. And I think a lot of times two it's from lack of knowledge. I mean, I know for a majority of women especially, you know, investing, it's the lack of knowledge. And then who do you trust? And so make sure you know, you're working with someone that you can trust. And, and you come from it from a place of knowledge. And I'm also going to say one thing to and I think Chad will agree with me. If you're, for example, you're in your 50s like me, okay. And because of life circumstances when you were in corporate and your 401 K, you cashed it in because again, she got live now and that's that's the way things happen. I had to do that. Totally get it. And if you're at the point where, okay, you have your own business, you can do, there's things you can do. Like, I have a simple I.R.A., I'm putting money in it. Is it as much money as I'll eventually put in it? No.

Lisa Marie Robinson 00:26:37  And there is money going in it. And am I going to have the amount of retirement, that maybe I would have had, you know, for me to retire? No. And the thought of me retiring actually doesn't really suit me. I always need to be doing something. But my point is, I'm actually putting money up with the concept of it's going to take care of my girls. Okay, that's kind of where I want you to say so. Like someone in their 20s or 30s may be using the IRA or that investment to take care of them so they can retire. My focus is to make sure my girls are taking care of no matter what. So, you know, there's I want you to think outside the box. I'm sure a whole bunch of people have heard about acorns. that is something I started and I did the early ones, so it's for my I didn't do it early enough to do both my girls, but I did the, one for my youngest, and it's a round up, and it's automatically a certain amount of month or a certain amount of money, per week that goes into this, and I don't touch it.

Lisa Marie Robinson 00:27:42  And I've been doing it, I think about six months, y'all. The amount of money that's in there when I just. And I don't go and look, I don't go check it because again, with it you can technically move the money out. Not the early part, but yours because I have two parts. I have money that goes in there just to keep investing. and, I the money, the amount of money that's in there, it's it's just growing and it's compounding, you know. Is it thousands and thousands of dollars? No, but they're taking like $10 a week and it's already quadrupled to several hundred. you know, it's getting close to the thousand and one of them, and it's almost a thousand and the other for her. So my point is, is just starting right with the intention. and, you know, I've now done the same thing for my oldest, who's 21. She has an account. And because she has her own disability income, I've set up acorns under her name so that money is starting to go into it.

Lisa Marie Robinson 00:28:41  So something is building for her. Does that that makes sense. I mean, it's again, it's the intentionality. Right. And, and and what your values and your goals aligned with what you're wanting to do. And I just think it's important. Yes, I'm saving for me and to make sure that, you know, things are taken care of. But my biggest goal is to make sure that when I'm not here, they are taking care of no matter what.

Chad Hufford 00:29:11  And and again, it's those small steps, right. Like there's there's no one push up that that makes you fit. There's no there's not a single lunge that makes your butt look good in jeans.

Speaker 3 00:29:22  It's a lot.

Chad Hufford 00:29:23  Of.

Speaker 3 00:29:23  No, it's a lot of them. Yeah. It's it's.

Chad Hufford 00:29:27  It's thousands and thousands.

Speaker 3 00:29:28  I love that.

Chad Hufford 00:29:29  Small actions.

Speaker 3 00:29:31  Yeah.

Chad Hufford 00:29:31  And and that's and that's what you're doing with that. You're chipping away. And so again people might not be able to save what they want to today. But they can save something and they can start creating the habit.

Chad Hufford 00:29:41  A lot of people say like, well, I'll save more when I have more income.

Speaker 3 00:29:46  Or I'll start saving.

Lisa Marie Robinson 00:29:47  Or I'll. I'll start saving when I have more income. Or I'll start saving when my business makes more revenue. Guess what, honey? The shit ain't going to happen.

Chad Hufford 00:29:56  Yep. Yeah. You have to start the habit now. because there's always going to be. There's never going to be convenient time to to pay your future self. There's always going to be something that comes up. And to say that I will start saving when I have more wealth is kind of like saying, I will go to the gym when I'm stronger and fitter. If you have to just start, you have to start where you are and you can't do you can't do anything about your past anymore, but you can do something about your future.

Lisa Marie Robinson 00:30:21  Yeah, someone told me once and we're going to end it with this, is that we as humans spend too much time in the past worrying and too much time worrying about the future and not enough time living in the present.

Lisa Marie Robinson 00:30:38  Meaning you can't do anything about the past. You don't need to be fretting about the future, because you can actually determine the future by doing something now. Now is what's in your control. And I think it's excuse me, really, really important to understand that what we're both saying is just start it. It does. And it doesn't have to be the acorns. It doesn't have to be the just start. Look at what you're wanting and just start again. Like I told my client, open up the account and move money, you know? And again, if it's $5 a week or $5 a month, fine. But keep moving it and it, y'all was empowering. When you come from a place of not being able to do those things and you're starting to save and you're chipping away and you start seeing it grow, you start looking at, okay, how can I increase the amount I'm going to put in there? It's very, very empowering. But if you don't start and you just keep saying, oh, I'll do it when, then it's not, it's never going to happen.

Lisa Marie Robinson 00:31:47  And he's right. One lunge does not make it to where you can fit into a pair of jeans. It's thousands and thousands of lunges and squats. Trust me, I know. and it's the same way with your money. You're. It's not going to happen overnight. And that's what he was saying is it's it's it's not going to happen with one move or one action, but one move leads to another move leads to another move. And so I want you to really, really think are your actions aligned with what you're wanting? And if they're not, what's one thing that you can actually do to get it in alignment? Is that opening up a savings account and start saving? Is that doing an acorns? Is that investing? What is that one thing that you can just start doing and then later you can add something else? Chad, thank you so much for being here. I truly appreciate it. I can't wait to dive into the other thing. the next time you're on, again, this conversation I can talk about all day.

Lisa Marie Robinson 00:32:51  I truly appreciate you being here and my sassy friend. Until next time, make sure to stay sassy. Bye.