Thoughts About Additional Income

The following is a computer generated transcript of the podcast. Please excuse the typos and missed translations.

Before I get into today's podcasts, I just want to give a shout out to all of you, I hope that you're enjoying this new spring weather that's finally arriving here. I was able to take my motorcycle out for the first time this year. And it felt so good to be back on it, I'd forgotten how much I really enjoyed writing it. I bought it in 2020 right during the quarantine, you know, and we're all sequestered at home there. And so I kind of got the bug and I went out and bought it.

So this is only the second year that I've been writing. And you know, hadn't written it all winter. Of course, it just felt so good to be back on it. It was great. I loved it. Sometimes I listen to podcasts night or the radio. And I wonder what do these people look like that are listening to forever. And I don't look like a stereotypical biker or Harley writer. I don't have the beard, I don't have tattoos. I don't have any of that. And I know not all Harley riders have those. But that's kind of the stereotype there. But I don't know, I just sometimes when I was thinking of this podcast, I'm like, I wonder what they're gonna think if I tell them that I ride a Harley, I thought I really care. But I just thought it was kind of interesting. Anyway, little tangent there. If you're dying to know what I think or what I look like, you can go check me out, I guess, on my website, financially abundant life.com, there's a bunch of pictures me all over the place there.

Anyway, you'll remember from the last podcast, if you tuned into that, I mentioned that I was going to shift my focus from concentrating on reducing expenses to kind of increasing income. And I'm going to do that for the next few podcasts here. As I was mentally preparing for that, and I have all these different ideas of things that I want to talk about. And I think they're really going to be great, you guys are going to like them. But what I kept coming back to his income is very mental. After each one of these ideas that I was kind of writing down and outlining the podcast, I kept coming back to this idea or this thought or this thing, this concept that I needed to teach that, yeah, we can do all of this.

But when we grow our income for a lot of people, even though we all want more money, or at least most of us do. It's very scary. We're very intimidated, or we don't believe that we can do it or we feel like there's all these roadblocks to it, all this stuff. And I kept coming back to the fact that for a lot of people, the amount of income that we make, or that you make is really based on your own personal beliefs about yourself and about your ability. Now, that may seem a far stretch to a bunch of you. And I get that. So I want to kind of relate a little experience that happened in my life that I think will help show you this.

I graduated from college in 1999. And I, it took me six years to graduate college, if you want to know took me forever. Part of the reason was, I just couldn't find a major, I had like five different majors. And so I took, you know, three or four classes in this major and then dumped it and went on to another one. So I had all these credits that are never really needed. And finally, luckily, maybe I should say, some academic counselor, I didn't even know they had these things in college called me up one day and said, hey, you've been here forever. Why don't you come talk to me? I was like, Okay, why not?

So I go in there, and they're looking over my transcript of anything. She's like, Well, what do you really want to do? What interests you and you know, it's like, well, everything interests me and nothing interests me enough to want to spend the rest of my life doing it. And she kind of laughed, and she looked over the transcript. And I've always really enjoyed Russian, if you've listened my podcasts, you know that that's true. And I'd taken all these different Russian classes. And she said, Well, if you take these two additional Russian classes, you could graduate at the end of this year with a major in Russian. And I don't know why. But it just hit me. I was like, Yeah, let's do it. I'm ready to be done with college, I'm ready to get on with my life.

So that's what I did. I took the extra two classes, I graduated, it was perfect, because one of my best friends was graduating that year as well. And he was graduating getting it. I'd always wanted to go back to Seattle and live in Seattle, and that's where Microsoft was based. And he was looking for a job and got a job at Microsoft. And so he's like, let's do that. Okay, so he goes up there, I follow him. His first job was paying him $60,000 a year. Now in 99. That was really good money. He was making very good money. And I you know, with my Russian degree, which isn't hugely marketable, normally people will major in Russian and they'll go on and get a masters or something like that, or a PhD or something. And I didn't want to do any of that.

So I'm out there interviewing for all these different jobs. And really, all that I could find was jobs in social work, and they were offering me kind of $15,000 A year 15,000 at that time was not a lot of money. So I kept interviewing, and after three or four months, I really started to kind of consider that. Well, you know, maybe that's all I can make. And I remember this one job that I interviewed with offered me 18,000, you know, was 3000, more than anything else had been offered? And I was really excited. I was talking to my friend about it. I was like, Oh, my gosh, these guys offered me 18,000. Can you believe that?

He just looked at me, he's like, Jared, you are not taking that job. And I was kind of floored. I mean, I was super excited. And he was kind of appalled. I was like, What do you mean, I'm not taking that job? He's like, do you have a college degree? I said, Yes, I have a college degree, he's like, you should be making more than 18,000, you need to be making at least 40,000 to 45,000. Well, you know, after being offered 15,000, for the last two months, 45 just seemed like millions of dollars. I was like, buddy, you got to understand where I'm coming from here said I don't have an IT degree. You know, I'm not in that industry.

I said, I have a Russian degree, and no one's willing to pay me what you're making. And he just said, I don't care, you're not taking that job, you're going to keep looking until you make more money. And I mean, obviously, I wanted more money. But I was really kind of hesitant and skeptical that I thought, okay, I'll just keep looking here for a little bit. And all these random sequence of events happened, and I won't go into them. They're not hugely important. But I ended up landing this job at a bank. And I was just temping there for about three months. And then they liked me. And they said, Hey, why don't you come on full time. And they offered me a job for $35,000. Now, you can imagine my mind was just blown 35, I was like, Oh, my gosh, I was so incredibly excited. I mean, compared to the 15, that I was normally being offered in the high end of 18.

You know, I just felt like I'd made it and was rich. And to be honest, 35 back in 99, in Seattle, was a decent wage, you know, it was, I would say, maybe just a half a step above average. It wasn't crazy, great. But it definitely wasn't bad either. I was so excited, I accept the job and went home, told my roommate, and he was like, well, I still think you should be making about 45. But okay, good job.

What that taught me is that had I gone for the $18,000, that would have changed my life drastically. That job was offered to me in social work. And I probably would have kept down that line in social work. Now, that type of work is very rewarding to me, I love working with people, I think it's a very admirable job. But banking, the potential to earn more money in the banking world is significantly higher. And I stayed in banking for 20 years.

Because of that, I eventually got to a job where I can remember, I was switching banks, and they offered me 50,000. I was like, Oh, my gosh, so much money. And then again, I switch. And I got they offered me $100,000 a year. Now, this is how many years later, I don't know, maybe 10 years later, maybe 15 years later. And then finally add another job. You know, when I interviewed for another job, got another raise, got another promotion, got some bonuses, I was making $160,000 a year. And that, to me, was so much money.

But what I'm trying to stress here is what my friend did for me. He believed in me, more than I believed in myself, had he not been there to coach me and to push me, I would have accepted that job. And my whole financial life would have been drastically different. Now, it doesn't mean I can't change my life in the future. But I would have quote unquote, settled for something less, when I was really capable of making something more. It was my own personal beliefs in myself, that was holding me back from making more money.

And I have to tell you, as I've worked with some of my clients, and observed other friends and people just throughout my whole general life and even clients in my banking career, what I realize is that what we perceive about our potential about our ability to earn more money plays a larger role than all the education and skills and work experience combined. Now, yeah, for certain jobs, you're going to need the skills and the experience. But if you don't believe in yourself, if you don't believe that you can make that money, you can make more money, you're never going to get there.

Alright, I know a lot of you are still kind of struggling to buy off on this. What do you mean, I can make more money if I just believe in myself a little bit more. And I get that. So let me give you a non financial example that I think will help you understand that. Each one of us has our own little idiosyncrasies in life, things that are just absolutely 100% unacceptable, and we will not tolerate it right. Sometimes our friends make fun of us for it. Other times it's just like this is who we are, and I can't get around it. So think about that. What are your little idiosyncrasies, what are things that you just absolutely will not tolerate in your life.

I'm going to give you a few examples here just to get your mind thinking. But it could be anything for any number one of us, some people just cannot stand to have dirty dishes in the sink. Once the meal is done, they have to do the dishes, throw them in the dishwasher and get it running. Other people cannot stand to be on time, while other people cannot stand to be late. Don't we all have those friends that just will not be late. I have to admit, I'm kind of like that. I love, love, love. The saying that early is on time on time is late and late is unacceptable.

Now, that's just me and my friends think I'm crazy. But that's just kind of how I am when I go to the airport. Partly because I just like airports, I've always been fascinated by him. But I will arrive at the airport two to four hours before my flight. My family hates it, they're like, we are not going to spend three hours in the stinking airport doing nothing. But I can't stand and not get there early. It's just one of those things for me.

Here's another one, people who are really into being physically fit, whether it's keeping fat off or putting muscle on exercise regularly, and they don't miss those workouts, it's that important to them. Or about a diet, I have certain friends that you know, when the dessert cart comes out of the restaurant, nope, it's not even a temptation, they just already know that that's not something they're going to eat.

So take one of those little idiosyncrasies, whichever one it is of yours. And now think of the opposite. So for me, it's really being on time, I have to be on time. And a lot of my friends aren't. So I start playing all these little games, I'm like, Okay, if the reservation is at seven o'clock, and I know that one of my friends is consistently late, I just tell him, it's at 630. And sure enough, we're a half hour late. But I don't care because that means we're on time for me, I do little things like that I make it work.

If I'm just with myself, and I'm going to be a little bit late, I'll say, Okay, I'm going to have to skip doing X, Y, and Z because I need to leave in five minutes. And I've got to get there. It's the same with our income.

If our income level, is that important to us. We don't let other things get in the way, regardless of what it is, we make it happen. So if I were to look at my situation today, after I was making $160,000, right, that kind of that's how much I was making. When I finally left banking. I would not go back to my 35,000 a year job. That would just be unacceptable to me, I think No, I, I'm capable of making more money than that. I don't even know that I go back to 100,000. I'm like, No, I'm, I'm capable of making more money than that. I know I can I have done it. And that's just not acceptable to me. So I wouldn't even interview for those kind of jobs, I wouldn't apply for those kind of jobs, I wouldn't give them serious consideration. I'd be like, no, this is how much I make. And I'm going to make that happen if I have to wait a few extra months. So be it.

See how my thinking about my own income level had shifted. Whereas if I was willing to settle for the 35, I would be applying for those jobs. And if I'm applying for 35,000 a year jobs, that's how much I'm gonna make. Whereas if I'm not willing to do that, and I'm applying for the $150,000 a year jobs, then eventually I'm going to land one of those jobs.

Now, some of you may be sitting here thinking Yep, but the skill level or the experience level, or the education level between 35 and 150 is very different. And that's true it is. But it doesn't mean that you can't get to the 150,000 if we settle on 35, because that's what we believe, then we don't make any progress to the 150. Okay, go back to that little non financial example that I was just talking about. We don't want to be late. So even though, you know, we may feel like we're crammed up against the deadline, because being late is so much not an option to me, I find a way to make it work and to be on time. It's the same way with our income level. And acceptable income level is different for different people.

Some people who have been making minimum wage their whole life, when they land a job that's paying $1 more than a minimum wage, they are ecstatic. They can't believe it, it is very acceptable to them, and they are very excited about it. And you know what, that's probably where they are going to stop making more money because that is acceptable to them.

Other people feel like Oh, if I could just make $100,000 a year that would be so good. And that level is eventually probably where they're going to land and they're not going to progress farther and make more money. Wherever we set our bar for what we believe we can make is eventually where we're going to stop Now, I'm not saying that the pursuit should be to make $10 million a year, you can definitely do that I believe every single one of us can do that.

But I also understand that a lot of us are living a quote unquote normal life, we have kids to raise, we have extracurricular activities, which are more important than making money to us. If you're going to be making $10 million a year, there's going to be a lot of lead up time, there's going to be a lot of work, there's going to be a lot of dedication and things that you're going to have to do, which maybe you aren't willing to do right now. But let's dial it back to something that's a little more realistic. And something that doesn't require, say, so much concentration, or doesn't require so much of your time.

Maybe it is making 100,000 a year, maybe it's making 200,000 a year, maybe it's just making another 30 or $40,000 a year, how much more meaningful would that be to you? And your financial situation, if you could just make another 30,000 a year, every single one of us just like our own little idiosyncrasies, there, we have a different level of belief of what is and is not acceptable to us.

So I want you to consider different levels of income is 50,000. Good? Is it 100? Is it 300,000? Is it a million? what is acceptable to you? Or what would you want? And what is quote unquote, realistic? And let me give you a little tip here? Because some of you may be thinking, well, I don't I don't know, what do you what are you driving? What are you saying? The feeling that you should feel when you're thinking about these different income levels should be equal parts fear and equal parts excitement? Okay, so if I were to think of this in my own life, and I think, Okay, I'm gonna make a billion dollars a year, there is no fear, and there is no excitement, because I just feel it's 100% unattainable. And two, I just don't want to work that hard to make a billion a year. It's just not worth it to me, right. I just I have no desire to do that.

But when I start thinking about 100,000 year, I think now, I've already done that. That's not hard either. When I start thinking about 300,000, I think yeah, that's very doable, I have to do a lot of work. But I could do that. But when I think about a million dollars a year, that gets me excited, more than the 300,000 does. But I'm also a little fearful, I'm a little skeptical, like, can I really do that?

I'd like to think of it as you remember, when you were little and you would ever go out to a lake or a river. In my case where I was growing up, it was a river, there was a bridge going over the river, and we'd all go out there and we go jump off this bridge and jump into the river. And the first time I went out there, I think this is the experience you can all relate to is, you know, that bridge was so high and it was so scary. And my friends and I we stood on the edge of that bridge for probably an hour, you know, and then finally somebody jumps in, and then someone else goes, and it's just so scary. But you're standing on the edge of this bridge, and you're feeling those two feelings, you're feeling fearful, right, you're kind of freaked out. That's why you're up there for an hour.

But you're also really excited to think about how fun it would be to you know, fly through the air and then jump in the water. And there's, there's those conflicts there. But you stay there for an hour because you know, you want to do it, even though you're crazy scared to do it. And eventually you do it. And it's awesome. You know, and then you go back up there and and maybe you have to stay up there for another five or 10 minutes. But the more you do it, the easier it becomes. And then pretty soon it's not a big deal.

That's how your income level should feel for you. You should feel equal parts fear, but equal parts excitement. Now, we're going to talk about a whole bunch of different ways that we can make more money, maybe it's another 30,000 a year whatnot. And that's going to be in future podcast episodes. Obviously, I can't cram all that into one podcast here.

But I want to give you kind of four elements of why I see that a lot of people fail to grow their income more. And you can kind of think about these as we go on to the future podcast episodes.

The first one is kind of what we've spent this whole podcast talking on is relief. They just don't believe they can make any more money. They're like, well, this is how much I make. I can't make any more. And this is just where I am. That's just life. So if you're in that thought loop, or you're thinking that right now, or you're believing that right now, I would highly suggest that you reach out and go to my website financiallyabundantlife.com then the work with me section. And let's talk about that and let's see, why are you thinking like that? And can we get to the root of that cause and we can we change that belief so that you can believe that you can make more money? I'd love to work with you on that.

Okay, so that's kind of the first one there is belief. The second one is fear. Remember I said it needs to be equal parts fear and equal part excitement. I did a whole podcast on fear. You can go listen to it if you want but a lot of times when people feel fear right Kind of our carnal brain our basic instinct as well. If it's fearful, we don't want to do it, right, we want to stay out of danger. And that served us well when you know, the lions and tigers and bears were chasing us. But do we really need to be scared of making more money? Or scared of failing at not making more money? What if we went out and we tried and it didn't work? You know, is that really so bad? Is that fear such an intense level that we want to avoid it?

Let me tell you a little secret here, you are going to fail the first couple times. I can't tell you the number of times that I've failed at trying to make more money. But it doesn't mean that I don't try and I everything that we want to become good at in life takes a lot of failure.

How about the professional basketball player? When they first started? Did they make 100% of their shots? No. Do they even know how to dribble a basketball? No. How about the master musician? Have they ever played a wrong note? Did they start out perfectly? Of course not. They started out horrible. I bet you if you were to take any musician, any singer, and go listen to the first time they ever played that instrument or sing a song, it would be pretty awful. But they kept at it. They kept failing, they kept moving forward, they kept getting better, until finally they became a master what they were trying to do.

It's the same thing with us, just because we're fearing that we might mess up. I just like to tell myself, yeah, you know what I am going to mess up. And that's okay, I'm going to learn from it. I'm going to do it differently. And I'm going to be better at it the next time.

Okay, those were the first two belief and fear. The next one is uncertainty. A lot of times people think like, oh, okay, I just don't know how to make more money, or I've got this idea. But I don't know how to create a website or, you know, I don't know how I would pay for college, or they come up with all of these reasons. And I call it uncertainty of why they can't, because they don't know how well those are just obstacles to overcome, okay, you don't know how to build a website.

So you just got to go figure it out. Okay, you don't know how you're going to pay for college. That doesn't mean you don't do it. It just means you figure out how am I going to do it, those items that you don't know how to do, or just become your to do lists, you just throw those on the to do list like, Okay, I gotta figure that out. And it becomes much more positive, and you start making movement forward, you start making progress to making more money.

And here's the last one is work. And I know people don't really like this, but making more money does take more work. And I don't want to say that it takes more work. Maybe that's the wrong word there. But it does take work. You can't just sit at home and watch Netflix and take naps, you need to be adding something to the world, you need to be creating value, you need to be providing a service or good that is valued enough that somebody else is going to want to pay you money for that.

I see a lot of people who have really super great ideas and they start to execute on it. And then they peter out because they just don't want to put in the time or the effort. They don't want to do the work to make it happen. But think about this, if you could make another 30,000 a year or another 100,000 a year or another 500,000 a year, would you be willing to put in the work to get to that goal.

I'm betting that most of you right now would say yes, I am willing to do that. Because right now we're not in the throngs of actually doing it. We're not actually putting in the work. We're just thinking about it. And it's always very easy. Right now, when we're thinking about it, say, yeah, I'm going to do it. But keep that in mind as you start to make progress. And as it does get hard, or you find yourself putting in a lot of effort, and it becomes a little tiring. Don't take your mind off the goal. Just know that hey, yet, it might be a little bit hard right now. But it's sure gonna pay off in the future.

All right, I want to leave you guys with a little homework assignment if I could. And this is nothing that is going to be hard or extraneous or anything, you can just do it while you're driving the car jogging, taking care of the kids doing whatever. But I want you to go through that. And I want you to play with different levels of income. Where are you today? And what does it feel like if you made 30,000? More? Or 50,000? Or 100,000? Or 200,000? And where for you is the motivation factor? Where is that equal parts fear and equal parts excitement?

I got to tell you right now, if somebody offered me another five grand a year, I'd be like, that's just not exciting enough, you know, 5,000, after taxes divided by 24 is a couple 100 bucks a month and I just don't get excited about that. But if somebody came along and said, Hey, I want to pay an extra 500,000 here, I'm like, oh, okay, let's talk, you know, that gets me excited.

So play on that continuum a little bit. Where is equal parts fear and equal parts excitement. And then I just want you to think about that a little bit. As you do this, your brain is going to start coming up with all this, oh, you can't and you shouldn't and you won't be able to and all of this And I just want you to pause and say, but what if I could, okay, let's just take the example of $50,000, you're gonna go and make another $50,000 this year, you might be a little fearful and excited, maybe that's the number that fits for you, your brain is going to kick in and be like, okay, here's why that's not gonna work.

And it's gonna start listing out all these different reasons, kind of come up with all of these excuses all of these obstacles, and let your brain think those things right. We don't want to resist what the brain is telling us. But at the same time, just think, yeah, yeah. But maybe I can, maybe I can, I want you to just focus on that thought for a little bit.

Maybe I can let that excitement start to build within you because it will create motivation. As you do that. your brains kind of pessimistic, you can't because here's why will naturally start to subside just a little bit. And just daydream about that. You might even start to come up with different ideas of how that would work. I could do this, or I could do that. write those down. Now you're just kind of in the brainstorming session. And they may start out with ideas that aren't your best ideas. But that's okay. Just write them down. Just go with it. Just let your mind wander.

Your brain is always going to come back to with why you might fail doing all of these things. Keep acknowledging it. Don't resist it, but also answer it Well, yeah, but what if? And go with that thought?

All right, you guys, that's what I got for you this week. I will talk to you next week. Bye.

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