Fear is Costing You Money

Could your fears be costing you money? What if they also cost you financial freedom and independence?

Would you want to know why?

Pete and Nat have ten reason why you might be letting fear get the best of you.

Transcript

Pete: [00:00:00] Good morning, Matt. Good morning, Pete. Woo, I'm excited today. 

Nat: I can't, I don't, I don't believe it. All 

Pete: right, all right. Well, Don, this is a, you know, I, this last weekend I had to move my mom into a senior care place. Oh boy. Full retirement place, right? So, I, I can't believe, I mean, it is a great place, don't get me wrong.

People are friendly, she gets great help. But I gotta tell ya. Those places are expensive. Yeah. No, it's like 11, 000 a month. It's it's like 

Nat: insane. I always tell people, you know, you've been saving for a rainy day and guess what, it's raining, 

Pete: it's definitely raining. And, you know, we're very fortunate that she has enough money, right?

So the, where she lives, they, if you can make it 30 months paying the 11 grand that the state will basically take over. So if you run out of money At 30 months, [00:01:00] bottom line is you don't get kicked out of the place, which was pretty important for us, right? So I was thinking about this, is that, you know, you really have to build wealth to prepare for, to your point, the rainy day.

Right. And so what I thought we'd do is we'd talk about the 10 reasons fear stops people from making changes or career changes that ultimately impact their financial independence. Right? So they get kind of locked up into their career, their job, they don't make any kind of career change, and that can negatively impact their their financial independence.

Nat: How about kind of playing it safe instead of maybe it's taking a little bit of risk once in a while. 

Pete: You know, and I think, Nat, there are a bunch of reasons, guess how many reasons I think there are that, you know, people get kind of 10, very good. So we have 10 reasons fear can make your career fear of making the change [00:02:00] can, can impact your financial independence.

So, so what do you think the first one would be? Is that, you know, I got the fear to change. And that's going to negatively impact me financially. What's the first one? 

Nat: Well, I think stagnant income, like sticking with the same career can lead to limited salary. You know, you see that all the time. People are, sometimes they have jobs because they get a, you know, 30 percent pay bump to half a job, which, you know, unfortunately they just are you stay at the same job.

Sometimes you're not rewarded as much. 

Pete: Yeah, sure. You just kind of get caught up into the cycle. You just can't keep up from that standpoint. What, what do you think a second reason would be? 

Nat: Missing out on opportunities. Like if you just are kind of in a rut, you can miss out on, you know, opportunities yeah, you don't take that job.

Pete: And maybe that job comes with some stock options or, or kind of assigning bonus and stuff like that. So you do, you, you get, or just like a startup company. Yeah. Right. Get a little bit of equity in that, a little bit 

Nat: of, you can get [00:03:00] stale just, you know, doing the same thing forever. 

Pete: Yeah, well, I guess that leads to the third one.

All right? Outdated skills, right? You just, you don't get, you don't get caught up in learning, and you just kind of become stale, and that can, that can hurt you. Is that, 

Nat: is that kind of like having an AOL email? 

Pete: Well, you know, it's funny, a lot of people still have AOL, they still have Yahoo. From that standpoint, 

Nat: they do the talk about driving someplace.

And they're like I'm going to map quest it, or, you know, 

Pete: you remember that? That was so, Oh yeah. And before that they had those books you'd have, right. You'd have map books. Yep. You remember you got the. You'd have to flip the page. Yeah. So, you know, but, you know, It 

Nat: wasn't that long ago, let's be honest.

Yeah, I guess it's, it's 

Pete: true. It's amazing what technology is doing. But, so if you don't stay update with skills, that, that certainly can do it. What else? What would be a fourth one? 

Nat: I think a lot of people stay in a job or career where they're not [00:04:00] passionate about it. So then, you know, you kind of just start, you know, going back to that Rudd concept, you know, they're just doing the same thing every day.

You know, just punching and punching out not really motivated to do anything that 

Pete: passion, right? And if you don't have passion drives growth and it also, you know, that passion leads to good things, right? If you're passionate, you're excited about stuff. You're not checking it in or checking it out or whatever the term is, you know, bottom line is that that's important.

All right. What's another one? I 

Nat: like you'll do a new things because it gives me the opportunity to meet new people. You know, as you know, when I bought my first franchise back in 2001 you know, the next five things I did were all because of people I met through franchising. So, you know, it can really.

Stimulate stimulate some, you know, new relationships and growth and opportunities 

Pete: Yeah, professional networking is so important and I was just talking to my daughter about that That's in college and she's in her junior year [00:05:00] And she she was talking about, you know, this importance of getting into companies But also connecting because the connections you have at school your corporate stuff And so if you're moving companies, you're building a broader network of connections And that is so important.

What would be another one? Job security. I think sometimes if you're staying in a declining industry, you can, you know, jobs, your job could be at risk. You could get downsized. Yeah. 

Well, we saw that. I saw that a little bit with the auto industry. I was in the auto industry for a long time. Right. And all of a sudden you get tagged with the industry.

Like the auto industry is kind of a dinosaur and all of a sudden, you know, it's hard to go do something different to change industry. So I, I've lived that. And so 17 years at Ford, maybe that was too long. Right. So because no, you get all of a sudden you get labeled and, and you don't yeah. That can be, that can impact your, your [00:06:00] security, right?

Nat: So, and, and even just recently this year, kind of all that chat GPT and AI is kind of hitting the radar. And I think that, you know, people can use that to be more efficient at their jobs, but also I think it's going to impact people's job security too, just because. You know, I think companies are gonna be able to do things, but less humans.

Pete: Yes, they are. So, you know, so you don't need three people to write that, right? To be writers, you could have one person prompting GPT and then have somebody proof it, right? So, yeah, yeah, absolutely. All right. What would be like a another reason that, you know, fear of changing can impact your financial independence?

Nat: Well, I think inflation always can, you have to watch out for inflation because that can totally erode your, you know your lifestyle or your purchasing power. So if you're staying in the same job, you know, inflation might be outpacing your opportunity and income at your [00:07:00] job. 

Pete: Boy, isn't that true today?

Yeah. When you think about it, I mean, you know, inflation running six, seven percent. You know, down, I guess a little bit, but, but if you're only getting a 2 percent raise, you're going backwards 

Nat: every year. All I know is I went and bought a burger and fries the other day. It was 20 bucks. 

Pete: I don't know. That's a lot 

Nat: for one person.

Pete: It is. It's just, it's everything is going up and I don't see that. I think when we talk about inflation, you've got to be moving, getting more pay because it is hard to keep up with inflation and just. 

Nat: Well, I know business is good for that too, right? Because you have, you know, when you have your own business, then you have other benefits too.

 So we're not an accountant or an attorney. I'll get, I'll throw the disclaimer. 

Pete: All right. Very good. What would be like a eighth reason? Well, you know, as you make more money, you're able to save more money and have more investment opportunities. So I think. You might be missing out on those if you just stay [00:08:00] in your comfort zone.

Nat: And so I think that, that, that would be the downside of, you know, not, of, of not making some changes. 

Pete: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and we talked at the beginning, right, about my mom and having, you know, to have that rainy day fund the money to cover it. And if, if you're not building wealth, that's, or, you know, not getting that stuff, you know, that, that makes it tough.

All right. Well, 

Nat: I was just going to say conceivably that, you know, room for 11, 000, you know, inflation keeps on ripping through. It could be like 20, 000 a month. You know, it's just, I don't think you can underestimate how much money you need. Well, and you're 

Pete: absolutely right. It's just going to continue to go up.

The first month my mom was there, they had a price increase. Oh, man. Yeah. Welcome. Yeah. And you don't blame them, right? They got to pay their employees. Everything's more expensive for them too. I, I, I get that, but yeah, first month, first month in the place, it went up. So Yeah, and these [00:09:00] colleges, even like colleges now, tuition, I pay my kids tuition, these colleges just decide, hey, we're going to do a 4 percent increase this year.

Nat: Must be nice. 

Pete: Must be nice, huh? All right, what's the 8th well, I guess it's 9th, we're on to the 9th one. 

Nat: Yeah, I think there's, you know, I think you and I are both pretty health conscious, so I think, You know, if you stay in a job that you're stressed out about, or you don't really enjoy, and again, kind of going back to that whole being in a rut type thing, you know, go to work, come home, have dinner, sit there, watch TV, you know, it can really impact your mental and physical health.

 So, I think, you know, making changes can be super invigorating, get sometimes get a new routine and all that. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you don't want to die at your desk because of stress, right? Life's too short. And so if you are just kind of caught in a rut and you're not being healthy and you're not happy, then, [00:10:00] then you need to make change.

Pete: You need to make changes because it's a bad alternative to die at your desk, right? Or, or have so much stress that it ultimately impacts the quality of your life. All right. What would be the last one? Number 10, lucky number 10. 

Nat: Well, I think these days especially, people wanna have purpose and fulfillment and meaning.

So I think when you, you know, whether you're looking at a business or looking at a career change, I think it's an important time, not just to look at the money, but also to look at, you know, your happiness and motivation. Especially, you know, if you're headed into your fifties. And all that. It's like, what do you want?

What do you want to do? What kind of impact can you make? You know, can you help people? And does it support like your overall 

Pete: goals? Yeah, I think it's giving back being engaged in a community or being engaged in life that, that is, you have to be fulfilled because you only get so much time, [00:11:00] you know, they call it that dash, right?

The, your, your, the time that you're on earth, you only got so much time. And so it's not worth it to not be happy. Go do something that's fulfilling that you, that builds and makes you happy. 

Nat: I agree. Yeah, I think if people are feeling kind of stuck, then they just need to, you know, maybe make some small changes, which maybe will lead to more changes and more opportunities for 

Pete: them.

Yeah, I mean, I think at the end of the day is if you're stuck in a career, a job, and you're not making changes, it will financially impact you. There's, there's no question about it. And you gotta, you just gotta get up there and do something different. Right now. Don't walk away from a really good paying job until you got something in hand or, or you you're investing in a franchise or whatever it may be.

So you want to do it methodically. You don't want to get pissed one day and quit that job. So but anyways, 

Nat: that's, that's a whole different pod. Yeah, that's a different, 

Pete: that's a different [00:12:00] podcast. All right now. Well, thank you so much. I love those 10 reasons. So we'll have a great day.