A little over a week ago I was at a baseball game between the San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers. I’m actually a diehard San Francisco Giants fan, I was at the game because my wife is a Dodgers fan and she wanted me to go. People always laugh when they hear about our baseball allegiances because the Giants and Dodgers are longtime rivals.
This was one of the first games without COVID restrictions for fans. You could feel the energy in the air as 43,000 plus fans packed Petco Park in San Diego. You could tell people were happy to be out and about in what truly felt like a pre-COVID experience with a full stadium.
With Los Angeles only being a few hours away from San Diego, there were a lot of Dodgers fans at the game. It looked like a 50/50 crowd, an even mix of Padres and Dodgers fans. Even though we’re still in June and baseball is a very long season, this felt like a big game.
In the early innings of the game, the chants began of “Let’s Go Padres.” Dodgers fans quickly got in on the action and tried to one-up the Padres fans by chanting “Let’s Go Dodgers.” It was hard to tell which chants were the loudest. Side note: When the Giants are in town, the “Let’s Go Giants” chants are ALWAYS the loudest. Ok, maybe I’m a little biased!
This moment reminded me of one of those ambiguous drawings where you can see two things in one drawing. One of the most popular ones is if you look at one angle you see an old woman, and another angle you see a young woman. I think a lot of what you see in those drawings depends on what image you’re looking for.
Since the chants seemed to be 50/50 at the game I decided to conduct a little experiment. I wondered if I’d be able to hear the team I was listening for. I gave it a try. First, I listened for the Padres. Sure enough, the chants of “Let’s Go Padres” came in clear as day. Next, I tried listening for the Dodgers. Same thing—I could clearly hear “Let’s Go Dodgers.” Whatever team I was listening for was the team I clearly heard.
Mindset
I write about mindset a lot. I think it’s one of the most important aspects of personal finance. Mindset is what you listen for—which then influences your thinking and behavior. Our background, education, family influence, and many more factors make up our mindset. What are you listening to about money?
I’ll use myself as an example. In the first chapter of my book Cash Uncomplicated, I write about what my mindset used to be. Without giving away the chapter, my mindset was completely backwards. I thought we were all supposed to live paycheck to paycheck, have car payments, break even most months, and maybe be fortunate enough to retire when we reached our late 60’s.
As a result of my flawed mindset, my self-fulfilling prophecies about money came true. Just like I thought I was supposed to, I lived paycheck to paycheck, had car payments, and did in fact break even most months. The only thing I got wrong was that I’d be able to retire in my late 60’s. At the pace I was going, it probably would have been late 70’s or early 80’s.
The change in my personal finances didn’t come until the change in my mindset. Once I began to think differently, things began to improve. While I used to find it acceptable and normal to live paycheck to paycheck, I now found it unacceptable. As a result, I found a way to get out of the paycheck to paycheck cycle that I participated in for so many years.
Where I used to find it acceptable to have car payments, my new mindset said that wasn’t ok. So I paid off the car loan as quickly as possible to eliminate it. And where it used to be normal to break even during the month, I fixed that as well so that I was saving and investing every month.
I wasn’t making any more money than I had, it was simply a major adjustment in my mindset. Eventually I made more money, but that wasn’t the catalyst for my improvement.
What Are You Listening For?
Much like the baseball game where I distinctly heard the teams name I was actively listening for, our personal finances work the same way. If you listen to things like the statements below, they will start to come true.
- Money is the root of all evil
- Living paycheck to paycheck is normal
- I’m no good with money
- I can never seem to get ahead financially
Our minds have an amazing way of making things come true. So when we make statements like the ones above, they inevitably occur. Change your mindset though, and positive results begin to occur. Statements such as these have a way of helping us reach our financial goals.
- I’ve got a plan to get ahead financially
- I’m investing x percentage of my income on a scheduled monthly basis
- Pay myself first and live off the rest
- I’m an investor
When we come in with the mindset that we’re going to do things like invest every month and pay ourselves first—those things begin to happen. It’s not a miracle or too good to be true, it’s just a change in our mindset and subsequent behavior. What are you listening to about money?
Earl Nightingale wrote that we become what we think about. If we think we have to live paycheck to paycheck and struggle to pay ourselves first, that’s exactly what will happen. But if we think about finding a way to pay ourselves first and accumulate an emergency fund, those things tend to happen as well.
What are you listening to about money and how does that affect your financial future?
