Vol. 22 - How to Get Off The Struggle Bus
Our CFP Leisa Peterson discusses how to focus on possibility which is covered in her newly released Mindful Millionaire Book. We discuss:
Playing not to lose versus playing to win
Three money fears that hold people back
Opportunities to work on your mindset
Give yourself permission to be a millionaire
Learn how to overcome your money stories to become a Mindful Millionaire! Get Leisa’s Mindful Millionaire Book.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Naseema McElroy (00:01): All right, Nurses on Fire. We are back with our Certified Financial Planner, Leisa Peterson, as always. It is a pleasure for you to be joining us. Hey Leisa.
Leisa Peterson (00:14): Hello, Naseema. Hello listeners.
Naseema McElroy (00:19): So we are going to continue talking about the mindful millionaire book and congratulations on the release, the official release of the book today, July 14. Yay. Congratulations on that awesomeness. Thank you. We're going to dive into a concept that you talked about in the book that you talk about in the book. And that is how people focus on what I like to call the struggle versus what's possible for them. How is that holding them back?
Leisa Peterson (00:58): I think it's a lot of things, you know, first it's just that myopic vision that you have when things aren't going right, when there's a lot of scarcity, when you feel all you're thinking about is
Naseema McElroy (01:09): Not enough, not enough, not enough. And you can't think about what are the possibilities, what are the ways that we could do something different here? And so that's one part of it. The other that's coming up is the idea that we are often in life playing not to lose versus playing to win. This is like a huge lesson that we all kind of need to hear over and over again, because we get confused by the whole message of, of like, what is it all about to invest and to take risks. And when we are not trapped in scarcity, we are better able to look at all the opportunities and think, well, how can I win here rather than saying, Oh, I can't do that because I might lose can't do that because I might lose. And before you know, it, you're, you've talked yourself out of everything.
Naseema McElroy (02:03): And I think this is a pattern we want to be really careful about getting trapped in. Yeah. I love that. I was writing down like, dang, that's awesome. Playing, not to lose, but playing to win. And I think a lot of times people are afraid of failure, right? It's a fear thing. It's a fear based thing. And so as a protective mechanism, they want to make sure that, you know, they cross their T's and dot their I's where really they're just, you know, paralyzing themselves. And I often find that my biggest lessons come through failures and things that, and stumbling blocks in my life. So, but I also know that these are things that hold people back to, you know,
Leisa Peterson (02:51): Totally. It's funny. Cause I was looking in the book cause I'm like fear is the big thing. And I was curious, cause it's not like I've memorized all of these, but in the book I explain three or four money fears that I feel like really, really snag people. So is it okay if I give you
Naseema McElroy (03:11): Yes, please.
Leisa Peterson (03:13): Number one is fear of power and authority. Now this is a fascinating one because this is what I, what I determined in my research is that many of us have been raised with this sort of carrot and stick mentality that you do the right thing and then you get the reward. But the problem is is that after a while, if we have my case, my dad was very, I mean, we would get spanked. There was a lot of discipline. And the problem with that is after a while, we actually start fearing those who have the power who have the authority because we're so afraid of getting hurt and it works in the job environment too. If you don't do what we want you to do, you're not going to get the bonus, right. You're not going to get the raise. And if you speak out about something that we don't want you to speak out about, you're going to be penalized. So the challenge is, is that we must come to terms with a healed form of understanding what true power is, not authority and power over, but power with
Naseema McElroy (04:22): Yes, totally. The power that we individually have and that we so willingly give up when we, you know, just fall prey to our fear. Yeah. Yeah.
Leisa Peterson (04:36): So we we're afraid of our power and our authority rather than embracing and leaning into it. And when we lean into our power with money, for example, this is what we've been talking about for several weeks, right? Like the importance of feeling like a powerful person, what is it going to take for you to do that? And I just it's, all of these are going to be a little bit of an example of that horrible saying, I just don't know what else to say other than it is like throwing the baby out with the bath water. Like you're throwing it all out, not holding onto the parts of power that we need to keep. So that's one of the challenges with fear. The other one is fear of the past. Like there's been things that didn't work out in the past and we are holding them as if they were like, they happened yesterday and we won't take risks because that person took advantage of me and therefore all financial advisors are bad, not true, but that's what we do. So fear of the past another is fear of being responsible. Now, I don't know if everybody's going to understand this, but I know in my own life, because I came from so much trauma, I found growing up that it worked for me to blame others. Like if I could blame others, then I deflected the responsibility of something not working out. And for me it was like, I didn't want to accept responsibility
Naseema McElroy (05:58): That my life was really shitty growing up. See, so instead of accepting responsibility, that is kind of shitty, which is really tough when you're little, right. I mean, it's not like we think that way, but we keep those patterns later in life and you're just blamed, like it was my husband's fault. It's my child's fault. It's my mom's fault. It's my dad's fault. It's my employer's fault. Like it's never ending. And when we do that, we never turn the attention to like, what can I control? What can I do differently? Yeah. And I understand how people can have a difficult time grasping that because it's just like, well, how can, how can we be responsible for the things that happened to us as a child? And I love the way that you said, because those are the stories that you're holding onto. So is not what happened to you is what you're choosing to do with that information or that experience and how you're carrying that forward.
Naseema McElroy (06:57): And so that's what we have the responsibility of. And so I really like that. That's powerful because now that we know that we can shift that because a lot of it is subconscious. So how do we focus on possibility instead? Yeah, it's great. So what we need to do first and foremost, each of those have different things that are going on inside of us. Right. And all my work is oriented back to how do we look inside of ourselves to decide why am I behaving a certain way? And what can we do to heal that now take responsibility for it, own it, get some help, use a coach, take a class, focus on your mindset. I mean, this is where mindset training. You, people may hear about it. And they're like, yeah, I worked on my mindset. First of all, you're never done with your mindset until you take your last breath, you will not be done.
Naseema McElroy (07:58): So don't use that excuse. Yes, we're all on the path. But I learned something new about my mindset every single day. And I've been studying it for 21 years. Okay. So there's always opportunity to see something it's like hidden corners that were missing in the room. So we pay attention to those hidden corners. We bring them back. We reintegrate those parts of ourselves. This is how we regain our power. This is how we regain our curiosity. Curiosity is amazing. When we get really curious free of all the stuff of the past, we ask really good questions. We make sure that if somebody is trying to pull the wool over our eyes, they're not going to be able to do that because we're so curious. We just bombard them with questions like it's fun. And so curiosity is the beginning of possibility. It opens the door to a whole new way of being it's just changes everything.
Naseema McElroy (08:55): Yes. Yes. I love that. I love that because I really feel like, especially when we get older, possibility seems like dreaming and dreaming seems like something that you do as a kid. And that's not something that we're supposed to do as an adult because we're supposed to be practical and tactical and you know, focused on what reality is. Even though, you know, that's really subjective. I love the word possibility in itself because it just to me represents an endless amount of abundance and what's available to me. And I often use possibility because are just, what's possible because I do want people to tap back into that imagination and back into those dreams, because I feel like we put ourselves in a box and we can't grow. And we get stuck into the, in these patterns that perpetuate generational poverty that perpetuate all these things that hold us back in life.
Naseema McElroy (10:04): And if we can just allow ourselves to dream and then believe that those dreams are possible for us, I really feel like it opens the world up. And so I just want to like emphasize the fact that you guys, everybody out there has the capacity to just decide to stop focusing on the struggle and decide to instead focus on possibilities. It's within our power. We don't have to get permission from anybody else, take back our power and do that. And I really feel like a whole new world will open up to you. I think I would just add
Leisa Peterson (10:48): To that. And I love everything you just said, like such a great summary.
Naseema McElroy (10:54): The other day I was talking to someone who's been taking my classes for a few years and she said, you know, I want you to know that never in my life did I think about the possibility of me becoming a millionaire? And a few days ago I was sitting with my boyfriend who she's like, turns out he's a millionaire and I didn't even know. And she says to him, I, I think I want to be a millionaire. And he's like, well, you need to own that. You know, like, if you really believe that, like, I need you to say that, not, I think maybe like own it. And she's like, I want to be a millionaire. And then she's sharing this with me. Cause I mean, I planted the seed and she's like, I want to be a millionaire. And I finally am willing to give myself permission to go, you know, make it happen.
Naseema McElroy (11:41): Like I'm going to hold that possibility for myself. And I mean, if everyone listening to us today, it's like just for a moment, just suspend reality for one minute and allow that little kid that first heard, write about this idea of a millionaire and like welcome that part of you in who's curious and wants to play and wants to have a lot of fun. We don't want that to be like a painful, you know, wish that you take on like a joyous wish that you take on. It's like, I want to do that for myself. I want to create a legacy for myself, my family, like first time millionaire, like what about that? Let's do it. Yes, yes, yes. I love it. Ah, just gives me chills. I mean, I know it's possible for me. It's, it's something that I have owned my whole life, but I think that a lot of people do have negative stigmas and about like, well then what that means and what, how to get to a million dollars, like what that will look like. And so release that, release it and fully embrace that you too can become a mindful millionaire. Yes.
Leisa Peterson (13:00): I'm all we got ya. That's what we're here for. Like, we're going to help you figure it out. You don't have to have all the answers. We just need you to lean in.
Naseema McElroy (13:09): Yes. Just believe, just believe in the possibility. So thank you Leisa again for a wonderful episode. Thank you. Thanks.
Leisa Peterson (13:18): Thank you. Thank you everybody. It's so fun to hang out with you.
Naseema McElroy (13:23): Yes, you're the best.
Hey there I’m Naseema
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