This Nurse is Preparing for a Recession this 2020 - Ep. 39
As a money mentor, spiritual teacher, author, and business coach, Leisa Peterson helps people elevate their financial consciousness. Over the past two decades, she has devoted her energy to personal and spiritual development, wealth building and creating a holistic life. She is the author of, The Mindful Millionaire, which helps people create profound and lasting change with money. She shares mistakes to avoid during a market downturn and exercises to help us cope.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Naseema McElroy: 00:02 All right. Hey, nurses on fire. I am super honored to welcome Leisa Peterson of the wealth clinic to the podcast. Hey Leisa.
Leisa Peterson: 00:12 Hi everybody. Thank you so much missing the for having me today.
Naseema McElroy: 00:17 Of course. And Leisa, I really wanted to bring you on because there is just so much going on right now just in the world in general, but our finances are taking a big hit and I am seeing people panicking. So I wanted you to come on to kind of give people some practical tools and peace of mind in these troubling times. Um, but we'll start with, um, kind of just, uh, getting to know you a little bit better and your background and how you got started in personal finance.
Leisa Peterson: 00:52 Thank you so much. So I've been working in personal finance. I grew up in the Bay area. As we were talking about, I went to Cal state Hayward for my MBA. I've always been interested in money. I went into the money business right out of my, not my undergrad, but my graduate studies. I have worked in pretty much every area of finance. And eventually I became a financial advisor. But what I also had happening is side-by-side to my career, my financial career, I was also coming up against tragedy after tragedy in my family. My dad was actually murdered in 1999 and the best way I can describe it, and I know nurses can understand because you guys see things right, you just see things a lot more than the general population. But it was actually somebody that he knew and was close to and there was a fight and he ended up being killed. And when that happened, it was like my whole inner experience of what I thought life was all about, just sort of
Naseema McElroy: 01:57 blew up and
Leisa Peterson: 01:59 I had to find new footing. I had to find a new ground beneath my feet to continue. And so even though I kept my job and I keep kept working in finance, I also got really interested in spiritual studies and looking inside to find the answers that the rest of the world did not seem to be able to help me with, quite frankly. And I had not grown up in a religious home and I didn't have a strong spiritual faith at the time. And so it was me over this past 20 years learning and figuring it out for myself. I was a financial advisor up until about six years ago. And again, several kind of tragic things happened and I decided to walk away from my financial career because I saw that people have these, not everybody, but a lot of us have kind of messed up relationships with money. And because of all that inner work, I saw it and I was like, I think that I could help the world a lot if I focus on this with my knowledge of mindfulness and, and understanding, you know, the self and the mind and the brain combined with finances. So, so for the past six years I've been coaching people and teaching classes about people's relationship with money.
Naseema McElroy: 03:16 I love that. And I think that a lot of people think that money is just dollars and cents, but really it's an energy and it's about just who you're being and your habits and all of those things. And when they're seeking advice for money, they're thinking it's just like about budgeting tips. But it's really not about that. It's really about the person that you're being. And so I love what you do. And so can you talk about who you mostly help and what services you usually provide?
Leisa Peterson: 03:48 So my audience is twofold. So we talked about this. I help men and women, but definitely a lot of women are gravitating to this work where they've always known that there's been a lot of tension in their relationship with money. Like it's just not gone well. There's always a problem. There's always a fear of when's that other shoe gonna drop and things aren't going to work out. You know? So people who have had that sort of experience. And then also similar to myself because in all fairness, I've worked really hard to overcome growing up in a home where we didn't have very much. And my parents fought about money a lot and it was really stressful. I made a decision early in life to make a lot of money. And so I did well with money, but the problem was, was no matter how well I did, I still felt empty inside. So even though I had money, I still worried about it all the time. My audience is kind of in both extremes, maybe not so much in the middle where you know, they feel good about money and they're not struggling with it, then maybe they don't need to hear our conversation today. But I'm guessing that's the minority. Quite frankly,
Naseema McElroy: 04:54 even those people that are in the small minority are still filling an impact right now. And that's what I want to focus this conversation around is that there's a lot of panic and just a lot of angst around money right now because of the markets, because of an impending recession and because people are legit out here losing jobs and the stability that they thought they had. So, um, we'll, we'll spend a vast majority of this episode talking about that. Let's just dive in and get into the meat of the conversation. First of all, I'm going to just share what I've seen actually like in my workplace and just people that I work with. People are freaking out, like I said, and they're just like, okay, I lost all this money. I saw, you know, my retirement accounts are dropping. They are either stopping, contributing to retirement or they're pulling their money and putting it into conservative funds and no matter what I say, they're just like operating out of a place of fear and they will tell you like, I really scared.
Leisa Peterson: 05:58 I don't want to lose my money again. Like that happened in this last recession in 2008 and in 2001 let's start by how do we help those people? First of all, it's reasonable in these times for people to be feeling like they're irrationally responding to their money and the market because the market is irrational. I mean, that's the hardest thing about it and I don't know that many people get exposure to listen, this is what's going to happen. This is how it's going to go down. This is how you need to behave. You know this is if you're going to invest in the stock market, these are some things you just need to know. Even refreshing that conversation may be helpful for listeners because maybe they're, they haven't made a change yet and they're trying to decide what to do and we can help them with that.
Leisa Peterson: 06:50 I will also say that even if you've made some changes, you may listen to this conversation and decide to do some things differently because there is a lot of volatility right now. I will also say sometimes there are situations where we cannot sleep at night and we just have to do some things. I always want to make space for that because we don't know where we've come from. You know, and, and, and that's okay. Like it's not the best strategy you are going to lose in the long run if you do it that way. But understand if you can't sleep at night, because all you can think about is the stock market. That's not a good strategy and we want to bring you up to speed so that you can sleep at night. And that's what we're going to try to do here. The first thing that I think is really helpful to just consider is that if you look at the past 20 years in the stock market, the average return has been around 10% okay?
Leisa Peterson: 07:46 And you think of what's happened in the past 20 years. That takes us back to 1999 so 20 years. It has like gone down too ridiculously low levels in 2008 and a lot of people, you know, like you said, they got out in the market in 2001 they got out of the market in 2008 now they're getting out of the market again and instead of seeing 10% returns, they're seeing maybe 5% if not less than that the average investor, whether it's a nurse or anyone else, the average investor only gets about 5% instead of 10% because of this emotional behavior. And in all fairness, 5% growth isn't, it's not why we're taking the risk to be in the stock market in the first place. Yeah, right. Like that's it's, it's frustrating to only get that kind of return over, you know, year over year. I mean it's not bad, but you're taking a lot of risk when you decide to go into the stock market.
Leisa Peterson: 08:55 The best possible thing that we can do for ourselves is to look at it as an investment that's going to be there for more than 10 years. If you need it sooner than 10 years, then there's a different strategy for you, much more conservative. But if you've got a portfolio that's got like let's say 60% or 70% stocks and 30 or 40% bonds, which is kind of the middle of the road portfolio these days, you would want to be in the stock market for at least 10 years. Meaning you don't want to touch it in that timeframe. At a minimum. I have broken these rules, so I just wanted to tell everybody, even though I'm a financial professional, I get it. Okay. Remember how I said that I grew up in a home where we didn't have very much and it was like really stressful. Even though I learned about the stock market, I still struggled in times like what we're dealing with right now because when you come from nothing, there is a fear that it's all going to go away in, in a moment's notice and that is the absolute worst mindset that we can have once we become an investor.
Leisa Peterson: 10:16 Does that make sense? Definitely. Then that building is just real like we're like somebody is going to snatch the rug from under us at any time and that's how we've been taught to prepare mentally our whole life. So it's totally it part of our identity and so to tell somebody, stop thinking like that is not really practical because it's so ingrained in who they are and so I like to hold space for that and respect that, but then also honor the fact that we can change and there is hope and you can be wealthy. You deserve to be wealthy and you can set yourself up for success. Totally. Because you know when I'm looking at right now for example is even though it's really uncomfortable to watch it, I'm also knowing that I have been more conservative than I would have liked to have been this past 10 years and I would love to change my strategy going forward.
Leisa Peterson: 11:14 In fact, instead of it being a 60 40 portfolio, I'd really like to transfer my portfolio to being more like 70 30 70% stocks, 30% or maybe even 80% stock, 20% bonds. And so these sorts of times are actually ideal for that where you could actually read balance your portfolio to make it more aggressive. Now, am I going to do that today? Maybe not, but I'm watching it very closely where you can reconfigure your portfolio so that you are taking more risk on and the time to take more risk on is when everyone else is selling. Okay. And very few people are buying. Warren buffet has a great quote and he says that the time to be greedy is when everyone else is scared. Like doing the opposite mentality.
Naseema McElroy: 12:08 Yes, I love it. And I think that one of the key terms that you said there was a rebalancing. What I'm seeing is not like rebalancing or anything strategic, it's more or less fear selling. Right? Can we talk about what happens when you sell at the bottom of the market?
Leisa Peterson: 12:29 I was writing some notes down. You never want to sell equities in a down market. Okay. Because the problem is, is when you sell, when the market is going down, so this is the reptilian brain or the limbic system where it's just like fear, fear, fear. So you sell when it's going down and the problem is is you will never know when to go back in. Your lizard brain will not let you go back in when it's at the bottom. So what happens, and this is what happens to most investors, they sell and then they wait and they wait and they wait. And not until the market has recovered, do they decide to go back in and buy again? And now they've sold at the low and they're buying at the high and it happens over and over and over again. And there is no way, no matter how smart you are, no matter how skillful you think you are about watching what's going on out there in the world.
Leisa Peterson: 13:29 I promise you, if the pros can't figure it out, you and I cannot figure out when it's time to buy again. You literally miss the opportunity of being able to go back up and that's why it's so dangerous when we're selling. When the market is going down, you literally miss out on the rebound, which it does happen. Now granted, we don't know when it's going to happen, but when you look at the past hundred plus years that is always recovered. Never bet against humanity is the best way to say it. Like as bad as it seems like it's going to be and the world is falling apart, human beings find a way to rise up and fix things and they solve problems. This is what we're built to do and the market will reflect that fact someday and all we have to do is sit on our hands, not get on the keyboard and not start making those big changes. When things are stressed like this because I promise you you will lose more likely than gain.
Naseema McElroy: 14:35 Yes, and I love to show people just the chart of the stock market. Like it always goes up in those big events, like the great recession we had in 2008 just look like a little blip in the chart and I just want everybody to understand that that is why the stock market has such high returns because we have to pay for those returns. Right? If it was an easy investment where you didn't have to worry about it, you wouldn't hardly realize these returns, but you have to understand that. But I think this is also a really good time for people to understand the kind of investor they are and the kind of risk they're willing to take. Because in the last 10 years, a lot of people just started getting into investing people that I know, they've only seen gains after gains and so they're just like, yeah, like I could do 100% stocks.
Naseema McElroy: 15:28 Like, yeah, like that's a no brainer. Like yeah, 27% returns, that's awesome. But they've never had to have like build those emotional shocks of like logging into your account and seeing that you've lost 16,20% and what that looks like with your money. Right. And so, um, I think this is a good time to check in and to really understand why you got into investing, really trying to understand your risk tolerance and like what was that based off of? And then like learning to maybe use some other kind of mechanisms or just use this opportunity to learn and grow so that you're a better investor later. I use that for like the stock chart in the growth for people who have time in the market. Right? Because you know, it's better to have time in the market and timing in the market. Right. But what do you say to those people who are like, I have five coworkers that are just chatted in my ear that are actually retiring in the next couple of months and they're freaking out. How do we talk to those people?
Leisa Peterson: 16:40 The challenge with somebody who's retiring is depending on how much they have to access that money right away is the money in question. So if you've got money that's invested in this market, my suggestion would be, see if you have other resources that you can avoid touching any of that for the next, you know, two or three years, focus on the other resources. You have to live off of that so they, again, you're not selling while the market is down. There was one other thing that I want to get everybody because thinking this is really helpful. The stock market is like a bar of soap. The more you touch it, the less you have the slippier. It is slippery. It's like every time you touch it, you lose some, you lose some money. So when you're touching it right, you just can't help but lose some.
Leisa Peterson: 17:31 If you don't have to touch it, then you're not going to be losing it right now. Okay. That's the thing to be thinking about. The other thing for those people, let's say you've got five years before retirement, then same thing goes. You might not be rebalancing, right, but as the market does start to recover, you may make your portfolio more conservative the closer you get to retirement. I love these staged accounts where you can have certain buckets. When I used to structure investment accounts, you could kind of say whatever I'm going to take out for the coming year is going to be in a super conservative investment and that's the only place I'm going to take money. I'm not going to be selling anything out of a stock account for the foreseeable future. So there's ways that we can be really sharp about taking only the money that is not in a volatile state, for example. Does that help?
Naseema McElroy: 18:25 Definitely, and I think it's, you do have a 401k four Oh three B and it's managed through somebody at your job, like you usually put into a target day fund that becomes more conservative as you get older, as you get closer to retirement age. And so there are safeguards put into place that do exactly what you're saying automatically. So you have not lost that money. Just because you're retiring next month, it doesn't mean that all your money is gone. You still own the same shares of stock and they'll just go up in the meantime you have two, three, four years. Or even most of these people have pensions that they can live off of forever. So it doesn't help to feed into this negative energy that you've lost something. Yeah. So yeah,
Leisa Peterson: 19:16 cause there's the practical element. And then there's also the other part that I focus a lot of time and energy on, which is training the mind, right? Gaining control of your mind, knowing the triggers for you, knowing how to change the configuration of how you, you manage your day. You know, maybe you have a mindfulness practice, maybe you breathe, maybe you take time to pause. Like right now, I think that nurses probably have it harder than most people because it's not like it's just the market. They're also going into what could be something that we don't really fully understand. And so the more we can help them to push away the desire to look at the stock account right now and let it be and trust in the, in the research trust in the science of working, investing and focus on their overall wellbeing, focus on how they can take care of themselves and help their immunity. Um, those are the things that I think they want to be the thinking more about because I think all the data out there says when we are super stressed out, we get sick easier.
Naseema McElroy: 20:36 Yes. I love it. And I'm glad that you naturally shifted the focus has, because that's where I wanted to go for the rest of this episode is [like let's focus on how we can really get through these troubling times with [inaudible], you know, the least impact on our, um, physical and financial health. But we have to address the emotional first. And so, yeah, I love that you brought that up because yeah, we have all these stressors. There's so many things right now that's going on. Number one, the news is super toxic right now even though you kind of have to watch it to see like what your day is going to be like. Cause it's like day to day. I mean I was just in the hospital with my grandfather and then a couple of hours later they shut down visitation to the hospital. You know, day to day you have to listen to the news.
Naseema McElroy: 21:27 But at a certain extent it's really really harmful. We have all these people going crazy and grocery stores you can't even find toilet paper. My friend was down to two diapers and people were hoarding diapers, you know like and so you have all these things, these outside triggers that can cause you to really stress and like you said, you're making yourself susceptible to this but you are the ones that we need. I am, I have to go to work and be exposed to things and luckily I'm in labor and delivery so my exposure is minimal. I still have to go to work like most people can stay home. But yeah, I am putting my life on the line every day. We are all putting our lives on the line every day and the, and we need to do more to conserve our physical and emotional wellbeing so that we don't succumb to these things. And so how can we do that?
Leisa Peterson: 22:24 Yeah, it's a great question. You know, one of the things I was writing about for my community this morning was about breathwork. And I'm just going to go out on a limb and just talk about it because I understand you all know a lot more about science than I do, but I can speak from my own personal experience and that is that, you know, we can only live for what, you know, 20 seconds or something, very story without our breath. I mean we're constantly breathing and even interesting enough that this disease has a lot to do with the lungs, right? That it's an infection in the lungs for many people. But that is why I think being grateful for our breath and also taking these pauses, these strategic contemplative pauses throughout the day, whether it be a phone app, you know, that reminds you to take a couple minutes when you go to the bathroom before you know, you wash your hands. But before you open that door again to take three nice big deep breaths and bring yourself into your body and into your, you know, the deepest part of you. I think when we're in fear mode, the science says that we respond the world in a very different way than when we're in this centered mode of presence inside of ourselves. And we know the difference. The problem is, is I don't think we have trained ourselves enough to, to not just notice it, but stop it in the moment. And that's the thing that I think the breath can actually do for us. I mean, so simple. Even right now, you know, if we just take some nice deep breaths, even one feels different, imagine three or four or five. It is incredibly powerful. And for those who meditate, which may be some of the listeners do, I do a lot, but what I've also found is that when we breathe first, before we try to meditate or before we try to do prayer, even we're going to get a lot further with those, the attention because it calms our whole entire nervous system in the moment and allows us to hold space for, you know, the prayer or the thought or the, the silence. Does that make sense?
Naseema McElroy: 24:57 Yes, totally. And that breath felt amazing. Thank you for that.
Leisa Peterson: 25:02 I could do it all day long. I mean, yeah, and I, I go to the store when you mentioned about the diapers and your, you know, now people are like lining up at stores and stuff. So every chance we get where we get in that line or we notice that something's going to take longer than we thought, if all we did was say, Oh, I have a pause, this is a time to take the breath and focus on my breath. And what's amazing is time goes by a lot faster. We don't get irritated and we're conserving our energy in that moment.
Naseema McElroy: 25:41 Yes, that is so helpful. And so you guys have gotten the practical application, the practical tips. We've given you the centering emotional, spiritual tips. And so now it's up to you to kinda take control. Like you have more control over your life, over your world than you give yourself credit for. And just acknowledging that, um, I think will make you feel a lot better. Um, this too shall pass. He dies, you know, we'll get through it. It is scary. It is scary and it is unlike anything that most of us has have ever seen. But then that's what makes a market volatile, right? Because people say this time is different, this time is different. And if it wasn't different than we would know how to respond. Right? But that's why Marcus fall. And so we just need to understand that. We need to understand that we need to hold a space for ourselves to heal. We need to hold a spell us a space for ourselves to make sure that we are really pouring into ourselves so we can serve our patients. Because they need us. We got a got, you know. Oh yeah. Yes. So how can people connect with you? I know you have a book, beautiful book in the background, the mindful millionaire. Um, yeah, just talk about how people can get in contact with you or access your work.
Leisa Peterson: 27:13 Thank you. So I have a book coming out in June and it's all about helping people ask themselves the questions that, that if some of the things we talked about earlier about like those triggers about your relationship with money and you know, it goes really deep into like family stories and that sort of stuff. Like the book helps you sort through those things so that you can come out on the other side feeling more peaceful about money. Same thing goes with like my website wealthclinic.com and I have a community on Facebook that's oriented around the books. When the book comes out, my goal is to provide a forum. So as people are asking themselves those questions, they can come in and share and say, Hey, this is what I've learned about myself. Who else has had this happen? Or, you know, how can I not feel so alone in some of these struggles that I've had with money and you know, you may be sharing some of the stories about what's happening right now in the group because that's what it's there for. I just don't think we talk enough about money in communities and that's what I tried to create.
Naseema McElroy: 28:19 Yeah, I love that. I love that. And so I'll have all the links. Is your book on presale right now through Amazon?
Leisa Peterson: 28:27 It's on presale now. Yeah. I'll also give a meditation if you'd like. And then if they want to try a meditation out, they can see some of the work that I do.
Naseema McElroy: 28:37 That would be amazing. So all of that stuff will be linked in the show notes so you guys can just click through and get that. But I want to thank you so much for sharing your wisdom here. Just speaking to you. It just makes me feel calm and at peace. Yeah. So I hope that it gave people a little bit of peace of mind and if you still need that support, there's a whole community around it. And that's another thing that I wanted to highlight is that you know, you are going to be the reflection of the people that you surround yourself with. If during these times you find that everybody around you is panicking, take a moment to kind of step back, do a little bit of self reflection and then try to surround yourself with people who aren't freaking out, who are looking at this as an opportunity or just understand the fluctuations and aren't really phased.
Naseema McElroy: 29:27 Yes, this is a disease that people have died from and we are ex, you know, could possibly be exposed to and is scary. But like I said, this too shall pass and hopefully, hopefully, hopefully you've gotten some resources here that you can use. So again, thank you so much and um, I hope people are able to connect with you and use your services because I just know like even just in this little short piece of time that I've spent with you that they'll get so much.
Leisa Peterson: 29:59 Well your community is really lucky to have you. I'm so, I'm so grateful. Cause I know nurses are awesome and they're really getting some really great information from what you're sharing. Thank you. Thank you.
Hey there I’m Naseema
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