Episode: 325 - Overcoming Financial Roadblocks: Embracing the "It Shall Be Done" Mindset
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Life often feels like a journey littered with roadblocks, especially when it comes to managing personal finances. Whether it's trying to figure out budgeting or breaking free from the chains of debt, it seems like there's always a new obstacle emerging from the shadows. However, what if I told you that encountering these challenges is completely normal? Everyone who has found financial peace has also faced numerous financial hurdles. The key is to change your mindset so you can overcome these obstacles when they arise.
Facing Financial Challenges
Recurring financial obstacles can make us wonder how anyone manages to stay afloat. These challenges aren't unique to you—many have faced them and have succeeded. Recognizing that you're not alone can be empowering. Understanding that overcoming these roadblocks is normal can help you cultivate the resilience needed to navigate through them.
My Personal Journey
In 2002, my wife and I realized that despite earning decent money, we had little to show for it. Our negative net worth meant that we owed more in debt than the value of our assets. Inspired by the accounting system of the cash-based fast food restaurant I managed, I attempted to apply the same principles to my personal finances. However, the process was cumbersome, and after a few months, I gave up.
Years later, in 2005, faced with a substantial personal loan due to a failed business, I was forced to draw a line in the sand. This time, I vowed to find a solution. I developed a game plan, brought my wife on board, and embraced a new approach by reading and listening to audiobooks that combined money management with mindset strategies.
Adapting a New Mindset
One particularly impactful book I came across combined stories of financial success with mindset strategies. Like the story narrated in the book "The Go Getter," it highlighted not only the steps to manage money but also the importance of resilience and determination. This story revolves around a disabled veteran who overcame numerous obstacles with sheer determination, repeatedly telling himself, "It shall be done."
This narrative emphasized the idea that obstacles are inevitable, but with determination and the right mindset, they can be overcome. Upon facing challenges, instead of giving up, it's critical to adopt the "It shall be done" mindset and creatively find solutions.
Embracing Persistence
Similar to playing a video game for the first time, new financial endeavors can result in repeated failures. However, persistence pays off. Learning from mistakes, seeking advice, and constantly trying new approaches can help you advance to the next level. Whether it’s saving for an emergency fund or mastering budgeting, each step you take brings you closer to discovering your personal “blue vase”—the symbol of your financial peace.
Conclusion
Embrace the "It shall be done" mindset on your financial journey. Roadblocks are part of the process, and they can be overcome. Whether brought on by personal actions or external circumstances, understanding and adapting to these hurdles will lead you to financial success. Remember, you’re not alone—everyone faces challenges. Stay persistent, believe in yourself, and in time, you will reach your financial goals and look back with pride at how far you've come.
Resources Mentioned
The Totally Awesome Debt Freedom Planner https://www.debtfreedad.com/planner
To learn how to take the stress out of your finances so you can breathe again, follow this link: https://www.debtfreedad.com/lwp-masterclass-opt-in-page-podcast
Connect With Brad
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Chris Hawkins:
So you've started your journey and it seems like one roadblock after another seems to always find itself into your life. Maybe you're trying to figure out how to budget and it seems like nothing but obstacles appear in your way. Maybe you're trying to get out of debt and it seems like Murphy always visits and you always find yourself having to use that emergency fund, and it seems like you keep spending your wills and you say to yourself how does anybody ever get out of debt? How does anybody ever fix their finances? It seems like nothing but trouble follows me everywhere I go. Well, what if I told you that's normal? What if I told you that I went through probably hundreds of obstacles on my journey? What if I told you that everybody out there who fixed their financial problems, who lives a more peaceful financial life well, yes, they had to go through financial obstacles as well. Let's talk about that today and how you might just change your mindset a little bit more so that you can overcome obstacles when they appear. This is the Debt-Free Dad Podcast, where we help normal, everyday people like you take control of your finances so you can live a happier, less stressful life. My name is Chris Hawkins and I will be your host for today's episode.
Chris Hawkins:
From 2005 to 2008, my wife and I paid off just under $100,000 in debt, and we've been debt-free except for our house now for over 15 years. So now that I've gave you a little bit of an introduction into my story, I want to go way back until about 2002, 2003. And I wanted to improve my financial life, and I knew that my wife and I we made decent money, but it just didn't seem like we had a whole lot to show for it. We had a negative net worth. Yes, negative net worth means we owed more money than the assets that we owned were worth and I tried to do something about my finances. And I had worked for a fairly well known fast food restaurant here in the south, and it was a cash based business and and I was a manager, and every day I had to account for all of the money in and all the money out, and so they had a certain accounting system that they followed. I decided to follow that same system on my own personal finances. I mean, here, after all, was a company that was completely out of debt. They dealt completely in cash at the time and I thought, well, if it works for them it'll work for me, no, no, trying every day to sit down, keep receipts, make copies of them, staple them to a piece of paper that was all the bank transactions for that day, put them in a notebook Too much trouble, too much worth. And I found after about three or four months I gave up.
Chris Hawkins:
So fast forward about another year, and I guess I didn't learn from my mistakes because I thought okay, let's try this again. New Year's resolution same process, same results. Too cumbersome, too much work, and I gave up on it. So fast forward again to 2005, and I'll spare you all the details. But I found myself facing a fairly large debt that I had about nine months to come up with the money to pay off. This was a personal loan I had to deal with a failed business. I had just drawn a line in the sand and I said I am going to find a way to come up with this money. And so I sat down and I came up with a game plan and I showed it to my wife and she got on board. We started attacking this thing and as part of that whole process, this time I realized I had to do something different, that the system I had used in the past was what led to me giving up.
Chris Hawkins:
This time I decided I was going to do some reading. I was going to listen to some audio books and there were a lot of books about money out there and you've heard me talk about this on this podcast, my love for reading and there were a lot of books out there about how to manage money. There were also a lot of books out there about behaviors, about mindset, that didn't have anything to do with money, but there just so happened to be one book that I came across that was being launched at the time. That was about both money and mindset. What I learned from reading that book was not only a process or a series of simple steps very much like what Brad teaches here in the Roots of Personal Finance course a series of simple steps but also stories of people who had overcome, for a variety of obstacles that had come up during their journey. And what I learned from that book was it doesn't have to be overly complicated, you can keep it simple, but that there were other people just like me who also had to overcome obstacles, who also, maybe multiple times, had stopped and decided to restart the process again. And so this began a big journey for me to continue to learn more about money what did other people have to say about money? But also to read more about mindset, even if the book didn't have anything to do with money.
Chris Hawkins:
And I came across a book called the Go-Getter. It's an early 20th century good gracious, maybe even over a hundred years old at this point and it's about a disabled veteran who really wants to go to work and he convinces the owner of a business to just give him a shot, and he does well enough that over time, the boss considers him for a promotion. And so the boss wants to see this employee who he thinks might be worthy of a promotion. He wants to see how resourceful he can be, how well will he overcome obstacles can be, how well will he overcome obstacles, how determined is he in himself, how much does he believe in himself. And so the boss gives this potential, this employee who's he's potentially thinking about giving a promotion to basically an impossible task. You see, the task has been set up from the very beginning by the owner as being an obstacle course, not of physical nature, not necessarily mental, but more of determination. It's an obstacle course that the owner has set up where it's basically you're going to fail, and it's called the story of the blue vase. You can Google it, it's a pretty popular story.
Chris Hawkins:
And so the owner gives this employee the task of going and finding a particular blue vase and delivering it to him at a specific location, at a specific time, a couple of days down the road. And of course the owner has set this game up where there's so many obstacles that his employee goes out there and he begins to try to go find this blue vase with very little information. And all along the way and I won't ruin the story by giving you the whole details but along the way he comes up against an impossible obstacle and just through sheer determination, through sheer will, by recognizing that there has to be a solution, there has to be a way, and in fact I think the character always says through the story it shall be done. That's something he had learned in the military but before becoming disabled it shall be done, it shall be done. And he just kept telling himself it shall be done. And anytime an obstacle came in his way he just found a resourceful way to overcome the obstacle. And it wasn't easy, but of course human nature says all right, I just got past that. All right, it should be easy selling from this point forward.
Chris Hawkins:
Well, no, remember, the owner has set this obstacle course up, this task to basically be impossible. And so another obstacle. And he has to be resourceful and determined and not give up and think of different ways to accomplish the task and not give up and think of different ways to accomplish the task. Well, after about it seems like 10 of these big obstacles put in his way, he's able to deliver the blue vase to his owner, to his boss, at the right time, at the right place, and so what he's done is he has proven his worthiness to the boss. And you say no, Chris. What does this got to do with personal finance?
Chris Hawkins:
Well, it's a story about how obstacles are always going to come in our way. Sometimes they're of our own doing, sometimes they're just outside forces, sometimes it's just the way our society works, and it's really easy just to give up. It's real easy to say it can't be done. But I want you to remember those words it shall be done. And when an obstacle comes in your way, sometimes it requires looking for a different solution, thinking differently.
Chris Hawkins:
You hear me talk about that a lot. What's a different way to accomplish the task? I'm not going to let my neighbor, I'm not going to let my family, I'm not going to let my friend, I'm not going to let my coworker tell me it can't be done. I'm not going to let them laugh at me and tell me that my journey is stupid or that my journey is just it's unfulfilling, that there's nothing at the end of that road. No, you're going to keep looking, because you've got the it shall be done mindset. Now you have your blue vase, you have your why. You have your goals in life. Whatever it is that you're trying to accomplish. Maybe it's just trying to get that emergency fund right now. Maybe it's trying to figure out how to budget.
Chris Hawkins:
Every month it seems like something new comes in and you're like why can't I get this? Remember, those are just obstacles in your way. Learn from them, try something different and eventually you'll figure out your way around that obstacle. It's sort of like playing a video game as a kid, or even heck, as adults. You sit down and you play a video game for the very first time and it seems like you lose your three lives 10 seconds into the game, but you keep playing it for months and months and months. The next thing you know you find yourself all the way at the end of level nine, beating the villain. All right, my point there is you will learn. You just have to keep playing the game. You have to keep trying something different. You've got to keep talking to mentors, reading books, which was big for me.
Chris Hawkins:
Listening to podcasts like this, listening to the success stories, that's a big key. Brad does a great job on this podcast of interviewing people who have been where you're at, and if you will listen to their stories, you'll start to hear some common themes there, and every one of them are going to tell you yeah, obstacles came up. Sure, there were lots of times I wanted to quit. They may not use these words, but they're going to basically tell you that they had to be determined, they had to be resilient, they had to believe in themselves. And in the back of their mind, whether they use these words or not, they kept saying it shall be done.
Chris Hawkins:
And so what I want you to know is that you're not alone out there.
Chris Hawkins:
You're not the first person or the only person to ever have roadblocks put up in your financial journey.
Chris Hawkins:
They're going to occur and you have to stay steadfast, you have to believe in yourself, you have to know what it is that you're trying to accomplish and if you will, over time, keep trying, keep trying, keep figuring things out Over time, you're going to win and you're going to find your version of the blue vase, and that's going to be financial peace.
Chris Hawkins:
And that journey is going to be so worth it, because so very few people are able to get out of debt and I'm fortunate that I'm one of them and I hope that you, on your journey, have the resolve that nothing, nothing is going to keep you from getting out of debt, from building wealth, from allowing you to accomplish whatever it is that you want to accomplish, and that journey, as difficult as it can be, is going to be so worth it. And you're going to look back and you're going to actually be proud of all the tough moments that you had to overcome. So learn to adopt the it shall be done mentality. Learn the story of the blue vase from the book the go-getter, and if you'll do that, I think you will find, over time, great success.
Brad Nelson:
Now listen, if you're ready to break free from living paycheck to paycheck which, if you're listening, I hope you are. You want to reduce financial stress. You want to build savings. You want to finally pay off debt for good, but you're not sure where to get started. Don't worry, We've got you covered here at Debt Free Dad. Simplify my Money is sent each Sunday to your email. We make it easy and Simplify my Money. It's your step-by-step roadmap to better financial control, and you're also going to learn easy-to-follow strategies to manage your money effectively. You're going to get stress-free money decisions that will help you simplify your financial life with proven tips that actually work. You're also going to gain the tools and the confidence to tackle your financial goals head-on. You can sign up for Simplify my Money by clicking the link at the top of the show notes. Thanks for joining us on today's show and we will see you guys on the next episode.
