Fiscally Fit: Where Money Meets Wellness

0:00 The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are solely those of the hosts and their guests and not those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services, or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability explicitor implies shall be extended to W FOURCY Radio or it's employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W FOURCY Radio. Welcome to to Ask Good Questions Podcasts, broadcasting live every Wednesday, six pm Eastern Time on W four CY Radio at w fourcy dot com. This week and every week, we will reach for a higher purpose in money and life, as well as a focus on health and wellness. Now, let's join your hosts, Banita Bell Anderson as together we start with Asking Good Questions.

1:01 Hey, Hello, good day to you, and thank you for joining the Ask Good Questions Podcast. We've got an amazing, amazing guest in an episode for you today. So with that, I want to we have so many things to talk about. Let's get right into it. I'd like to welcome my guest Paris Kluff to the proverbial podcast stage. Well, thank you. I'm happy to be here. It's exciting to be able to share something that I and after talking with you, I think we're both very passionate about helping people understand how to manage their money more effectively so they can actually have a much better life.

1:42 Yeah. Well, I think that I've always said, you know, if your finances are in good shape, usually that means that there's a lot less chaos and a lot of better things going on elsewhere in your life. So anyway, let me tell people a little bit about you first and then we can get into our discussion. So Paris, So I have to ask, because I was thinking, were your parents in Paris when you were born or something? Is that why your named Paris? No, that's a funny question, but I again, a great question, a good question, perfect for the podcast. So my parents enjoyed the story of Homer's iliad in the Odyssey, and many years ago there was a Hollywood movie that came out called Troy, and the Trojan War was depicted in that movie and the whole process of you know, it was a prince, Prince Paris who abducted Helen of Troy and took her back to it and started the Trojan War.

2:37 And my mom and dad really enjoyed that story, and they had another name picked out for me, which was I think Spencer. And when I came out, my dad flipped a coin and the coin landed on Paris. So I'm glad I had. I'm glad that I got Paris because it's been a wonderful, wonderful name throughout my whole life. Well, it makes for a great story, yes, so well. Paris is a former financial advisor turned educator and coach. He believes that money has more to do with our habits and our behaviors and our beliefs than it does with math, and so that's why he's here because I was intrigued by his take on things. He's been in the industry almost twenty five years. He's been married for twenty eight years, has five kids and two sons in laws.

3:24 His life experience includes losing everything in two thousand and eight, living on food stamps, and rebuilding to where he now has a path of six figure income and a passion for helping others to turn their income into wealth and build a massive bank account. So paris welcome. Is there anything you'd like to add or should we get into it? What do you think? No, thank you very much that that was a great introduction. I just want to my real claim to fame is that I am a husband and a fall and I love my kids and my family and this that's my passion to go out there and you know, set up, set up yourself first and then help others do the same.

4:08 So, well, that's the most important thing, isn't it. Yes, everything else is secondary to godden family and uh, you know, because that's where good habits really, that family structure is where our good habits start. Yes. True. So we're going to talk about finances and health and wellness. So I'm just curious. Let's start with how do you think financial stress affects our physical and mental health? Well, you know, one of the things that I found over the years and working with people is that and I'm sure you found the same thing, is that we get worried about what are what the bills are, we get worried about the debt that we have. We're stressed out about where are we going to get a phone call from the creditors and when you're in a constant state of worry, if you don't know how food's going to get on the table tomorrow, if you're constantly fighting and arguing and stressing out about money, you're going to have mental health. Your anxiety is going to be through the roof, your panic attacks are going to be more prevalent. Potentially, you're going to have all kinds of things that are going to be distracting you from your goal. And I, you know, I this is a real thing, and ADHD is one of the biggest things right now to talk to help people kind of be off on their you know, to be to stay focused on life. And when we have so many distractions already in the world, we have so much social media, so many other things to add to that. The stress of not knowing, man, if I

5:40 had an emergency tomorrow, medical or otherwise, like would be able to handle it. And most Americans don't have I think the statistic is most Americans don't have four hundred dollars just to put towards an emergency that happens in their life. So the stress alone is a huge mental I think that's a huge cause of health issues. Yeah, well, what do you think some common signs are then that money anxiety is impacting your well being. I think one of the things is is I'm going to use the word delusion, because sometimes we are delusional and we think that everything's great and everything's going to stay great, and it just that's just not how the world works, the least in my experience. I shared with you shared earlier that I lost everything and lived on food stats for a little while. I was I was making great income. I was you know, I had just started my financial practice, and I was an advisor back then, and I was helping people with assets center management. I was doing you know, the retirement planning. I was doing a myriad of things in the financial industry. And so around two thousand and eight, I was headed for my best year. Like I was one hundred percent commission and I was on track to hit six figures that year.

6:57 And you know, anybody who's commission only making six figures, that to me is impressive. I don't you know, just it's an impressive feat. And by the end of that two thousand and eight I realized I was not going to be even I was going to be lucky if I made another ten thousand dollars by in the last quarter because the way the economy was going, And so I spent a lot of time, quite frankly, believing so before that, I believed that everything was great, everything was always going to continue, that my income was just going to get bigger and better, and that I was going to always be blessed. And you know, sometimes God has a little different path for you, and I recognized after going through that significant trial of losing everything, like literally I could write a country music song about about what I went through, but that was it was also a blessing as well. It was just different, didn't I didn't formulate it as a blessing right away, But after I've gone through it, it's been a blessing in my life since.

7:57 But I'll tell you that when I was I personally was a little bit delusional about everything great. And when I lost to everything, when I got the notification, all my clients were pulling their money out of because they needed to stay liquid because they were investing in real estate and the real estate market was just not going the right way. And so one after another, I just started losing all my clients. And when you lose assets under management, that means my income was going down and I didn't have the money, and so I spent a period of time where I was just like I literally remember being on the phone with a debt collector and him screaming and yelling at me all the different things that he's going to do to me or his company was going to do to me. And I just remember sitting on the couch one day and I thought, I've never been here before. I've always been blessed financially. I've always had what I needed. I've just never been in a place where I lost everything. My savings was drained. Thankfully, I had, you know, several I had a couple tens of thousands of dollars in savings that helped me get through about four or five months. But after that, I was like.

9:00 But then it's gone. I've been there too. Yeah, it's gone. And so my stress level was through the roof and I just remember there was like I just didn't know what to do, and I just realized that I was I had been delusional in my life, believing that everything was always going to be great and not planning. And there's wisdom in I believe there's wisdom in planning for the worst case scenario, but then also being able to handle best case scenarios. It's never as bad as it seems. It's never as good as it seems. The roller coaster ride of life goes up and it goes down, and so you just kind of kind of keep that steady, steady eddy pace. And that's what I've learned since. But boy, was it was I delusional when I first started.

9:45 I when I first started my podcast, someone said, why are you doing health and wellness things? You're a financial advisor, and and I said, you know, health is the first wealth. That's one thing. And the the thing that I thought was, you can have all the money in the world, but if your health isn't good, it doesn't it doesn't matter. And so it seems like improving your finances and learning what is it that you're not doing that that you need to do to write the ship with your finances, How that can actually reduce chronic stress and health issues.

10:27 Yeah, just in my practice as well. And one of the big other things is, you know, delusional is thinking everything's great. But as some of the offshoots of that are when the when the bill comes in the mail, you just set it aside because everything's great, or you never you don't open up your bills, you don't contact your do your research to see if you can get a better deal on your different insurance products, or you know, you don't do the homework necessary. And then there's the other thing is that you begin to quickly associate money with math and and there's a very high correlation. Don't get me wrong. You know you do need to have some math skills. But I think so many people are like, I'm bad at math, therefore I'm bad at money. Well, that doesn't know, that's not Don't do that to yourself.

11:11 Don't become a self fulfilling prophecy. And so when people ignore the bills, they ignore the creditors, they ignore their credit scores, they ignore all of the things that can actually help them, that's another sign that somebody is overstressed and they're not in the right mindset. Because you know, if you can give yourself, if you can take a deep breath and sit down and realize, hey, you know what, it's as easy as one, two, three, just get get in front of it, and once you're in front of it, you maintain it. It's like it's like doing yard work, or it's like losing weight at the gym. You know, the first time you walk into the gym, you're you're overweight. Potentially you're definitely not conditioned for all that weight, and you some especially as a guy, and the ladies may have a similar scenario, but especially as a guy, where oh man, I'm gonna go bench press three hundred pals my first day, you know, because we got to show how tough we are, and then we're so sore and so much pain for the next three we don't even we don't go back for three weeks. And that's kind of a similar thing with money, in my opinion, is like you're overweight, meaning you're in debt, you're eating not you're not eating properly, meaning you're you're The correlation there is you're spending more than you're making. Uh, you know, you're you're you're maybe you're you're stressed out and that means that you're maybe you are working diligently to go find this new opportunity because you found this new investment opportunity and you come home. From a guy's perspective, it was for me, it was like, honey, I just found this great new business we need to get in part, you know, and you're trying to catch up, and this

12:41 whole idea of catching up because you feel like you're behind the eight ball now, you make bad decisions, you invest in speculative things that don't get you anywhere, and then the cycle just kind of spirals downward from there. So there's so many correlations between health and wealth. I agree with you one hundred percent on that. Well, one of the things that I've done a lot of of teaching around is the concept of looking good, and so what you were talking about was looking good in a lot of different ways when it comes to finances. So to counter that, what do you think are some good daily habits what you know? Because I always think it's always good to have like these big grand plans, but you've got to get down to individual action plans or nothing is going to happen. So what would you say would be some good daily habits that combine like financial awareness and with you know something. You know, if I say mindfulness, people might go, what does that have to do with anything? But I think it has a lot to do with it, So.

13:44 Great talk to me about So I think some daily habits. Now, one of the things that I think is once you get started and you have some good habits developed, you don't necessarily have to visit them every single day to have them continue to grow and serve you. But in the beginning, especially to establish those habits. You know, there's an old saying that says, you know, a habit is formed after thirty days, and while that's kind it. Was twenty one, but I think thirty is better. Well, what's interesting is the book Atomic Habits kind of goes into that and says, yes, while that is true that a time with the habit is very important, it's almost it's also more important actually to have repetition with the habits. So the more times you repeat the habit, even if it's not twenty days or thirty days or whatever, the day marker is the repetition. How many times you perform the same habit actually is a greater determination that you're going to continue it. And so in the beginning, I would say, the first thing you want to do is you want to learn how to track your income and your expenses. That is kind of the key thing because we sometimes I mean, I don't go to the store every day, but boy, am I tempted to click you know whatever on Amazon? You know, on a regular basis, so keeping track of the money you're spending to me is critical. The next thing I track on a regular basis is I track my assets and my liabilities, and you know, but in business, it's cash flow statements, which

15:16 is your income and your expenses, and it's your balance sheet, it's your assets and your liabilities, so really your net worth, and so to me, those are the things to track. Now those are really kind of fancy terms and maybe overwhelming to somebody who's brand new, But once you get to know how to create a cash flow statement, it's so easy to maintain it, and the same with a balance sheet, super easy to maintain it, and just a couple of minutes you can update it. And whether you update it every day or every week, I recommend in the first month, I have a thirty day challenge that I give to my clients that are maybe struggling a little bit more with these habits, I. Say, And I went through with Paris, I went and I reviewed that whole thing. It's excellent. Thank you, thank you, I'm glad you did. I was wondering, I was like, oh, I bet she's trying to douce a little homework there. So I've had some excellent feedback on that whole program and just people learning how to really track their expenses more efficiently. And then once you know what your habits are, meaning looking back over the last ninety days, one hundred and twenty days and really getting a good track, you know, a good idea of what your habits are, then you create an average, and then moving forward, you track your expenses moving forward, and you work diligently to stay within the average or reduce the average in certain categories so that you can free up your cash flow. The more positive cash flow you can create, the more you're going to have the ability to create wealth and be financially independent free.

16:41 So there's that concept, you know, with a scarcity mindset or abundance mindset, how do you think you shift from a scarcity mindset I'm never going to have enough to a wellness based abundance mindset. What would you say to that. Well, let's I mean, let's go back to the gym analogy. You know, you get into the gym, you get in the gym, and if you go to the gym and everyone there is still fat and overweight. You're gonna be like, what is happening at this gym? Like I'm not there's it doesn't work. But if you go to the gym and you see people in various stages of getting to their health, like you might see some people that are I don't know how overweight you might be, or if you're listening and you're kind of the analogy here, but like, let's just say you're completely brand new to the gym, you're overweight, You're unconditioned, and overweight doesn't necessarily mean that you're like super huge. It could just be for your body type. You know, your height and whatever, your BMI whatever index. And I believe in skinny fat, Like there's people that are skinny but they're just no muscle. So there's that too. So conditioning is important. And I think that when you when you see other people have success that have similar situations to you, Like for example, I know people right now that are on food stamps, and they might say, well, this is just the way it is, is the way I'm going to be. I'm going to be on food stamps and poverty for the rest of my life. Well, I was on food stamps and I turned my card back into the social worker and they were like, what are you doing. I'm like, I'm giving

18:11 you the card back. I don't need it anymore, and they're like, like the shock on their eyes was like nobody does that. You know. I to go from that to having a positive six figure income passive income, and a positive six figure liquid network, not including my house. With including my house, I'm well into the six figures, but I don't include my house because I want to. I want to be raw and authentic, like I built cash, you know, I have cash investments and things that are liquid that I can quickly turn to cash if I need to. And that's a huge to me. That's huge. And so I just want to show people what's possible if you believe it, because if everybody around you is it has a poor mindset. They don't believe it's possible.

18:56 For them, they're not going to get anywhere because it's they were just born to the wrong family, they were born in the wrong skin color, they were born in the wrong neighborhood, and that's I don't doubt that there are challenges. I one hundred percent I agree there are challenges that are real. However, if you believe that that's going to be your life forever, then you're you've done yourself a disservice. There are examples of people from every walk of life, every skin color, every disability, every everything, that have gone on to have great success. So my opinion is that the first step is awareness and then changing your perspective a little bit and getting to know what's possible, not just for you, but for people around you.

19:38 Because I'm telling you that there's a psychological term monology, but I don't know how technical we want to get. But in psychology there's something called the locus of control. People with an external locus of control believe that everything around them is what controls their life, like there's no they have nothing, very little they can do to change their environment because everything out there, the man, the government, that whatever, it's all happening to them, it's all happening to me. God just doesn't love me, you know what A kind of a thing. And then there's those within an internal locus of control. And internal locus of control means I have the power, I can run my own ship, I can do this, I can get up and I can go and I like to partner with God with that my own personal life. Like, I know I have capability and I can do things, but I like to partner with God and say, Okay, God, let's do this together because then I usually, quite honestly, it magnifies what I do like a lot. And so I just recommend that for folks. And so meant I think awareness and changing your perspective and getting around people that are having success where you want to have success, so you believe it's actually possible.

20:42 Well, there's that concept that made me think of you are the sum of the five people that you hang out with. So you, I mean, so you're in a terrible situation, go to the library and go get onto YouTube and look at YouTube videos of people that have been successful. I mean, there's always a way. I don't accept that there is absolutely no way that you can change the situation. So I agree, all right, So what are you think let's change into How do you start changing this situation? What would you say would be the first steps to take if you are serious about getting out of debt.

21:25 Well, there's a funny story that I think. I don't know if anybody's familiar with whoever's listening to this might be may or may not be familiar with a guy named Alex Hermosi. Alex Hermosi is a business guy. He's a bootstrapper. He pulled himself up from living in his car to he's I think he's headed towards billionaire. Frankly, he's worth hundreds of millions, so that's a perfect He wears a tank top and a hat and long hair and a long beard. I mean, he's not the kind of guy that you'd normally think of as a as a multimillionaire hundreds of millions of dollars. And he was on a podcast recently that I was listening to, and he said, you know, if you're at rock bottom, you should have no shame, like go knock doors if you have to, like you're already at the bottom, Like you can't get worse. Yeah, we don't have shame, don't have any preconceived notions, and just get out there and work and go for it and do what you've got to do.

22:16 And I think that's there's a lot of shame and guilt around money because we think we should have done better, we think we should be further along than we are. We think all these things, and it's like, and while that may be true, there's a reality to where you are that you could have done, should have done, and would have done better. But if you live your life and that could have, should have would a world you're going to be in. Ah oh, that's just no way to live. And so recognizing the problem is okay. Dwelling and maintaining and staying in the problem is not okay. Finding there's always a solution, and I would say the first step is just being honest with yourself. Do you have a problem with your money? Are you? And here's how you know? Do you have more money coming in than what's going out? Well, if you don't know what that is, that's the first step. You've got to figure out how much is coming in and how much is going out. If you have if there's a positive number, if you have more going out than coming in, just take a deep breath and realize that's the start. I need to cut my I need to either make more money or I need to cut my expenses, and probably both right there. Man.

23:24 So the next thing you make me think of is I've had people say, well, I can't do whatever it is, and I'm like no, no, no, you need to turn that around and say how can I? And no matter, I don't care what it is, it's like, how can I do this or do that? And so it would probably be just how can I take that first step? So what would you say? Well, I was just going to say. One of the things I've told my kids my whole life is that in our family, we don't say the word I can't or the phrase I can't. We say I need help. And that's when you begin when you realize that every major, multimillionaire, everyone who's at any success in their life, almost everyone like I would say it's I don't. I hate using absolutes because you just never know that there's always that one person who did it right. But everybody that I know that has had major success in life did it with friends, family, and a team or mentors, some coach or something like that.

24:26 Like the top football players in the world, the top baseball players in the world, the top fitness. They always talk about somebody else that helped them along the way. Yeah, mentors and coaches, And so you've got to take a deep breath and realize, look, I'm not doing if you always do what you've always done, You'll always get what you've always got. And if you don't like what you're getting, change what you're doing. That you have to somebody that's going to help you. So what would you say, Okay, so we're going to start, if we had to start as a ground zero, what would be a good system or a good habit that would help someone stay debt free? Because another little thing that I see happening to people is like they'll say, every time I try to get ahead, this happens or that happens. So what systems or habits would you say would be should be in place to help people stay out of debt and move forward.

25:31 Well, I think the first thing to do is get a mental shift, because you have to realize that once you spend a dollar, that's it. You can't spend it again. And so what I it's a really hard place to start, but you have to start with your mindset. If you know that something costs one hundred dollars, you've got to discipline yourself to not and you only have one hundred dollars, you can't spend one hundred and ten. If you only have one hundred dollars, you shouldn't be spending one hundred and ten. Well, with credit cards, we can spend two hundred if we only have one hundred, or ten thousand if we only have one hundred. So you've got to realize that if I can't pay for it right now, I probably shouldn't buy it. And that's there's there's a huge mental shift in that. The next thing I would say is that you've got to build a positive cash flow, And that follows quickly after understanding that you're spending is what's really killing you in finances, and you've got to discipline you're spending. Freedom is on the other side of discipline in all areas of life, and especially financially. And so if you discipline your spending, you're going to have a positive cash flow. Now, if you have a positive cash flow, you might say, what now that I have Let's say let's say that I meet with you and we find an extra five hundred dollars a month in your budget, and you might be saying, with paris out, can you find I do it all day long? I can find at least five hundred is probably conservative. I'll probably find more that you're wasting. In other dumb things, you know, things that you're spending money on. I'm not talking about eating rice and beans after meeting with me.

27:03 I'm talking about, like you, there's holes in your bank account that you need to patch up because there's money sifting through them like fast. And so when I sit down with somebody, I say, listen, now that you have a positive cash flow, what's the next thing you want to do? Almost invariably they say, I want to get out of debt. I'm like, okay, that's a great point. However, if you don't build an emergency fund first, if you have an emergency, you're going to go right back into debt and even worse. So my first, my first thing right after. So it's let's help you shift your mindset, like why are you in the situation you're in? Not from a judgmental place, but let's think about your habits, your behaviors, and your beliefs thus far, and let's figure out you know, when you see something that you absolutely have to have and you don't have the money for it, what causes you to still buy it even though you know you don't have the money for it. Why are you spending tomorrow's money today? And once we figure out kind of the go through that little process. Then it's finding a positive cash flow, and then it's the next thing is build a buffer. You've got to have a buffer between you and the emergency and Murphy and his laws.

28:05 How about that right? And that buffer is my first step because I actually don't buy things. My mantra is spend yesterday's money today, not tomorrow's money. And that means you have to save up. I save up for things before I buy them. And that's a mental shift, and that's that's what keeps me. That's basically, yeah, you're making me think of you know, as I was rebuilding and rebuilding my life and starting over midlife, man, it was if I had to dip into my emergency cash, I did that. But then the first thing I would do would be to rebuild that yes, before moving on.

28:51 M yep. So just to finish up this whole thing about debt and everything. Do you think there's emotional or psychologue blocks that keep people in debt? Oh? Absolutely, because you know, for example, let's say that you grew up and a family that was constantly struggling with money, and you always saw your friends getting the things they wanted but you never got what you wanted. Well, now that you're an adult and you're making money, you might have the delusion. And I'm going to use delusion because I'm using strong language here. You might have the delusion that thinks I deserve these things because I didn't get them when I was a kid, and now that I'm making money, I deserve to have them and I can.

29:35 I will always be making money, that's the delusion. I will always be making good money, so I can afford to maintain it. I can stay on there. I can get on the treadmill and I can run because I'm healthy now and I can run, and I can run for a long time. Well, the problem with that is the treadmill of debt doesn't stop, and if you need a break or you need a rest, you don't get to stop. Like you still have to run. But people don't know that until about the twenty fifth mile and they're like, I a break, Sorry, no breaks, your dad. And so's that theme from a psychological need that started as a child. And then on the opposite side of it, maybe you got everything you always wanted, and maybe you always wanted to have everything, and so because your parents were wealthy, and now your mom and dad are like, all right, you're an adult, now go do it yourself.

30:20 And so you believe that you always can buy anything because that's what you had as a kid. Like we just bought whatever car we wanted, we bought, whatever house we wanted, we bought. If we needed a treadmill, we bought it. If we needed supplements, if we needed a new whatever, a TV, we bought it. Because mom and dad were wealthy and had plenty. But you never gone, You didn't build the wealth to be able to do that. You just think that that came and that's part of your life. And so on the other side, and I'm generalizing here too, Benita, right, Like there's a lot of individuals. No, well, that's why you have somebody that built a business and then they don't do the work to train their family, and then and then the people that inherit that business destroy it. Yep, same thing. It happened several times.

31:02 And so people get as adults. They either get into debt because they just feel like they deserve it because they didn't get it when they were a kid, or they get into debt because they deserve it because that's how they were raised as a kid with being able to buy anything, anything and everything all the time, anytime they want it, and they always want design or clothes and that, and when mom and dads money is not around, they don't have it, but they still think they do and so they end up getting into debt for that in that way. Well, what do you think? What do you think they're the most common financial habits that sabotage that long term success.

31:43 And I can think, I mean, I'm looking at me because I know how after my you know, life changing divorce that I went through, I know how I sabotaged myself. But what do you think? How do what are the things? What do you think the habits are that's avatarge people. I think one of the major habits is, uh, they just they spend from almost as if it's like an addiction, like they just they spend. They just spend money. They need more, they feel like they need. There's an old saying that's kind of fun. I think I think you recognize it. It's like I think it's Oh, I'm gonna I'm not going to say it correctly. I'm sorry you might have to look it up and put it. But it's buy and buy, or don't you worry little want by and by you'll be a necessity or something like that.

32:33 And so it's like, how many times do we we want something nice and we see our friend has the new iPhone and we don't really need the new iPhone, but our friend has it, and they're telling us all about all the features and benefits, and then all of a sudden, we now need it, like we don't just want it, we need it, like we've got to have those features and benefits. And so the habit of I think that's another habit that's that's that's critical. Another habit is not it's actually an anti habit, if you will, it's it's the habit of not tracking your money and not keeping it on top of your finances habit too, in my opinion, And so I believe that those are some of the some big habits that I think people sabotage themselves. Another one is another habit, is the habit of procrastination. I think the best time to invest is twenty years ago, but the next best time is to So people procrastinate investing, saving, looking at their money, just getting started with their financial lives. They'll procrastinate so far that it's almost like the decision is made for them at some point because now they don't they just don't have the time. And so stop procrastination is a superpower if you use it correctly and procrastinate the right things, but it's a complete curse to your family if you are procrastinating the wrong way.

33:53 What do you think Let's talk about coaches and like, you know, I call myself an investor coach. You're tell calling yourself an educator and a coach. What do you think the role of is accountability? You know, partners, coaches, maybe apps? How do you think that plays in changing habits? So there was a study done in maybe I can find it really quickly, But there was a study done that was that talked about the accountability. Let me see if I can find it really quickly. So there was a study by the FCA, which is the American Society of Training and Development that said that if you have an idea or a goal, you have a ten percent likelihood of completing it just by having the idea. If you consciously decide that you'll do it, the goal goes from ten percent to twenty five percent. If you actually do it, you actually embark on it, you have a forty percent chance of completing it. If you create a plan to accomplish the goal, you now have a f fifty percent chance of accomplishing the goal. If you commit to somebody else that you're going to do it, you have a sixty five percent chance. And here's the kicker.

35:08 If you have a specific accountability a partner where you meet with him on a regular basis, it goes from sixty five percent to ninety five percent chance of accomplishing the goal. And that's because you have an accountability partner that you meet with regularly that helps you do that. And that's to me, that's the power or one of the powers secret powers of having a coach is do you have an accountability partner that gives you the I mean, to go from sixty five, which is pretty good, actually, sixty five percent chance of hitting your goal is pretty good. But to go from sixty five to ninety five, like every other increment was like ten or fifteen percent, that accountability regular appointed appointments, account with accountability partner coach jump thirty percent. That's the biggest jump in the whole list of increases. And I think that's that's just powerful having So I did a video. I have a YouTube channel and I do a video. I did a video recently on the day diference between a financial advisor, a financial planner, and a financial coach. And a financial advisor is going to be somebody that has typically their commission only and so they're going to want to sell you something to earn their living. And that's fine because we need to buy stuff. And that's totally cool as long as you know that a financial planner is going to develop a plan for you and then hand you the plans and say typically they'll say, good luck, here, here's the plane, here's where you are, here's where you're going. You know, go find the best way to do it. Where a coach is going to say, okay, let's take what the financial planner gave you, or let's create our own financial plan, because as a coach, I can help somebody find out where they want to go, find out where they are,

36:39 look at the best route to get there, and then I can say look, as a coach, I will provide turn by turn directions, I will provide accountability, and I will help you along the way. I have an example one of my clients. They came to me when they first came to me, There, Paris, we keep getting into debt. We get into debt and then we get out of it, and then we get into debt and then we get out of it. And I'm like, how do I stop the cycle? I want to stay out of it, yet I want to get out and stay out. And then I said, perfect, let's go. And so in the first three months, we were able to pay off ninth Like, we didn't change much of their like, we disciplined their spending, and we were able to get them out of debt by about nine thousand dollars. And because of some of the things I shared with them, we were actually able to increase their overall networth by twenty thousand dollars just in three or four months. And they had a setback.

37:23 Their car broke down and they literally had to buy a car. And they're like, Paris, all this progress is going to be lost because we have to buy a new car. Like not necessarily. There are strategies around how to do this, and so we did. We found a strategy that works, and they're actually their net worth did suffer some, but it still grew, it's the next month we retracted. It were like, let's just see, we were all kind of like biting our nails to see if their networth still went up, and it did. And so it's it's just really neat to be able to see those kinds of things happening. And that's what a coach can do, Like when an advisor, when if your car breaks down and you don't know how to fit that into your budget with with your savings account goals and your investment goals and your income and you're getting out of debt goals. Like when you have something that hits you from out of left field, what do you do well?

38:13 I mean, chat, GPT might be able to help, and Google might be able to help. But what if you can call a guy. What if you have somebody's cell phone number, who's got twenty five years of experience, working with hundreds of people across who knows how many experiences, And I can just do my own my brain, my brain, I teach people, I said, my brain is like Google. It's a little slower, but my brain is like Google. If you put in a question, I'll and I know your situation. Yeah, I'll find you I'll find you two or three strategies that would work, and then I'll explain those strategies, and then we'll implement whichever one you feel the best about. And that's what a coach does. And a coach can be a financial advisor, and financial advisors can be coaches, and planners can be coaches and planners. You know, they all there are some there is some overlap, but I think really what a coach is going to help you do is implement. I have a friend who went to one of these planners, I think it was an American Express or one of these other ones. He spent like five or six hundred dollars, seven hundred eight something like that. He said, and he said, the guy sent gave me. After it was over, he gave me a leather bound, really nice grafts charts, a whole notebook and said, okay, have a great day, and I'm like thanks, you know, we wait to pay.

39:18 You know. He was embarrassed because he didn't know what to do. And he's like, Paris, I have no idea how to implement any of this stuff. And that's like, well, you just spent seven hundred dollars and you have no idea how to do anything about it. Like, that's what a coach will help you do. A coach will help you implement it. And I feel like coaching is a newer, newer part of financial planning and. I agree. And because of that, not a lot of people know what we really do. Number one and number two, I think that not a lot of people actually realize that they need a coach before they needed an advisor and a planner. Yeah, well you make me think about, you know, my own experience. Just to kind of end up on the whole accountability and coaching, I have always I've hired different types of coaches throughout my life. Man, I have gone further and done more when I knew I had to talk to somebody, I knew that I had to report to somebody. And there's something about us, you know, it's that whole. Remember at the very beginning we were talking about looking good. Well, I didn't want to be embarrassed, you know. When it was time for me to talk to that coach, I was like, oh, I better get this done. But it would move me forward just a little bit at a time.

40:33 Yes, progress, Progress is more important than perfection and the direction in which you're headed is more important than the speed at which you're headed. Although it's all those things are still important, But give yourself some grace and realize that, hey, all of us are here on this planet trying to figure it out. I've got a little more experience in this area. You got a little more experience in that area. Let's get together and share our experience and hopefully we'll both be edified at the end of it. Well, I always think, man, the time is going to go. You know, it'll be fine, but it always goes really fast, it does. I want to end up with what small consistent changes can really can lead to big results over time.

41:18 What would you say would be those small consistent changes that you could take. So a lot of times people get as I share. I think I shared a little bit earlier in the podcast about how sometimes people feel like they're behind the e ball, like, oh my gosh, I'm forty years old and I just got started investing I need and then they do the calculators, you know, to be able to have the amount of money that I need by the time I'm sixty five, I need to be putting away, you know, five thousand dollars a month, they're like, that's my whole thing. I can't you know what I mean? Yeah, And so they're like, forget it, forget the whole thing. And so to me, it's more about the habit than it is about the amount of money. So one thing I would say is for sure is that start with what you can, even if it's only a dollar a month, because the habit of saving is more important than the amount you're saving. After you have developed the habit, you can, you'll find that you'll see the results and you'll say, oh my gosh, I've I've got ten dollars here. That's kind of cool. It works, you know, And then you'll save ten dollars a month. Then you'll save two hundred.

42:21 Then before you know, you're saving hundreds of dollars a month, and you're actually way further along than you ever thought you'd be. And so to me, it's those It really does boil down to the small things. And so and on the flip side of that is you have to be very careful with the small things in your finances because it's the small expenses. It's the ten dollars here and the twenty dollars there that it's going to add up to hundreds of dollars every month. I have a great story in that I share with people about that how I learned that. That thing, and you know, ten or fifteen dollars, twenty dollars here and there can add up to hundreds of dollars. And if you're not careful. So that's another really habit that I would do is I would be I would be diligent with where your money's going. And that's to me, that's huge. And then and then the third thing I would say is spend time to educate yourself, because as you educate yourself and become more financially literate, your confidence will increase. Right now, some of the problems that you're having is because you don't know what you don't know. And if you just would learn a few things, you'd be like, oh, wait a minute, I could do that. You mean you mean I could do it this way and have a better result.

43:33 Like most people think that there's only one way to get out of debt. I've got, like I know of personally, like eight or nine strategies that work to get out of debt. I don't use them all because some of them are really weird, But I've helped people with two or three or four, and we pick and choose, and we sometimes we implement and create our whole new strategy just because we pick them for pieces. So I think the small things about one, it doesn't matter how much you invest, it's the habit of investing and saving. Two, it's making sure that you're diligent with you with your expenses, because every ten dollars here and there can add up quickly. And then three is education. Every day, take fifteen or twenty minutes and just learn something new, watch a YouTube video, get a book, read a book that you know that's and read one chapter a day or something like that.

44:19 Just do something every day to become more financially literc is that will increase your confidence and you begin to know things that you don't know now that will help you and increase and everything will accelerate as you as you get that education. Well, and with that, we need to wrap this up, so I want to make sure that everyone realizes that on the podcast website there's the bonus downloads and information on how to get a hold of Paris will be there. And so I would love to just thank you so much for being here with us. This was such an important thing. Most people need to you know, maybe they're already on this road, but they need to rehear this in a different way, from a different perspective. And so thank you so much for joining us today on the Ask Good Questions podcast.

45:07 Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure. All right, thanks for being here. Today's episode is over, but we did ask Good Questions again, didn't We don't miss out as we broadcast live every Wednesday six pm Eastern Time on W four CY Radio at W fourcy dot com. Joined Banina Bellen. We're saying next week for more conversations with experts on finances, retirement, behavioral finance issues, health and wellness and more. Until then, remember to ask good questions.