Uncensored Money Season Five: What's Your Financial Sprint
Melissa Browne: Ex-Accountant, Ex-Financial Advisor, Ex-Working Till I Drop, Now Serial Entrepreneur & Author, Financial Wellness Advocate, Living a Life by DesignĀ | 18/08/2024
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Show Notes
What inspiration can we take from the Olympics for your finances this week?
In this solo episode of Uncensored Money, Mel talks about the extraordinary competitors in the Olympics, examining how we can take inspiration from their practice, so we can sprint through the the next five months, to finish this year well.
Books and resources mentioned in this episode
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Transcript
Mel: Hey everyone. I'm Mel Browne. I'm an ex-accountant and ex-financial advisor, so I have the theory, but I also have the life experience. I'm now financially independent in my own right after coming back from less than nothing in my early thirties. I want this podcast to be like a chat with your girlfriends about money. My aim is to help you discover why you're behaving the way you are with money, to suggest new ways you might behave that are a better fit for you, and to increase your financial literacy and financial confidence. I hope it inspires challenges, educates and empowers you with how you do money. So let's get into it. Welcome to Uncensored Money.
Mel: So the Olympics are finished now, but I have to say one of my favorite parts of the Olympics, the sprinters, particularly the 100, the 200 and the 400 meter sprinters.
Mel: I think before the Olympics started, I binge watched the Netflix Sprint series. I was ready to go <laugh> when the Olympics started. I'd done my research and I just wanted to watch these athletes on the track. Particularly, I love watching the rivalry between the US and Jamaican sprinters because there's just something about watching those finely honed athletes hurtling down the track, their faces, a picture of determination, and let's be honest, a little bit of pain. But what you rarely see until the end of the race and even until those final moments, is an athlete looking sideways or backwards. I mean, let's take the a hundred meters race. When you see the athletes at the start of the track, they'll have their head down, ready to drive off the starting blocks. Now they're not looking left or right to see what their competitors are doing. They're staring fixedly at a spot in front of them.
Mel: And potentially, as we saw with Simone Biles and so many other extraordinary competitors, they're talking to themselves. They're saying, you can do this. You've got this about what they're going to be doing over the next 10 seconds. Now, you might not realize this, but I was a sprinter back in the day, and also I'm a bit of a researcher. But keeping their head down, particularly for sprinters as they're in those starting blocks is a key to their performance for a number of reasons. Number one is it means they're in a forward leaning position, which means they're able to drive out of the starting blocks more powerfully and generate more power from their lower body. The second reason is it reduces air resistance by quite literally making the athlete smaller so there's less drag on the body as they push out of the blocks. The third one is obvious.
Mel: It's just focus and drive. They're just there down. All they're listening for their whole focus is waiting for that gun to go off. And then balance and stability prevents over-striding. It prevents from trying to do too much too early and really not getting into that beautiful rhythm. And when I was watching the Netflix Sprint series, one of the things I found really fascinating is that different runners like Shakira or Noah Lyle were 200 meter runners. And when they wanted to run the even faster sprints, they actually had to work with their coach to how to do that. And I thought that was really strange. I'm like, if they're amazing runners, why do they need to change their style so much? And it was really about that first 10 to 20 meters of getting out of that block fast. They had to work despite them being both of them, incredible athletes, world champions in 200 meters.
Mel: They had to relearn how to sprint and how to get out of the blocks for a shorter race. And of course, once the athlete pushes out of the blocks, they need to bring the head up and look down the track to see where they're going. What you won't see an athlete doing is looking backwards. Never sure they might take a peek as they cross the line sideways, but you are not gonna want to see them looking backwards. The reason why I'm talking about this today in this really short podcast episode is that reminder to you that it is, so much of it is out with our finances, is about sprints, is about focus, is about determination. For me. I was talking to someone one-on-one today where they said, you know, part of where they struggle with is thinking about the next 10 years. I said, well, that's fine. Let's talk about the next six months. And she was so able to do that. She knew what her goals were, she knew where she wanted to be and what she was doing. She'd done the work to look at what do I have, what do I owe? What's coming in, what's going out? But her really, the length of time she felt comfortable focusing on is the next six months, a year out, if she had to,
Mel: I don't know about you, but sometimes I wish there was an easy way, a silver bullet, a magical unicorn, a fairy godmother ready to grant me three wishes. I mean, think of all the miracle diets, fitness fads, promising a six pack in six weeks, or finance bros promising riches by following this easy formula. Do you believe a word of it?Well, the part that longs for a quick fix might be taken in, but you are smarter than that. Personally, what I believe in is consistency, educating myself, finding an expert to help me, surrounding myself with a community who are going to motivate me to keep going and make me feel like I can do it because they're doing it too or are further down the road than I am. That's exactly what we've created inside the My Financial Adulting Plan. If you feel like you're on top of your finances, you have a plan for this year that you're super comfortable with and have everything you need to make that happen, then just ignore this ad. But for the rest of you, make sure you check out my life-changing 12 week course or for less than the price of a cup of coffee a day. Head to the show notes to join the wait list for the next round. Or you might be lucky enough to find that the doors are open and you can join now.
Mel: And I think for most of us, that's exactly right. It's going, you know what, if we try to look too far, it's actually exhausting, especially with so many of us fatigued and overwhelmed with what's going on in life. But hey, the next 12 months, the next six months, the next 30 days, the next seven days, I can concentrate on that. I can do that. I can make a plan for that. I can focus, I can have drive, I can get out of those financial blocks. I can have determination. So my question for you is, what do you need to be doing in the next seven days, 30 days, six months, or let's be honest, five months. What do we need to do before the end of the year for you to sprint through the next five months and finish this year well?
Mel: For some of you, that will involve, you know what? I just need to get rid of that bad debt. For others of you mean I just need to talk to a mortgage broker and understand what it means for me and what do I need to do. For others of you, it's, you know what? I just need to jump on you at the waitlist for the My Financial Adulting plan and spend eight weeks with me before the end of the year actually finally doing something about your finances rather than hoping you're doing enough because you've blinked. And it's August, you've blinked, and it will be December. And nothing changes if nothing changes. But interesting as well, these athletes don't go 100 and then 100 and then 100 a hundred and then rest a hundred and then rest. And this same person that I was talking to today, I said to her, well, she's just done something extraordinary.
Mel: She's just bought a house. You know, she's really proud of that. She's already investing a little bit more into super. She's already investing into shares. And I said, what would it look like if you were to keep doing all those automated great things that you were doing, but you just for the next six months, recovered, rested, delighted in this house that you've bought, hide the money from yourself if you've got some extra cash. I'm not saying that you were just going to go nuts and spend during this time, but how about if you just enjoyed, you could see her kind of going, what? What do you mean? Because again, a lot of us have been taught, well, of course you just go onto the next goal, right? But if you have been following the Olympics, like me, a lot of those athletes, the sprinters, the kayak cross, the BMXs, like every sport, they're gonna have a break now.
Mel: Sprinters, they can't keep this up forever. Even if between the heats and the finals and the semifinals, they've gotta have a break because otherwise we just can't keep going. We've gotta recover. Some of us, we've gotta celebrate as well. So she's actually making a plan that on first of Feb next year she's coming back, she's looking at again, she's gonna talk to a broker, she's gonna look at, right, what's my big goal for this year? And she's so excited about that, but she's more excited because it's first of Feb. What she's doing is she's putting that date in her diary with herself, and she's gonna do it. For some of you, that date in your diary needs to be October with me. Your next month might be your take a breath, and then it's time to go again before the end of the year.
Mel: Cause you really need to do some work to finish this year. Well, and I think one of the things we don't talk enough about when it comes to our finances, yes, we wanna have sprints. Yes, we wanna have long-term goals. Yes, there needs to be focused. Yes, we need to stop comparing. But also there needs to be times of recovery and rest where it's okay for a season or a while just to go, you know what? It's enough that I'm concentrating on what I'm doing at the moment. And we can't have that stretch out and stretch out and stretch out so that we know compound interest is a thing. We know that a time in the market is a thing, but it might be a month, it might be a few months. It might be a season where, you know what, for the next 12 months, well, I've got this baby, I just need to be here and concentrate on them.
Mel: But you know what? At their one year birthday, I am getting back into investing. I'm gonna get back into finding 10 K in 12 months and investing again, like there needs to be a reset. But again, that recovery is really important. This was just a really short podcast episode 'cause I just wanted to really challenge you and just to inspire you to keep going today. And I guess the final note that my takeaway when I watched the Olympics when I was thinking about you, is what we don't wanna do is run a financial race where we're afraid we don't wanna run a financial race where we're running to avoid losing. Where we are just trying to, oh, I think this is what I should be doing. I think someone said 20%, oh, I just don't wanna end up in the poor house. I just don't wanna end up in financial trouble.
Mel: You know, living that life with lack and scarcity. We don't wanna live a financial life where we're we are scared to avoid. And I think because there's so much uncertainty in the world, I think it's really easy for us to wanna just be defensive, to wanna just do the minimum or just do what we feel comfortable with. But the problem is that we need to have those moments of intensity. We need to have those sprints. We need to be able to push out of our comfort zone so that we are not just living in lack, we're also looking after our future self by investing by doing more. So I wanna encourage you to not just be defensive, not just go, oh, I've been saying it for a while now. The certainties in life aren't just death and taxes anymore. They're uncertainty three's, uncertainties in life are death, taxes, and uncertainty.
Mel: So we need to get comfortable with uncertainty. We need to get comfortable with, okay, so this is how it is now. So what does investing look like in uncertainty? What does investing look like for me? If global market uncertainty was just a thing, now what could that look like? How could I be comfortable with that? And then to simply start, if you need help with that, absolutely check out the My Financial Adulting Plan, jump on the wait list. When we open our doors for the last time in October, we are doing something special at this round where, because we know that we're doing this round later than we normally would do in the year. We are absolutely gonna get you all done well before the end of the year, but we are gonna give you six months access so that we know life's busy over summer or over winter, depending on what hemisphere you're in. So we're gonna give you three months extra access to get it all done. But you're gonna wanna jump on the wait list so that you get first in, because as you may know, we have limited spots each round.
Mel: I can't wait to work with you. I can't wait to hear how you are going when it comes to your focus, your sprints, your determination, and your recovery.
Speaker 3: If you enjoyed this episode, we would love it if you subscribed and give us a review, then make sure you come and play with me on Insta. I'm at @melbrowne.money Remember there's an E on the end of Browne. I'm one of those fancy Browne's, and don't forget to check out the show notes for even more ways you can work with me to transform your finances.
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