Gather ’round, y’all. Bon’s gonna share a little story about how she first experienced something that had a lot of emotion and stress, then came to find its purpose really meaningful in reframing issues of money at a much higher scale.
Whether your lessons are coming in at the $20 level, $200 level, or $2000 level, you can reframe the way you think about financial “burns” you’ve had so that you don’t have to keep learning the lesson over and over.
Also, when you realize you’re sometimes not paying for what you THINK you’re paying for, you can have a much cooler relationship with everything from “shorted contracts” all the way down to annoying parking tickets or airline change fees!
Let’s dive in!
How can you reframe your relationship with financial lessons so that you can stay in receiving mode as much as possible for the riches headed your way at the next tier?
Let’s jam!
Ok, I think I have a $200 Lesson. This happened approximately a year ago, and it was horrendous! Also, like Bonnie, concerning flight botch ups! I had paid for a flight, to go see my family in Holland using, some unexpected royalties money that had just landed in my bank account. When I booked my flight, I realised I had gotten the return flight wrong as well, by 24 hours. I made some enquiries with the airline, as to how much it would cost to amend my flight. But unbeknowns to me, as soon as they went in to check alternative times, I was already forfeiting my return bound flight. When I arrived at the airport, not having actually finalised the changes, they refused me to let me onto my already booked and paid up for outbound flight. I had to forgo the entire flight and buy a whole new ticket. (I chose a different airline company). I was really mad at how, I had managed to manifest this money into my life, as a blessing, and then how quickly I had allowed it to dwindle! Horrendous! I was so mad, at myself, the airline, everything!
How would I reframe this today? I was going to visit my newly born nephew, some things are more important than money. And I would have gladly paid quadruple the ticket for a chance to see him. Family, love, fellowship, communion. I had also just split up with my then boyfriend, who was also in Holland. I had wanted to arrange to see him, but he had decided he didn’t want to meet up. I think I felt shattered about it at the time, but now, I would have gladly have paid that extra money over, so as not to have seen him, and then continued to squander money on flogging a dead horse and rekindling something that was already dead in the water. That would have been way more expensive, now I am happy, and in wonderful relationships with friends and family, the best I have ever been, with the best people around me, and without any residual trace of ex boyfriend energy in sight! (Much to his disappointment!) The price of getting clear about what really matters in life, was worth that lesson. And today I think I am even clearer that the things that bring about abundance, and leverage financial stability don’t cost anything at all. They are about your joy, about spending time with loved ones, and being kind, enthuisatic and virtuous, creative and adventurous. These are the confidence builders at the root of fincancial abundance!
A-frickin’-men, Gracy! YES! So good!! Soooooooooooo good!
I love all of this! “Everything happens for a reason” is my favorite concept ever, and it sounds like you’re stronger for that shitty experience! Git it, Gracy!
Hero of the moment lol!! I’ve never heard that term but its perfect. Yikes, how many times I have met that guy is hard to count. The main lesson for me on this is that I’ve met hero of the moment so many times and fell for it, that I can detect it a mile away now, like even before the person talks. I don’t necessarily have a specific story, but I remember trips I used to take with friends or friends of friends to my family’s vacation home when I was more naive in High School or break from college where I would drive and pay for the gas, get the groceries, tell them all the chores like cleaning or trash and stuff before we left. Tell everyone what they owe to pay me for the gas and groceries.
It always ended being way shorter than what I had added up beforehand. And the chores always ended up getting half done so more work for me. I would Tell someone “hey um you still owe $40” and hearing “oh yeah bro ill get that to you next week for sure.” “Oh yeah sure, no problem man.” Yeah, no more of that, ever. I learned that this is still very true even as a full grown adult unfortunately. I never deal with a large group of friends or friends of friends anymore, especially if I’m the one planning things. I only deal with one or two close friends I know I don’t have to worry about that kind of thing with because I don’t want friends that behave like that anyway.
It’s just too much of a headache and it’s hard to even have a good time when you are on a trip. I’ve had this even more ingrained permanently being a personal trainer and trying to depend on people for your income that frankly don’t give a shit, where I’ve been able to now cut off and be like “no, you are toxic in my life and my business and I don’t want to do business with someone like you, you do not call the shots and make the rules here.” So I’m grateful for those experiences as a younger guy and I’m able to know now when it’s coming and then immediately step away and remove myself.
Tangentially related, when your default mode is “paying for everyone and trusting they’ll get you back later,” the incremental fix is to do an event, excursion, even night out with the gang and NOT reach for your wallet. Not because you’re expecting THEM to get you back, but because you want to build up the tolerance level for the go-to you have such a strong muscle for in taking care of everyone else. Keith has a similar one of these (he always wants to HELP everyone out) and before we’ll go out I’ll say, “Your job is not to help anyone.” Not because I don’t want him to be helpful, but because he’ll exhaust himself, his kindness will get abused, and maybe it’s okay for HIM to be helped out once in a while.
So glad you can spot Hero of the Moment action early on now. Really helpful!
This is great!
Also, I think this an an age-old adage, but I have to remember not to loan things I’m not willing to lose. I never got my afro wig back, guys. I finally “closed that check” by buying a new one. And now….I am free. And I’ll never loan a wig again.
Oh my gosh, yes. Books… that’s my biggie. Or it was. I’ve gotten less attached to them somehow recently (maybe due to the whole digital option for so many of them now), but if it’s a book with my notes in the margins or it traveled with me somewhere… it’s a no-go. Glad you bought a freedom wig!
I thought this was a GIGFTNT day I missed, but it’s a newbie! haha
I think the biggest “$200” lesson I’ve learned (WAY MORE in this case) has to do with not letting anxiety force you into making a decision before you need to. A year and 9 months before the date we wanted for our wedding, my now husband and I were doing research on venues and were thinkin about this farm (rustic!) location in upstate NY. Before we figured out all the extras needed (outside food vendors! rentals! DJs! All the shit I should have KNOWN from cater-waitering so many of these damn things!), and before we’d even seen the location in PERSON, we allowed the owner of the place to put the “you should book soon, because the dates are filling up!” pressure on us, and we folded. Put a down payment. Signed a contract that clearly said “no backsies”, but after we’d realized the rest wouldn’t work (the food truck people are mad expensive! How are we gonna get his wheelchair bound mom with an oxygen tank to a BARN? Planning from 4 hours away is hard AF!), we tried for a backsie. And she was like “uh, no.” We thought we were in the right seeing that it was WAY over a year out. We tried to appeal to her humanity and get our down payment back, BUT, rightly so, she’s a business woman in the business of marriage and we fucked up, as hard as it was to admit. We got married in 2016 (a year and 1/2 later) in a nice, closer, smaller restaurant venue with an elevator, an outlet for oxygen, and a beautiful-ass sky for pictures. Lesson learned: If there’s anxiety involved in a decision (even happy-excited anxiety sometimes), step back for a second before you make it. If it’s the right decision, it’ll still be there waiting for you.
This!
Yes, yes, and SO yes. Very well said!
Thanks!!! 🙂