In the story of your life, are you the victim or the heroine? There is power in the stories you choose, just as there is in choosing financial freedom.

Defined by the choices you make from moment to moment, YOU get to decide whether you choose financial freedom or money stress.

Choose wisely…

Show Notes

• [11.32] Financial freedom is a choice you make, not an income you earn

• [12.40] Financial freedom truly is a choice you make every minute of the day. 

• [14.32] Financial freedom asks “What now?” not “Why me?”
  

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Quotes

"Stepping outside of myself and seeing my life as a story, with me as the heroine allows me to reframe the story I tell myself." - Lisa Linfield

"It comes down to a saying I live by… it’s all about the AND." - Lisa Linfield

"You can choose to spend or you can choose to save." - Lisa Linfield

"The trap I see too many people fall into is to believe that they are so far behind, that nothing they do will make a difference, and so they carry on spending." - Lisa Linfield

"You are the heroine of your own story." - Lisa Linfield

"Every heroine’s story looks dazzling in summary, and mundane when stretched into minutes and seconds and the thoughts in her head." - Lisa Linfield

"Financial freedom is a choice – a choice that ends up giving you the freedom of more choices." - Lisa Linfield

Script:

Choosing Financial Freedom

Hello everybody and welcome to today’s episode of Working Women’s Wealth.  I’m Lisa Linfield, and I’m creating a community of women passionate about making sure that their money works for them to create the life they dream of for themselves and their family.

I hope you had a wonderful Easter weekend with your family.  I’m at the sea again, this time in Hermanus with my family, my parents and my aunt and uncle.  One thing I know is that nature and family fuels my soul.

And so in fact, do the stories of other amazing women.

I just finished doing the Strongest Story course of Deborah Kirsten and Jacqui Mol.  Debbie was my first guests in Episode 3 – and although I was a complete novice interviewer, she was a phenomenal guest, and I’ve always loved their unique method of using the structure of story as a lens to actively reframe our thinking about our lives. 

In fact, it was so powerful in my thinking that since my interview with Debs, I’ve studied the structure of story in depth – both as a tool in writing my book, but also as a tool in understanding how to better express what I’m thinking in a way that others can understand.

It is, for me, truly powerful to know that ALL heroine’s are flawed characters.  That they all undergo two journeys – the physical story we see, but also the transformational journey that happens in their soul.  And it is their transformation as a person that always is the most uplifting part of the story.  As we watch the events that knock them sideways and see them beaten to the ground, we understand why they want to give up, why they’re angry, and we rage at the circumstances or people that caused them to be where they are.  Because, in some way, we are them.  Their stories resonate with ours.

As we watch them transform, feel their struggle, and weigh the choices available to them we cheer them on as they summon the energy to choose a different and better path.  Their stories illuminate that same struggle within ourselves and those same choices we face, and it gives us hope of a different path available to us.

Stepping outside of myself and seeing my life as a story, with me as the heroine allows me to reframe the story I tell myself. 

In the last few months there have been times when I’ve seen myself as the victim of an ongoing seven-month onslaught by life throwing one event after another at me.  “It’s enough!!!” I’ve wanted to shout… “Why Me??”  I’ve felt worn down, defeated, fed up and desperate to just run away and hide.

But, using the tool to step outside the story and become the narrator of an inspiring epic movie has helped me to see other possibilities. 

The possibility of a heroine deep in the throws of action – armed with her shield and sword, bravely shielding herself and her children from the fireballs life throws her… racing to pick up her parents and get them to safety…. Working with her husband as two in-synch warriors battling the enemy with their swords and bodies as weapons.

It’s then that I realise the power of the stories we choose in our head. 

The story of a weary woman, battling to juggle work, three children, a move across provinces whilst dealing with suicide, divorce, cancer, bullying and a child with a broken back is a story of defeat, of exhaustion, of self-sacrifice.

But the story of a heroine in the middle of a battle for her family against the forces that would keep them down, defeat them, steal their joy… now that’s a story that could be one of hope, of joy, of overcoming the odds, of victory… and most importantly, of transformation.

It comes down to a saying I live by… it’s all about the AND.

To acknowledge that yes, it’s not a phase I’d choose to go through again.  Yes, I’ve had to shelve me – my dreams, my wishes, the things that bring me energy - for this season.  Yes, there has been pain and worry and helplessness.

AND, there have been amazing lessons.  Amazing closeness to my family.  The opportunity to speak gently those hard-earned life lessons into my daughter, my brother, my mother, my family and myself.  To be present and real to those I love in a way normal life doesn’t bring you.

AND to choose how I frame the story in my head as I go through this season.

We all have a tendency to see the stories of other’s lives in brief summary form.  Like an Instagram picture that shows the victory, the happiness, the smile and sunshine.  And to experience our own as this long, painful uphill slog with moments of brightness along the way.  That gap to the story of others is what often tortures us – as we create in our heads a story of their ease, and our challenge.

You see, we see the success they have, the victory as the end point, the full stop, the ‘happily ever after’.  We choose to ignore and condense or summarise the journey there, and forget that even after that success there were years and other journeys that happened – other trials, other disappointments, other gut wrenching heartaches, as well as other successes and victories of the soul.  We forget that their journey had moments that still haunt them, decisions they regret, pain they still struggle to heal from, choices they regret.

Yesterday I read a life-changing book.  The Choice, by Dr. Edith Egar. 

The Instagram, physical story would be of two pictures:

·         Firstly, a teenager sent to Auschwitz, freed at the end of World War 2 an emaciated, traumatised Prisoner of War with a broken back having survived physical and emotional trauma most humans never would survive.

·         Secondly, a woman, happily living in America, with three children, grandchildren, a husband having arrived with nothing and successfully pulled herself up from that horrible experience to find physical, material and emotional happiness and success… and using her experience as well as her achievement of a PhD at fifty in psychology to help others get through their own trauma… releasing her first book at 88 and her second at 92.  Smiling, happy Instagram family.

How easy it is for us to see the end of the story and forget the human heroine inside that story?  How easy is it to dismiss her story and her transformation as exceptional, and to categorise her in the box of amazing humans we can never be?

What makes the book so powerful is the humanness of the story.  She contradicts this notion that ‘once you do the emotional work, you forever triumph over your past’ – as she acknowledges that even at 92 she can still have flashbacks that take her breath away as she finds herself triggered by a sound or noise or something she sees and in that instant finds herself back in Auschwitz with all its pain and fear – despite the depth of work she’s done to bring herself to joy and happiness.

I look at her joy, her Joie de Vive, her energy and her passion at 92, knowing all she has survived, and my heart is desperate to follow her footsteps.   So I mine the gold in her book.  Three things strike me:

·         “The Foundation of freedom is the power to choose… While suffering is inevitable and universal, we can always choose how we respond… We suffer most when we believe that nothing we do can improve the outcome.”

·         “Freedom is a lifetime practice – a choice we get to make again and again each day.  Ultimately, freedom requires hope.”

·         Finally, she poses such an important reframe to us… “In my experience, victims ask, “Why me?”  Survivors ask, “What now?”

I don’t know what you’re battling, or how you got here.  But I want you to know that there is hope and that each day you can choose how to respond.  And, it is a choice you will need to make again and again.

So how does this relate to your financial freedom?

Financial Freedom is a choice you make, not an income you earn

I have known janitors, teachers, data clerks who are financially free, and CEOs, executives, business leaders who get to retirement with not enough.

It is completely inevitable and universal that there will be more times you want to spend money on things than there will be times that you want to say no.  The power is entirely in your hands.  You can choose to spend or you can choose to save.

The trap I see too many people fall into is believe that they are so far behind, nothing they do will make a difference, and so they carry on spending.  They give up hope of a dignified independent retirement and so they do not try.

Financial freedom truly is a choice you make every minute of the day.

 A choice of time, a choice of priorities, a choice of long term freedom and joy over short term indulgence.

As human beings we tend to think it’s only the big things that matter and dismiss the small every day thoughts and actions that bring about our overall well being.  If I change jobs, I will be happy.  If I divorce my husband things will be better, or if I have a husband things will be good.  All of those may contribute, but we forget how important the little daily choices we make are.  Choices to put in boundaries.  Choices to stop our own thoughts criticising us.  Choices to show compassion.

When it comes to our money we keep thinking – if I just got a promotion and had more money, or, I’ll save when the children leave home or when the car is paid off.  But we forget how powerful the little decisions of every day spending are, or the compounding effect of small amounts saved each month over a long period of time.

Choose to make dinner, and not eat out.  Choose to take a water bottle to work and not buy a fizzy drink, choose to break up the big bag for lunch boxes and not buy the pre-packaged convenient little ones.  Choose to buy the cheaper tea rather than the expensive cappuccino, or buy the small one instead of the larger one. 

Choose to start today your debit order, even for the smallest amount, to an investment for your future.  Choose to start your emergency fund. 

Financial Freedom asks “What now?” not “Why me?”

Many times I see women overcome with ‘why me’ when it comes to work and money.  In the younger age groups, it’s often when they’re having to return to work after having their baby, and their friends are staying at home.  In the older years, it’s when, following a long time of staying at home, they have to return to work because there isn’t enough to retire, or they get divorced, or their husband dies.  They then see their friends winding down their working careers whilst they are starting theirs, and they think, “why me?”.

Increasing your income is one of the quickest ways to financial freedom.  But it requires bravery and a future focus of ‘what now?’.  Whilst you’re stuck in ‘why me?’ you will always show up less than your best self – resenting the job, resenting your colleagues, resenting your spouse or life.

Increasing your income requires you to make those everyday choices to show up to work the best version of ourselves.  To stick with our side hustle when it’s taking longer than we’d like it to to generate money.  To put in place the boundaries with the boss or colleagues every day that we need in order to stand up for ourselves and create a working environment that allows us to flourish.

And it also requires those big choices.  To be brave enough to set aside our own self-doubt and go for a job despite twenty years outside the work force.  To ask for the promotion or go for the job opening we think we’re only 70% qualified for and back ourselves to learn the rest.  To start that side hustle and approach people to consult or buy our product.  To learn how to use facebook ads or Instagram lives so that we can promote our goods.

You are the heroine of your story.  Believe that, knowing that every heroine we ever read about battled those daily little decisions and doubts.  Forced herself away from ‘why me?’ thoughts and took ‘what now?’ action.  Every heroine falls.  Every heroine is flawed.  Every heroine has days when she’s eating popcorn on the couch watching Netflix.  But she also chooses.  She chooses to rise, despite her fears.  She chooses to reframe her story in her own head despite the temptation to stay stuck because it’s easier and requires less energy.  She chooses to step forward one more time than sitting still.  Every heroine’s story looks dazzling in summary, and mundane when stretched into minutes and seconds and the thoughts in her head.

And the same goes for financial freedom.  Only 1 in 4,000 people ever ‘get rich quick’ – and most of them, because they haven’t built the skillset to manage the every day decisions, lose that money.  Everyone else did it the good old fashioned way of mundane, every day decisions that choose financial freedom over easy spending. 

And, once you reach ‘that number’ of financial freedom – the same behaviour is what keeps you there.  Reaching it isn’t license to spend double what you did before – because you’d need to save double to support that.  Reaching it still involves every day mundane decisions.  But because you’ve built the habits, it’s instinctive to choose freedom over financial stress.

Financial freedom is a choice – a choice that ends up giving you the freedom of more choices.  Choosing if you want to work, where you want to work, and with whom you want to work.

Make that choice today friends.