Grit: The Number One Factor in Winning with Your Money #347

there who has not yet read it. But we're gonna be talking about grit in the context of our money, the different things that we need to make sure that we're doing when it comes to our personal finances to ensure that we're getting ahead, that we're actually reaching those goals. And we really do think grit is the number one factor. And we're gonna talk about the other factors of financial success and how grit actually is more meaningful old then a lot of the other things you might assume are

number one. Yeah, we definitely feel that it trumps them for sure. Ye. Well, before we get to that, man, I wanted to let you know I found something out the other day and I didn't realize this, which is interesting because I used the Libby app quite quite frequently. It's they were big fans. Yes, the library app, where you can listen to audio books or you can get e books directly in your hands on your phone for free.

You can borrow that stuff from your local library system, and so I listened to a lot of audio books on there. But there's something I didn't realize that the library offered through the Libby app until just the other day, and I don't know how I was missing this. There was a magazine that I wanted to subscribe to. I looked it up. It was fifteen bucks a year in order to get the physical copy, or fifteen bucks a year to get the digital copy, or I could pay

twenty bucks a year and get both. And I was like, that's not bad, and the magazine has a really cool design to it. I was like, all right, well, I kind of want the physical copy, but for now at least, I decided to hold off. And I was just like doing some messing around on the Libby app, and it turns out they have magazines too, and so the magazine that I wanted to sign up Forum. If I were to opt for the digital copy and pay fifteen bucks. But guess what, I can get it for free through

the Libby app instead. So basically that same digital copy cost me nothing versus first fifteen bucks a year. And like, there's tons of magazines out there that people can subscribe to, so and so if you're a big magazine buff, I just wanted to like put that on your radar. You don't necessarily even have to subscribe to it on your own. You can get it through your library system. Yeah, well,

how does it actually look within the app? Right, because so much of a magazine's design, like you kind of mentioned that earlier, you know, a second ago you said, like the design of the magazine oftentimes really plays into kind of the experience, and it can be difficult to kind of appreciate that, you know, like on your phone or on a tablet, you know, does it look like the magazine or does it just look like, uh, you know, an article on your phone. Yeah, it more looks like

an article. It's it's definitely doesn't have the same the same feel list that a little bit, but you can still get all that information. Yeah, exactly, And I will say too if you want the physical copy, because I agree having a physical magazine copy is so nice, especially for the ones that put a lot of effort into the design work. One don't buy the magazine off the shelf, because oftentimes you can get a whole year's worth of that magazine for the prices, especially that first year. I

mean that first year. Literally you can you can pay five bucks and get an entire first year of that magazine included instead of you know, paying six at a bookstore, right, And there are other sites out there now too that will offer you better prices than going like directly through

the magazine publisher. There's one website I know of called discount mags dot com, and I've gotten um some magazines there before, and I think I was able to get like a year of a magazine I liked for like five bucks, And so that's literally the price of one issue for a year's worth of it. And so for this one, at least for now, I'm gonna, you know, do it on the Libby app. But because the design is so good, I think I'm gonna have to get

the physical physical copy at some point. At some point, I feel like the temptation to buy a magazine in person is the strongest in an airport. You know, yes, that is true, because like you've already you know, you flip through all your social media, you're caught up there. You've read the articles that you want to read the phone, like, you know, maybe you don't want to do email, or maybe you're all caught up on email and you're still waiting, and so you're like, dang it, what am I gonna do?

And so folks either tend to just waste time on their phones or they go over to the little store they see a magazine and they see a cover that interested them, and then you end up buying it there. So instead of doing that, make sure you have the libbyatt downloaded and search that magazine on your phone first. Exactly. I feel like the airport is one of those places kind of like getting a hot dog in a ball park, where you could market it up and people would still

pay for it, doesn't matter. It's like you're so beholden you can't leave the terminal, you know, or whatever, Like you're afraid that they're gonna start boarding, so you're there. You're kind of like locked in. People are obsessed with getting in line first. That's like a whole another tangent that my mind just went to that we're not gonna talk about right now. I appreciate you sharing that tip. That's something that I didn't know. Man. But let's go

ahead and introduce our beer for this episode today. You and I are both drinking a pales in comparison, which is a double dry hop American pale ale, and this one is from Edmond's past brewing. I'm looking forward to enjoying this one and sharing our thoughts at the end of the episode, Buddy, no doubt, me too. All right, But but now let's get onto the topic at hand. We're talking about grit and we really do believe it's the number one factor in winning with your money. Matt.

We we thought about titling this episode, getting gritty with it and uh doing a little Will Smith theme. No no, no, no, no, no. It would have been fun. But as you did a little dance and like a little hand swing at the side, you've got it down, Pat, Buddy, Yeah, actually done. I did it back in the day. If only this was a video podcast, you know, people could have everyone could have experienced. Only it's not well, it just makes me think, Matt, thinking about grit makes me think about when I was

growing up. I played the piano for a few years when I was a kid. My parents basically made me do it, uh, And I really wasn't all about that practice life that you were supposed to do on the side, you didn't have that sticker on the bag again, piano life with a why no, I didn't. I didn't. And because my parents basically like forced me into the piano thing,

I did it reluctantly. And and after a few years my parents were like, actually, we're gonna let you have a little more say in whether or not you want to continue on in piano. And I bolted at the first chance, right, And I've never really played the piano since my commitment level. Where I was on the grit scale, as Angela duck Worth would put it, was pretty low.

And Angela Duckworth wos a psychology professor. She writes about the grit scale, and she's done some of the best research on the subject of grit and I think a lot of what she's found can really help us develop more resilience in our lives in general. But then you and I we think that there's a lot of room for grit development and how we handle our money too,

and then it can have a really big payoff. Yeah, you know, it really does turn out that grit and commitment to how they can have a large effect on the progress that we're able to make toward the goals that we've set for ourselves. So on the flip side, a lack of grit will lead to falling short of

those goals. So, for instance, in Duckworth's research, it's not the kids with the highest i Q who do the best in spelling the competitions, it's the kids that showed the most grit, And so in that case, for those kids, it means it's the kids who most consistently practice. Maybe that's something you feel to do with with your piano lessons. I know, I just admitted it. You don't have the road in um and you know, so this tends to beat true though in other areas of our lives, and

definitely it's true and personal finance as well. It's not always the high income earners that acquire financial freedom the most quickly. Often it's the folks who commit the most strongly to the outcome that they want to see. Yeah, Matt, and of course you and I we want to be those people that succeed with our money, who commit strongly enough, who have the resolve to accomplish those goals that we've set out to accomplish, and we want our listeners to

be in that same boat too. You know. We want to say if we want to invest well in order to achieve greater levels of freedom as we continue on this journey to a healthy relationship with money and then having more of it in building wealth, but how do we cultivate and muster the grit to help us get there.

That's really what we're tackling today. And let's start with a definition from Angela Duckworth I think is really helpful and just to kind of get our minds on it, because if you're to ask somebody what grittiness means, there might be a whole lot of different definitions of people would come up with, and I think she helps us boil it down. She says, Grit is perseverance for very

long term goals. Grit is sticking with your future day in day out, not just for the week, not just for the month, but for years and working really hard to make that future a reality. Grit is living life like it's a marathon not a sprint, and that's what that's what you and I believe about money to right,

it's not a sprint. It's one of those things where you you do have to have patience and you do have to have the resolve to continue at these things that we talk about every week for years and years and even decades. That's true. Yeah, it's selful to have a definition here because it's not like some folks might be thinking grit. Does that mean you just like don't have any manners? But truly it's about goals and sticking with those goals no matter what happens. You can have

manners and grid at the same time. Absolutely, And you know this is helpful too because you know, everything in our world today, like it tells us that what we want, uh, we should be able to get immediately, right, you know that we should be able to see really quick results when it comes to any goal that we've set for ourselves. Four minute abs and I'm like, no, no, that's too long. What the two minute as the four our work week? That's why like looks like that are popular, you know,

the four our body things like that promise. Yes, yeah, I mean we see this all the time, and advertisements about our health, about weight loss. You know, we see this uh with you know, when it comes to like promises of maybe like a new dating app that's going to change your life. Uh. And we also see it play out when it comes to building wealth as well. They propose that it doesn't take much thought or intentionality,

you know, you can just realize those goals instantly. But you know, we feel that realizing that financial success and wealth building it takes time. And this is so important in becoming a gritty person. And so if you think that success is going to happen overnight, you're gonna be sorely disappointed and far less likely to actually continue working towards the financial goals that you've laid out for yourself. We don't suggest for folks to try to get rich.

You know, we're not writing meme stocks to the moon. We are getting rich slowly over here over here at how the money essentially we're calling for for patients in a world of instant gratification. Yeah, man, I think some of those promises we've been promised a lot of things. We've been sold a lot of things where people tell us success is supposed to happen quickly, and then when it doesn't, it actually like breaks our faith, I think, in the possibility of even achieving that thing in the

first place, because we don't have any grit. Well, well, it's also true that, like it's a letdown when someone tells us something can happen in a short amount of time, and it can't actually happen in a short amount of time. And so we want to also tell you the truth here. The truth is that it does take a while. And I think somebody might be asking themselves, like, but you just said that grit is the number one factor and winning with your money. Aren't other things more important than grit?

And I understand the question, But let's maybe discuss a few factors that influence your progress with money and see where grit stacks up among them. And I think, Matt, some people might point to a high income replacing the need for grit, Like, if I make enough money, I don't really need to be all that gritty. I don't have to have the stick tuitiveness with my money that it's going to take to win. I don't really have to behave with money because I make a lot of it.

But uh, and and I understand you don't know me. You don't see my income. You can make a lot of money. I can do what I want exactly. That's what people think. But stats show that one in five people making over a hundred thousand dollars a year is living paycheck to paycheck. It's not that income doesn't matter. Making more money is a good thing for your finances, but making more money doesn't replace the need for grit

and for discipline. There are a lot of uber rich, super unhappy people living paycheck to paycheck who need more grittiness in their lives to be happier and to be wealthier. Yeah, I think higher earners are can always find a creative way to blow all their money. And so another aspect that I think folks might tend to focus on, uh, you know more maybe more than grit, is knowledge, you know, like they might be asking, can uh personal finance book

learning overcome a lack of grit. It definitely helps to have some knowledge and and to have some understanding there, but having it apart from grit won't do the trick either,

you know. In fact, in one study that Duckworth writes about in her books, she finds that smarter students were actually less gritty at some of the Ivy League schools, and that's because people who aren't as smart as their peers, they tended to buckle down and work harder because they had to write, and so they exhibited more grittiness because

of that. And it's an interesting example how not naturally having you know, all the smarts in the world had that, How that can actually benefit you in the long term because you gain more of that grittiness. Yeah, there's a difference between book smarts and street smarts. And it's not always the valedictorian of your high school that's the most successful person. Sometimes it's the person that's more gritty, that's has a little more stick tutiveness about them. Right, And

also too, there's another excuse. I think some people tell themselves that they don't have to be gritty if someone else is doing all the hard financial lifting for them. But is that true? We would say not quite, because a lot of people do rely on their partner to make all of the financial decisions in the house, or maybe on Congress passing a billy to send more funds their way, or on a parent to bail them out

of their money. Mistakes even as a grown adult. And it's not that outside help isn't sometimes important, but consistently looking elsewhere for help means that you're not going to be very gritty and that help won't always be there. Right. Plus, it's self evident that the ability we have to make positive changes in our own lives really does lead to higher levels of fulfillment and satisfaction. Yeah, so when short, you know, possessing more grit, especially when it comes to

your finances, is going to lead to more happiness. But the thing is, dude, it is not a predetermined thing, right, Like you don't have a certain amount of grit that you're born with, uh, and then you can no longer change that. It turns out you can cultivate more grit. And that's actually what we're gonna talk about right after the break. Alright, we'll back. We're talking about grit in today's episode and how that is a huge factor, probably the number one factor when it comes to winning with

your money, and Matt, let's continue talking about it. It's such a fascinating subject and let's talk about how we can actually develop more grit, like the ways to go about doing it. And I think it's important to know that grit is transferable. Aside from personal finance, developing resilience and grit in your life is going to spill over into other areas. Right. It's not just gonna help your money.

It's gonna help you in the workplace. It's gonna help you in your marriage, it's gonna help you raise kids. You know. I always tell my girls, Matt, you can do hard things. Like That's one of the things that they hear me say a lot. When I tell them to come over close to me because I'm gona tell him something. They either I think I'm gonna tell them that, or that I love them. Like those the two things that they hear the most from me. I think, get over here. I am about to do one or two

things exactly. And it's it's cool to see my girls get over fears that they might have had as we like talk through things, and as they experienced the joy

in doing something that they previously thought they couldn't. It specifically makes me think of doing the ropes course at Stone Mountain in Georgia with my daughter, who I think I think she was five at the time, and there's like twelve year old boys who are like scared out of their minds, and like, I can keep talking to her and she gets through it, man, and she did it well, and she wanted to do it again, just like Donkey and Shrek when he's crossing over the bridge

something like that. We watched that recently. It's been a while for me, so I don't I don't know if I remember that, but um, yeah, I think like we can all too hard things and our lives are better when we realize and we live in a in a way that reflects it. And sometimes it's that inner monologue. We need someone basically telling us that we can do something that we think we can't, and then once we do,

we're just like so proud of ourselves. Yeah, it's so true how that spills over that discipline and when you've developed that grit, it can you know, you can see that manifest itself in lots of different areas of your life. And as it applies to money, you know, on a financial level, grit can help you obviously, you know, pay down debt faster. You can help you to slash bills that you were previously maybe unwilling to touch. It can get you motivated to increase that four O one K

contribution percentage. I mean basically, any financial goal that you can dream up can be impacted by grit. But the question is how do we achieve more grit in our lives, especially as it pertains to our money. So that's what we're gonna talk about now, all right. So, I think one of the most important things people really need to start off with, and we've talked about this before on

the show, the why behind your money. Figuring out your why is a huge part of being able to be grittier with your money in order to continue to make the hard decisions and the hard money moves they're gonna help you succeed in the future. It's just easier to be resilient when there's a goal in your life that

you feel strongly connected to. And and and in her book, you know, duck Worth talks about like she connects that with passion, like when you have an interest in something, when you have a passion for something, I mean basically like that's where you start. And luckily, the conversation around money is so relevant to this conversation because we can all identify things that we probably want to do with

our money. Yeah, the bigger goals that we want to achieve in money is obviously a huge part of being able to achieve those how we get there exactly, And Nietzsche said, he who has a hy to live compare almost anyhow. And it's crucial to identify why you're doing the things you're doing with your money in order to make significant progress and then to maintain your resolve to

achieve those goals. Write this wide down because this why is going to be the reminder to yourself, maybe to your family, to you and your significant other of what you're aiming for and is going to allow you to not give up as you encounter obstacles, because we all encounter obstacles, but grittiness is pushing through those obstacles, and having the why is going to lend a massive hand in your ability to remain pritty when those obstacles do

pop up. Yeah. So, for example, it makes me think about like no spend challenges, right, Like pretty much anybody could do a no spend challenge. Uh, it's not all that hard to avoid, you know, buying some junk online for maybe a couple of days or maybe even a couple of weeks. But then I've been doing a no spend challenge for the last fifteen minutes while we've been recording this episode. Congratulations sir, very impressive, right, Uh, you

deserve another sip here. But you know, the question we need to ask ourselves then, is like what happens after that no spend challenges over? You know, because after that most folks will just like resume their previous habits of spending and then all that progress that you know was made, it just comes undone and you know, unravels because the challenge it's not really fun anymore. But when you're able to identify your deeper why, you will have discovered goals

that have a higher level of durability and endurance. And it is such a key aspect of developing grit in your life. So true, So that why is a crucial piece of the puzzle to developing a gritty response in your personal financial life. But aside from knowing what an is that you're seeking after, aside from having that lie, there are also some deliberate steps you can take and specific actions that you can employ in your life that will lead to a higher level of grit and the

greater ability to then achieve your goals. We have to bridge that gap between what we desire and then the steps that we're taking in order to arrive there. Yeah.

Quick example, I had a desire earlier this year to begin waking up earlier, and so for me, a practical step I started taking was to lay out my clothes the night before, right, And if I don't do that, dude, it is a whole lot easier for me to sleep in, hit snooze a couple of times, uh, and avoid doing the thing that I really want to do, which is, you know, waking up early so I can get some reading done. So yeah, let's go ahead and talk then about some of these practical steps uh that will allow

us to begin developing more grit in our lives. Yeah. It's so much easier to wake up when you when you open your eyes and you're like, man, I don't have to fumble around in the dark to get my clothes and they're already laid out for me. Well, for me too, it's the dresser because it's so noisy, gets at at me. I'm gonna wake her up. I better just sleep in. Yes, No, I really do. Like that's

how I justify it. I'm like, well, well, what am I gonna put on what's the temperature, I don't know, But if I check the temperature the night before and lay those clothes out and I don't make all that noise, Like I've got all those decisions streamlined, and I just slide out of bed like a like a silent panther.

You know, you can't hear me. I'm super stealthy. Like there's a lot of reasons, right, Yeah, that that that you could easily give as an excuse to not wake up early, and you got to eliminate as many of those on the front end and can And I think, yeah, similarly, they're just practical steps though, Like that's what we're talking about, you Like, they're just simple things that we can do to begin to foster that that grit in our lives. Yea.

And one of the other things that that Angelo Duckworth talks about in in her book is deliberate practice, and that's a crucial part of being more gritty. It's hard to get better with your money if you're not intentionally working and improving. And she says that actually informative feedback is a crucial aspect of that deliberate practice. And as

we think about our finances. It's it's really difficult to imagine any improvement if we're not sitting down at the end of the month or at the end of the year and reviewing how we actually handled our money. Like, just like with my piano lessons, the lessons only go so far if you refuse to practice. If I had only practiced like three days a week, I would have quickly gotten better and I probably would have enjoyed it

more and I might have kept at it. But my lack of grittiness, my lack of deliberate practice, really led me to hate playing the piano and dread going through the lessons. Right. Yeah, so let's apply that then to

our money. Right. So this specifically means that, like, we likely need to track our spending so that we have the data in order to provide that you know what what Angela calls that informative feedback, you know, and so you can do this automatically with software like Mint or personal Capital, or you can do it you know, the way I do it kind of longhand do it via Excel.

And I again we've talked about how I do that intentionally because I feel like it I don't know it kind of embeds into my mind a little bit more when I have to enter those you know, those purchases in myself or you know, when I paste them over from for my credit card. But you have to see the multiple times that yeah exactly, Yeah, yeah, I touch it more often. But you know, you need to figure out what it is that's going to work for you. You know, we we live in a culture that tends

to avoid this type of reflection. We're always looking to the next best thing. But if you're trying to improve your financial situation, you need to make sure that that you're facing the truth, you know, and that you're giving your spending and your saving and honest, look, you need to reflect on what it is that that's working, what's not working, uh, and then also to like make some tweaks.

You know. That's that's a big part of what she talks about as well as kind of it's not just about receiving that feedback, but it's about modifying it and refining it so that you can continue to move, you know, down the path that you want to be progressing down. Yeah. One one of the other important things too, in developing more grittiness in your life is to start responding to mistakes that you make differently and learning from them instead

of letting them define you. That's another problem I think a lot of us have struggled with matt over the years, is like letting a mistake really get you down and mess up your next decision and the one after that. It's it's like lingering effects, right, because we're beating ourselves up. But instead of ray yourself over the coals, is there something that you can do one to minimize that mistake?

Probably there's probably a way that you can make that mistake less bad by doing something else proactive in order to minimize the negative effects. And then and then you can ask yourself to how can I avoid making the same mistake in the future. The non gritty response is to let that mistake linger to get you down and to compound on itself, causing you to make even more mistakes in the future, where it defines you and who

you are and the difficulties that we encounter. I feel like they can either harm us, causing us to lay down and just accept our circumstances and say Fate has dealt us this blow and and this is just the hand we've been dealt or it can be more like a kick in the pants that causes us to gut it out even harder. Maybe you're realizing that you've financed a brand new card to dealership and your interest rate is terrible, and you can just say, this is a mistake I've made and I'm an idiot and I'm bad

with money, and you can continue to go down that road. Uh, And that's only going to be a self fulfilling prophecy, making you worse with money in the future. But if you could refinance that loan at a credit union and and get your payment down, or if you can sell that car and buy something a whole lot cheaper, you're

gonna take a hit. Right. It doesn't mean that mistake doesn't affect you financially, but there are ways to get out from under that mistake, to minimize it, and then to move on from there and say, you know what, I just made some good moves after a bad one, and I do know what I'm doing with my money, and that can have a positive influence on your ability to continue to make progress. And then of course make

sure that you never do that again. Right. Uh. And you know, according to duck Worth, again you know this is also why hope, why it's foundational to becoming more gritty, uh, you know, to rise to the occasion and to kind of just keep on going even what it is that we have our doubts. You know, this might be similar to those those signs in a marathon that are, from what I hear, seemingly impossible to get through. You know, like that's never run a marathons where you hit the wall.

I've run a half, multiple half marathons, but never the marathon. I don't know if I knew you'd run multiple half marathons,

so you didn't know that, I don't think so. Yeah, I mean so for me, it's always you know, it's difficult, but you know, full full on marathons they say that like around I think mile twenty twenty one, like that's when it's it can be really brutal, evidently, but you know, it's about continuing to put one leg in front of the other, you know, like that's the only way to realize the goal that you've set for yourself, and you you've got to have that hope at every step in

the process. You need to remind yourself of that regardless of where you currently are, and I don't think marathons are in my future, but but do you think that is a good example of what grit looks like is someone training for a marathon and then actually performing the marathon, And from everything I've read, it's it's brutal. Yeah, those last four miles are really really hard, no matter how

well you've trained. Marathons aren't even in my future, like like I might do another half, but even hals like it's just too much of a time commitment because like when you're training for those like yeah, you have to also run that far or when you're training, so it's not like you just run for you know, a few hours just on race day, like you're running for a few hours plus you know, warm up, cool down, stretching like that whole thing, like several times before the race.

And so it is a massive time commitment. Yeah, I mean a lot of insane the runner friends I know, they're running long distances for five days a week, and so yeah, it's a big commitment. And like too, as we're talking about practical ways to develop grip, there could be simpler and more straightforward approaches to like something as simple as using social media better too, much social media can be a terrible thing when it comes to being

satisfied with your life. Like doom scrolling is not just unproductive, it creates new wants, moving the goal post in our lives and giving us new metrics that we have to achieve. So instead of having to run twenty six point two miles, now we've got to run, you know, a hundred mile three day race or something like that. Right, Or when it comes to normal everyday stuff like taking a nicer vacation or buying some new clothes, it's like, you know what,

now my financial wants have increased. The things I need in my life they're more and social media has a lot to do with that. And that's a problem when those are things that you don't care about, right because obviously, you know craft beer equivalent, Like what's your craft beer equivalent? We talked about that on the show or every time we talk to a guest, you know. But if that's something that you care about, then then sure that that's great.

That's a way for you to challenge yourself. But when it becomes this default way of processing the world or fund you, when it becomes this sort of default consumption, that's being fed to you. That's when it's problematic because these are things when you self reflect, you realize that they don't truly bring you happiness at all. Yeah, I feel like every time we move the goalpost too, it has that effect of weakening our grip muscles. And not everything.

You can have a couple of craft beer equivalents, like I suggest a maximum three, and then like that's That's one of the things we talked about in our Wife behind Money episode is having like three things on your list. It's like, I'm willing to spend extra money on these three things, but then not not everything can have that place.

And if you have more than three craftier equivalents, three things that you're willing to kind of spend lavishly on while you're trying to invest wisely and save, well, there's gonna be too many and you're gonna end up broke. You're gonna exactly It's true. And also here I'm gonna provide a counter because I think that social media can be a helpful tool that we can use more effectively,

you know, like modern technology. It allows us to surround ourselves with other folks out there who are seeking the same things that we are. And so what that means is just making sure that your choose who you follow, making sure that you're being intentional about the Facebook groups that you belong to, because I can have an important effect on your ability to stick with the goals and

to to keep you know, your grit levels high. I feel like you can even use your you know, social media to help you to focus on your specific goals, like whatever your craft beer equivalent is, make sure that that's kind of front and center in your mind. I

feel like Kate does us really well. When it comes to her wanting to learn about something, she will, you know, follow certain people on Instagram or lately I've I've I'm such like a you know, it's not even winter anymore, but I'm such a nerd when it comes to like the wood stove and stuff like that. But I follow this hashtag wood stack and it's just a bunch of pictures of of folks who have like chopped up would but that it puts it more forefront in my mind.

And I see that and I'm like, oh, there's folks out there chopping wood and they're being physical, They're they're using your bodies, they're burning calories and it's also a good way to use trees that have been cut down in our neighborhood. Right, But maybe for you that means like taking a trip out west or you know, like like say, for instance, you want to go to Yosemite.

Well maybe you can follow hashtag Yosemite, and so you see pictures folks are posting who have gone there, and so instead of being tempted into you know, buying some you know, something that's that's being fed to you, you know, in your feed, instead you see somebody, uh, and then you know you've got half dome in the background, or you've seen that they've like climbed El Capitan or something like that. But find ways without a rope. Alex told, yeah,

he needed that. Well you might also if you do that, you might get some Yosemite sam gifts in there, which actually would would be fun to feel a nice way to kind of switch it up. But you know, social media it doesn't have to be all bad. There are ways that you can strategically use that, whether that be with the folks who you know, you allow into your life, you know, through the groups, or through the different images

that you allowed to be you know, fed to you. Yeah, by the way, shameless plug for the how the Money Facebook group. Great group of people helping each other out. That is an effective use I think in social media. Right and and there is no hashtag how the Money or we're on Instagram, but no current hashtags at the moment at least we are not trending. Yeah, all right, Well, we've got a little bit more than we want to get to cover when it comes to developing grittiness and

stick tuitiveness in your personal finances, including mindset. That's a really important part of this, and we'll get to that and more right after this break. All right, we are back, and dude, before we kind of move onto the mindset talk, which you you know, you tease to there, another important aspect of developing GrITT in our lives is the community,

you know. Like we kind of touched on this a little bit when we're talking about social media, and earlier on too, we mentioned how you know, being dependent on someone else kind of reduces grittiness to a certain extent as well. If, for instance, if we are refusing to educate ourselves when it comes to our personal finances, or we're not paying attention to how much we're spending um. But that being said, we all need some help. We all need a certain amount of community on the road

to building grits. Uh. Not that you know, you can do hard things all by yourself, but enlisting the help of a friend or a group can be crucial in the pursuit of more resiliency. You know, like, these are the folks that are gonna help pick you up when you're down, and they can remind you of your goals

when you're maybe when you're ready to give up. You know, it just makes me think of working out, Like just ask any of those five am workout groups if if they would still be kind of doing this on their own, right, are you You're still gonna be working out at five am if it weren't for the other people if nobody else shows up, Yeah, and your posse you're going back and get in your bed too. It's not gonna happen,

That's right. And not only is it about what your community and those you love can do to help you out, but it's also critical to remember those folks as you're working towards your goals because you can help them out. Research also shows too that when we're able to link whatever it is that we're seeking after to the well being of those around us, then there's like a much higher chance that we're gonna have the ability to stick

with it. Essentially, we become grittier when we know the work and the goals we're seeking after have a higher purpose. For instance, if you have a goal to give away let's say ten of your overall income this year, that's a big goal, but that can cause you to be even grittier in sticking to your budget when you have this higher goal of supporting a couple of nonprofits where you live. When what you're doing isn't just self serving,

it can actually increase your grit abilities. Yeah. Yeah, there's other people depending on you, right, and I think maybe it's more of a stretch to have to remind yourself of those things. You know, if you're maybe if you're single, but certainly you know, once you have a family, you can think about that as well. You know, you've got a spouse, perhaps that might be partially or fully dependent on your income. You might have you know, kids who

like there their well being in their future. Uh, you know hangs in the balance to it to a certain extent, and so it's it's good to remind yourself of those things as well. And so community, family, all of those things are really important. It's important to remember other people as we seek to foster and grow more grit in our lives. Uh. And let's touch on to dude, like how we think about things right, A mindset shift is a huge part of developing grit. Gandhi said that man

often becomes what he believes himself to be. And you know, we've tried that before being superhero. It didn't work out, didn't work out for you. I was like that, my Gandhi. But yeah, well here's some truth here on how the money. Like we don't talk, you know, much about self actualization, but spending more time thinking about like who do you? Who you want to be? You know, think about you know,

the life that you want to live. And while you do that, think about how money influences those things, because it can be really powerful and so purposefully changing your lifestyle to maybe own less and to intentionally choose to forego purchases and opportunities because you have something bigger in mind is self empowering. You know, with that comes a change and how you see things. Uh. And it's kind

of interesting because you know this mindset shift. Typically we try to, like in episodes we're getting a little meta here, try to end episodes with with advice that's you know, our thoughts that are maybe a little more practical. Uh. And you know, a shift in the way you think about things may not seem very practical, but we feel that this is such a powerful way of you know, changing how it is that you view everything in the world. That we wanted to make sure that we ended on

this high note for sure. Yeah, and proper perspective is such an important heart of being able to be resilient and to develop grit. Matt One of my favorite economists, Thomas Soul when he was talking about the economic concept of scarcity in his book Basic Economics, I know, I'm really cool. I read really think economist textbooks and it's fun rich mahogany, like the smell of leather exactly in my library with the ladder that goes back and forth.

But he said that middle class Americans desires exceed what they can comfortably afford, even though what they already have would be considered unbelievable prosperity by people in many other countries around the world, or even by earlier generations of Americans. And he summed it up by saying, there has never

been enough to satisfy everyone completely. And to me, Matt I read that in my job kind of dropped him like this is in an economics textbook and he's speaking like to the heart of humanity that there is never enough to satisfy us. And we have to realize that we have to take on this perspective in order to

become grittier. We can become a slave essentially to our wants and desires, and we have to realize that there's never going to be enough that's going to satisfy us if we do take that road, and so we almost have to develop grit because the only other option is disappointment and unhappiness. Yeah, dude, having the right perspective is

so important. It makes me think of George Banano, who is a psychologist at Columbia University's Teachers College who has been studying resiliency for decades, and he asked the question, do you conceptualize an event as traumatic or as an opportunity to learn and grow? Events are not traumatic until we experience them as traumatic, and so you know, basically what he's saying is that we have the ability to

filter the events that happened to us. You know, we can let them weigh us down, inhibiting our ability to construct a more meaningful future, or we can use them as stepping stones to to something greater. And so again George says that we can make ourselves more or less vulnerable by how we think about things. And so, you know, this is why we're talking about this, because reframing negative things that happened to us is a powerful tool to

build grit. Framing is so crucial. And yeah, I know we're getting I feel like a little meta here or or even a little off the money track to talk about this mindset, but but we do think it's so important that reframing that proper perspective, and that it makes me think too of Like I mean, I don't know if you've ever read Man Search for Meaning. It's it's actually a pretty short book, but it's a really powerful one.

And the author was Victor Frankel, and he was stood a lot of horrific things in concentration camps of World War Two, and really what he credits his ability to continue living everyday life in the face of such atrocity is his belief that life can have meaning even in the most miserable of circumstances, and and that motivation comes

from finding that meaning. And part of his meaning was this book he had in mind that he wanted to write, that he wanted to get out there and not helped him get through some of the worst days any of us could ever imagine living through. And part of developing this solid perspective is to take a step back and look at our current reality and how that compares to the scores of others who are currently living and those who lived before us. We talked about this in a

fairly recent episode on Luck. But we live in the richest, safest society in the history of the world, and yet there's this distinct lack of satisfaction in so many lives around this country. It's really hard to figure that out. That comes from not having a real perspective about what a good life looks like. And in Victor Frankel's case, you don't even have to live in abundance in order

to find real meaning. And I think we can all draw lessons from that right that we don't have to have all the things in order to be happy and actuality. In all likelihood, having fewer things is probably going to make us happier, that's true. Yeah, And so you know, a key aspect of developing grit in our lives is viewing our money goals as more of a challenge instead

of an obstacle, you know. And and we feel that this is going to provide the mindset that we need to be able to accomplish our goals and so frame those those setbacks as maybe a hurdle to leap over instead of something that's just you know, bound to trip you up. Uh. And you know, this kind of starts to get into a related finished concept of c su uh. That's you know, s I s u if you haven't heard the term before. But that's where there's like this

determination and almost a joy and experiencing adversity. But you know, we would recommend for our listeners to be resolute in the face of adversity and to see these different challenges and hardships that you might encounter as something that you can even welcome or embrace rather than avoiding altogether. We feel that that's maybe the best way to develop grit in your life. And even though just changing the way you think about things and changing the way you see things.

It feels very nebulous and it's hard to to kind of wrap your hands around. But if you are able to do that, you're gonna find that that's probably also to the most practical thing that you can do, because you can apply that to anything and everything in life that you encounter, uh that you know some on the outside might might see as negative. Instead with a proper perspective, it's something that you can see as something that will

allow you to grow even more. All right, man, I feel like this was a bit of a heavy episode, certainly a little bit outside of go into World War two, a little bit our natural tendency and the wheelhouse that we'd like to to stay in. But we thought this

was an important thing to talk about. And I do think that developing more grittiness in our lives is going to have just a massively positive benefit for people in their personal finances, in the more rapid ability to make progress towards those more meaningful financial goals that they have. So hopefully this wasn't to open the clouds, and there was some really good stuff for you to take away in this episode two, But Matt Let's quickly moved back to the beer that we had on today's episode. This

one is called Pales in comparison. It's a double dry hopped pale ale by Edmund's Oast brewing out of Charleston, South Carolina. What were your thoughts on this beer? Man, Edmund's Oast always makes some really delicious beer. Um, and I'll say, as we poured this one, this one was especially pale. Is a nice, beautiful pale yellow and the perfect beer, uh, to enjoy after you and I so we both hopped on our bikes this afternoon and rode

over and picked up the girls from school. This is the kind of beer you want in the spring as it's warming up to be enjoying. You talk about grit, you know, but yeah, really good. You know, there's definitely a lot of hot presence without being overwhelming. I'm definitely enjoying these these hoppy pale ales. But yeah, what were your thoughts? Yeah, you want the sweat in your hair and the burned calves before you start trying to start drinking this one. Yeah, it was. It was delightful. Man.

It is a refreshing pale ale that is perfect after a bike ride. And it's nice, as we're talking about this episode, to be able to like experience, you know, just the taste of some of the rewards of what we work so hard for. Right, It's like we are gritty because then we get to enjoy delicious beers like this, Right, you earn those calories exactly. Yeah. The bike ride almost like makes it makes it even more beautiful and tasty. So yeah, I think I think so. All Right, Well,

that's gonna do it for this episode. For folks that want the show notes for this episode, you can go to our website, how to Money dot com. Yeah, and if you enjoyed this specific episode, this isn't our typical kind of topic that we covered, but hopefully this one resonated with you. And if you haven't left us a review over at Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, we would love it if you were to head over there leave us a solid review, and we thank you

in advance. So, Joel, that's gonna do it for this episode, buddy. Until next time, Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out.