Smarter Generosity Made EASY!

Have you ever felt torn between helping others and taking care of yourself?Today we're exploring the battle between generosity and self-care. Discover why putting on your own oxygen mask first isn't selfish. It's essential for sustainable giving. Say that 10 times fast. This episode is airing on Wednesday, October 30th, 2024. The

giving season is creeping upon us. We're expected to give a lot this season, whether holiday gifts, you're in donations, but it's also the season with some of the most incredible loneliness, burnout, and stress. If you've experienced this tug between generosity versus self-care any time of year, this episode is for you in a world where chaos seems to reign supreme, where uncertainty lurks around every corner. And financial markets are now more unpredictable than

ever. There's one place you can turn to to find clarity and control. Welcome to the Wealth Wisdom Financial Podcast. Hey, I'm Brandon. And I'm Amanda. Join us as we dive deep in the world of personal and business finance to assist you in navigating through the chaos and building the financial future you deserve. We believe when conventional financial thinking doesn't get you where you want to go, you need wealth. Wisdom.

So if you're ready to take control of your financial destiny, tune in to the Wealth Wisdom Financial podcast because in a chaotic world, your money shouldn't be. Subscribe now and never miss an episode. Welcome back, financial freedom seekers. In our previous episode, we explored holistic wealth and combining financial strategies. Today, we're tackling a topic that hits close to home for many. How to be generous without sacrificing your own financial well-being. And again,

hopefully we are talking about generous people. What we're about to share today stems from a very personal lesson that we learned. We've always been generous, purpose-driven people. Our first business was about making the world a better place. And we knew we needed money, right, to make money, but we also wanted to give away as much of our profit as possible. In fact, we incorporated that business as a low profit LLC or an L3C as it's called in Illinois and

many other states. We were on a mission, money wasn't our focus and we made sure our business incorporation papers reflected that. So Overflow was the business name and what we learned is we wanted to be and and make an impact in the world, but we did not take care of ourselves and so we you can't. Be generous if you have zero, right. And so that was something we

learned the hard way. Yeah, yeah But a couple years ago I was reviewing my Social Security estimation of benefits, which tip, good thing to do every so often to ensure that they are accurately recording your income. Anyway, I was reviewing mine and I noticed that I what I reported as income in 2012, which was like the first couple years of our business, was the amount I tithed to our local church in 2022. Now, what's changed in those past 10 years? Definitely not my passion to make the

world a better place. I still wake up every day with a sense of mission and purpose. We both do, right?Definitely our impact on others has actually expanded more. It's not that my impact is less because I'm I'm making more and you know, whatever. So Are you ready to hear what changed?It's our big idea for

today. So our big idea for today is this. True generosity starts with self-care. Again, you might not hear that anywhere else. Just like on an airplane, you need to put on your own oxygen mask before helping others. In the world of personal finance, this means ensuring your own financial house is in order before extending help to others, which is hard for some people. So. So you think about it if you are a. a person that likes to give, you're gonna keep giving and giving and people will

keep taking and taking. And so you have to make sure you're taking care of yourself, which is hard for the givers. And then you get jaded and annoyed and everything else because everybody keeps asking you because they know they can get it, right?Whereas the other person who's selfish, if you will, is hoarding and they're never asked. That's true. They have all the things they could give and they're never asked for it because it's kind of like if you want something done, ask a busy person.

If you want something from someone, ask a generous person. Yeah. I mean, it's the same in, in, I mean, we're in a financial campaign in our church. They're gonna ask the tithers more than they are the people who are going and not tithing. Correct. Yeah. So let's break

this down. Very practical for you. We've got three key points today. First of all, self-care is not selfish. Self-care is not selfish. By taking care of your own financial health, you're actually increasing your capacity to help others in the long run. Remember, I am tithing now what I used to report as income 10 years previously. Yeah, bananas. Yep. Number two, sustainable giving. When you're financially stable, you can give more consistently over time rather than making sporadic, unsustainable

gestures. Three, lead by example. We're not up here talking about generosity because we're trying to toot our own horn or anything. We wanna lead you and help you be more generous. But also by managing your finances well, you can set a positive example for others, which can be just as valuable as direct financial assistance, right?If you're giving, giving, giving, not taking your care of your own house, what do you think

your children are going to do?What do you think your brothers and sisters are going to do?What do you think your parents are going to do?But if they see you take some steps to build your house, maybe they might do the same. And that actually makes them more generous and kind of makes a ripple effect of what you did. And I think that goes to some of the book, the Five Smooth Stones book. And again, this is the five smooth

stones, right?The one of the principles is the power of pre-decision, right? Pre-deciding what you're already going to do in advance. And that that's a hard thing to do. And we're going to come back to that later. But first, we got a real life example. So Sarah is a social worker who is passionate about helping others. She often found herself giving money to family members in need, even when it meant struggling to pay her own bills. Who's ever been in that position?

Overtime, this led to burnout and financial stress. After reassessing her approach, Sarah focused on building her own financial stability first. This allowed her to not only continue her important work without burning out, but also to make more significant, sustainable contributions to family and causes she cared about. Now we've got some more powerful examples coming up for you on the flip side.

Ready to take the next step towards securing your financial future?Whether you're planning for retirement, saving for your dream home, or you just want to make your money work harder for you, the team at Wealth Wisdom Financial are ready to assist you. And now it's easier than ever to see how we might give you a boost on your financial journey. Schedule a 15 minute discovery call with one of us today. And let's discuss your questions and your financial goals together. Don't

wait any longer. Your financial freedom awaits. Schedule your discovery call at www.wealthwisdomfp.com/call. OK, now I can hear some of you thinking, but isn't it selfish to focus on myself when there are so many others in need? And that's a very valid concern. There's a lot of people and a lot of need, but let's consider it from another perspective. This is one of my favorite analogies. Yeah. Imagine you're drowning and someone jumps in to save you, but they can't swim. Now you're both in

trouble. That's what can happen when we try to help others without securing our own financial footing. And I think I see that all the time. Yeah. One, one, um, phrase that I've repeated on myself over and over again as we've gone on this journey of, you know, self-care and being more generous from that is that it's very hard to solve poverty from the edge of poverty yourself. Yep. Um, and that'sThat's what we're talking about

here, right?If you don't know how to swim and you jump in to save a drowning person, you're going to be drowning right along with them. And now we need twice the effort to save both of you. Yeah. So

here are some ways to win the battle between generosity and self-care. Ready for some practical stuff?The first one is to set some clear financial boundaries. Decide in advance. Use those pre-decisions, like Brandon was talking about. Decide in advance how much you can afford to give. Yeah. I wanna say something on this one is, you know, that that again, tithing or what you put first again in the book, um, the principles of the first is we already kind of know what we're doing, uh, when

it comes to the tithing model. It's not just 10% or whatever, just for, for I don't know, sake of whatever. It's just a way of saying, OK. We're already deciding on that percentage ahead of time, whether it's a dollar or $1000. We've already kind of decided as income comes in, how much is gonna go out to those things. Now on the other side, you might have, um, certain things that come up like a hurricane, right?And you might wanna give

to that. So what we've done is have pre-decisions of what's our, um Charitable bucket. Yeah, that we might give to those things. And we already pre-decided on that too. Yeah, we fill, we put a little bit into that bucket each month. So then when a a big need comes up like a hurricane, we have it there. We can see how much we can get. Absolutely. So that's set clear financial boundaries. Two, prioritize high impact giving. Focus on contributions

that can make the most difference. Here I want to share about a book that we read years and years ago that's now in its second edition called When Helping Hurts. And one of the things I'll never forget in that book is that there is relief work, right?When there's a hurricane or a drought or something, you know that's happened, that people need the basics, food, shelter, water, those kind of things. But then we also need on

top of that rehabilitation work. So that's the rebuilding, right, the Habitat for Humanity where we're building houses, you know, helping to bring that community back to where it was before. And then on top of that is development work. This is the kind of work that helps make sure that people are secure long-term. And that's some of the most high impact giving you can do. And so what we like to do is actually spread our giving between those areas. We have our relief

giving, we have our. Rehabilitation giving and our development giving and that makes that actually is very powerful for us and that has to go with we've set the clear boundaries, we've set the expectations and we've prioritized. We're going to make sure we're making an impact in all those ways. Yeah, I think that's that's huge. Again, it's the power of that pre-decision. Next

is give time and skills. Remember, money isn't the only way to be generous. I think about this as, um, volunteering in our local church and, and or volunteering in other organizations. Um, one of the challenges in our world is people are lonely, right?And so being a volunteer or in those kind of places, it's not just money, it's time, which actually changes you in other ways when it comes to your money. So I don't know. I still see that as usually the generous people financially are usually

giving their time too. And then other people are looking and saying, how come I'm not experiencing this feeling?And it's like both as they're hoarding their time and their money. Yeah, this is a great reminder too, for those that are feeling stretched with high inflation, kids who eat a lot of food, lots of debt, some combination of those or other things where you're like, I have nothing to give. Giving 10% of 0 is still 0, right?

And it can be super healthy, healthy for your body, but especially for your heart, your mind, your soul, to do things like donate unused items in your home or to volunteer. Think about this if you're going through your home and you're finding unused items. That maybe you purchased that have put you into high interest debt. Then you don't get to let the high interest debt keep you off the

hook for giving. Seeing those unused things in your home helps you see that you might want to be more intentional about the next thing you buy. Cause you see, like I bought all this stuff, look what I have to show for it. I don't have much. I'm gonna give these things away. I'm gonna be more intentional about how I spend going forward. Or even giving of your time might help you remember how

fortunate you really are. And that gratitude can go a long way toward a healthy money mindset, intentional spending, intentionally paying off debt, all those kind of things. The cool thing

about it is that generosity feeds into self-care and self-care feeds into generosity. It's not an either or, it's a both and. Yeah, again, I I think some of that is being intentional about what we are doing, uh, with that and again, seeing our. Budget again, we we are a financial podcast, right?So a lot of times people say, well, I don't have the money for that, but we pre-decided

or or we didn't pre-decide. We just bought the thing and now we can't give or spend the time because it's all going to credit card processing fees and stuff like that, right. So remember, if you're trying to win the battle between generosity and self-care, it's not about giving less. It's about being smarter and more sustainable with your giving. It's not about a balance. Again, this is a a

battle that we're trying to win. It's not going to be easy, but it's crucial, we believe, for long-term success, however you define that word, both for you and for those you want to help. By securing your own oxygen mask first, you'll be in a much better position to assist others for years to come. And before we wrap up, I have to share one more metaphor that's helped me so much in this regard. And kind of opened me up to being being ready to grow our income. And that's this.

Money is like a river. It's going to flow. It's always flowing. It's always moving. It's going to move somewhere to someone. They're going to do something with it. Wouldn't I rather have it move through my bank account, my hands, because I know the good I'm going to be able to do with it. I'm not saying others are always going to do bad things, but just that as the money flows through me and through my bank accounts, our bank accounts. We can do more of the good that

we're meant to do in the world. And that's a very sweet thing. So it keeps my eyes focused on, let me, rather than just giving more, what if I grow more of my own, you know, piece of the pie, but also more in my personal development so I can be more generous in some pretty cool ways. Yeah. Again, I think that flowing thing is really important is because money does flow

through us. Um, as if you look at the end of your life and you see how much you made and kept or impact you had through those efforts, right?Whether it's $20 or $200,000, it doesn't matter. But, um, I want more to come through us so we can make a bigger impact in our local community and and in the world. Yeah. So do you wanna learn more about winning the battle between generosity and financial health?Then we've got actually a list of daily affirmations for the

generous giver. It's a list of 15 affirmations to help keep in mind during this giving season and beyond. It's available right in the Wealth Wisdom Financial community. You can join the Wealth Wisdom Financial community at wealthwisdomfp.com and find like log in, get all the things there. We'll also include a link in the show notes and we'd love you to try on these affirmations, try on these mindsets, these good reminders. that, yes, you can be generous, and yes, you

can take care of yourself. It's not

either or the battle can be won. And And ending this, I want to make sure you guys know, get the book, implement the book, Five Smooth Stones. It's on our website. Those things will help you in the pre decisions and frankly I think it'll help you give more. So thanks for joining us. Hit that subscribe button. Not only is this the giving season, but it's also the season for celebrating small business. That's our theme for next month, so subscribe and. Don't miss the next episode and live

long and profit. The topics presented in this podcast are for general information only and not for the purposes of providing legal, accounting, or investment advice. On such matters, please consult your professional who knows your specific situation.