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THE SKY IS FALLING! That is what it feels like for most of us in Alberta right now. As a resource heavy province where a substantial amount of jobs are oil and gas related, hence why most of my conversations with clients, friends, family and random strangers seem to end up in doom and gloom talks about how bad this year is going to be for our economy. (Although, I have personally tried to do my part to boost the economy by buying more shoes, however, I feel my efforts are in vain. 🙂 )

Most of these feelings stem from a place of fear and worry, and not only are they doing emotional and financial damage to your life they are also robbing you of today’s possibilities, happiness and the enjoyment of being in the moment.

I think this is what happens. We get all concerned about ‘stuff’ that is out of our control, and we become notorious to try to make sense out of our crazy world.

GUESS WHAT! The world will NEVER REALLY MAKE SENSE!

So what do you do when the political party you didn’t vote for gets into power? You lost your job? Or the market drops 10% in one day? Or someone completely freaks out at you for no good reason? Or you think the world is coming to an end and your Shmita is over?

These have been my biggest struggles: WORRY! FEAR! FREAKIN’ CONTROL ISSUES! (Do I hear an AMEN?!)

I remember fear from the first time my cousin taught me about global warming in grade 4 and I remember having nightmares and thinking the world would end. I don’t think I slept for days because I was scared that the world would heat up like a big ball of fire the next day.

I also stored up a basement full of water and food for the end of the world in 2012 – We are still eating the rice and the occasional canned good!

Fast forward to now.

I still get freaked out about the things I can’t control, but now they aren’t consuming my time or pulling me away from my passion the way they used to because I’ve done this simple exercise that I’ve outlined below.

I believe we are all here for a reason, and we all have amazing gifts to share with the world. The problem is when we are letting fear and worry run rampant in our heads, like a kid-on-popping-candy-sugar-high, it will stop us dead in our tracks from accomplishing our purpose.

This is how you handle fear and worry:

You take a piece of paper. Draw a line down the middle.

On one side you write “All the Things in my Control” and on the other side you write “All the Things Not in my Control” and then you list them.

For myself, this is what was on my list of “What I Control”:

All the Things in my Control

• Run/Walk/Fresh Air for an hour a day
• Write for an hour a day
•  Call X number of clients a day
•  Send LOVE to my family and friends
•  LOVE like crazy on my 2 girls
•  Put myself out there with my message everyday
•  Watch what & how much goes into my mouth
•  Design my living space as a place I enjoy so I can love where I write, work & live
•  Vote
•  Be respectful of others
•  Learn – Gather Information to help others or to make an informed decision
•  Save Money
•  Create a Financial Plan, Business Plan, Launch Plan, Life Plan, Exercise Plan
•  Listen to others! (That one I’ve gotten way better at over the years – but still is a struggle – I like to talk!)

Your list will look different of course – but it will be similar in many ways.

All the Things Not in my Control:

• Politics
• Stock Market
•  Economy
•  Weather
•  How people respond to you
•  Outcomes
•  Medical Tests
•  How people treat you
•  Being put on this earth and getting booted off!

The sooner you stop focusing on the things you can’t control and begin to TAKE ACTION on the things you can control, you will immediately feel better – worry and fear will leave you and only come back if you invite them.

Take Action. Be in action on what you control.

What would our world look like if we stopped feeding the “NOISE” in our lives we can’t control and started listening, helping and encouraging others with that time?

Let GO of what you can’t control.

Someone very wise once said “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries.”

As seen in Trifecta Magazine Spring 2016

Today, it’s time to get down and dirty (not too dirty) with me and we are going to do a shopping exercise – YAY!!!

Follow these simple steps:

1. Grab your fav journal.
2. Make a list called “Short Term Saving Ideas” and brainstorm 5-10 items you would love to splurge on but normally wouldn’t because you “feel” they are just slightly too rich for your blood.
3. Next, I want you to choose one item that really stands out that gives you happy tingles all over just thinking about it and you can visualize yourself wearing/using.
4. Turn the page and on the next page, write down your desired purchase at the top.
5. Underneath it, write the price.
6. Next, you are going to take the price and divide it by 10.  Then write that number down below the price and write ‘days’ beside it. This is how many days it will take you to accomplish this goal.
7. Then, I want you to set up a place to stash cash. This could be a piggy, envelope, old wallet, whatever suits your fancy.
8. Once a week, I want you to go to the ATM and pull out $70 ($10 per day – more if you like) and put it in your chosen cash stash.
9. Once you have saved up all the cash, it’s time to go SHOPPING!!!  WOO-HOO!
10. Notice how good it feels to pay cash and treat yourself to something awesome!

So what’s really the point of this exercise?

First, it’s to feel the cash in your hands because no one really uses cash anymore and when they do they are more aware of what they are spending and what items actually cost to buy, instead of mindless spending.

Secondly, it gets you to take one easy step into the world of abundance, and to put behind you the world of scarcity. You need to know whatever item you choose you deserve and the universe wants to give it to you and you are worthy of getting it. There is so much more out there than we will ever need, and this exercise is a way to expand your thinking into allowing you to experience something wonderful.

Wanna take abundance to a whole new level? Try this.

If you want to feel abundant and create that internal money shift, why not take $1000 cash out of your account and carry it in your wallet all the time. It will change your mindset. If you “feel” poor, you are most likely attracting scarcity to your life. If $1000 is too much, start with $100 and walk around with it all week. Then slowly increase this amount over time. Don’t spent this money. It’s there to create a shift for you.

BOTTOM LINE: Try cash if you want to get rid of mindless spending – you may just find you spend less. Try a short term savings goals to treat yourself to something that puts major pep in your step. Keep cash in your wallet to help shift to an abundant mindset. <3

Yesterday, on a long drive across town, I was stuck listening to Howard Stern interview Anderson Cooper (clearly, I wasn’t driving) and before I could even roll my eyes the interview began to just fascinate me.

Listening to Howard question Anderson about money, how much he made, his future inheritance (or lack of it) and growing up as Gloria Vanderbilt’s son was one of those awesome interviews where you get a rare glimpse into a celebrity’s money mindset and the beliefs they hold around money.

Gloria Vanderbilt always told Anderson that he wasn’t getting a dime when she died, and how at the age of 10 he went out and got his first job as a model in New York for Ralph Lauren making $75 an hour and saved it all because he was worried about a financial collapse and felt that the world was coming to an end.  So out of fear, this young boy was driven to make money, even though he was very well taken care of.

Fascinating stuff!

Money Mindsets are just so interesting to me, because people’s view of money and beliefs around money are created from the stories we tell ourselves.

In this interview, I could really hear Anderson Cooper’s fear around money as a teenager, and how it drove him to make his own.  He said he would not be where he is today, as a driven journalist, if he was given piles of money to live a cushy life.  She paid for his college, then he was on his own. He believes that because he was told that all his life.  Gloria Vanderbilt made her own fortune, and works hard still to this day and she is 91 now! Clearly, Anderson has done the same.

I could hear how Howard Stern (who himself is one of the most successful people in the entertainment industry, and a reported net worth over $550 Million), was fascinated by how Anderson Cooper got nothing after college and that there was no Vanderbilt fortune waiting for him when his mother dies. You could just tell that Howard would most likely be leaving his family money when he goes just by how he was so shocked by it.

Anderson mentioned more than once or twice during the interview that the worry line on his forehead was there since he was young from chronic worrying.  Proof that having lots of money doesn’t stop you from worrying.  In fact, you probably worry on a greater scale.  Money has that tendency to magnify characteristics like that.

The stories in our head and the thoughts we tell ourselves shape how we see the world and how the world occurs to us.

The fear ‘story’ we tell ourselves is a huge motivator of course, and here’s the million dollar question: do you really want to live your life in fear and worry, like the 10-year-old Anderson?  HECK NO!

BOTTOM LINE:  If you want something different for your life, change the narrative in your head.  Take the story out and replace it with the thoughts that will lead you to what you are trying to create. Worrying doesn’t add one second to your life, and if you are a chronic worrier or live from a place of fear, don’t think that when you finally have enough money that will change!

Love and Money….. now there’s a can of worms I didn’t feel like opening today (or any other), after all, I am the biggest romantic suck out there. So, writing, talking and thinking about relationships and money is a drag for me, especially on Valentine’s Day.

I choose to live in the bubble of true love with my head in the clouds, and then BOOM, a money conversation somehow just kills the romance most of the time  – ya know what I mean?

Unless you have Thomas Crown as your money honey, for the rest of us not stuck in a movie, some real decisions have to be made about money every day with our beloved.

It’s funny how when you are single money decisions with yourself are made like this:

“Hi Lisa, you look smashing today!”

“Why thank you, Lisa, as always, we are rockin’ it! Why don’t we buy ourselves a pair of shoes today!”

“You mean our 197th pair? (slight split second of guilt)   …. Just kidding! You are soooo smart! It’s a brilliant idea! Let’s go to the mall!”

“Fabulous!”

And there it is… the internal financial dialogue of a single person!

Financial decisions made easy!

But as we know, the heart wants what the heart wants and most of us find ourselves HOOKED to someone.

The years pass by in our relationship and let’s continue that same scenario and make a money decision with your beloved, which years later may look something like this:

“Hey Bob, I’m going to run a few errands.” Woman says.

“Okay.” Man says sitting on couch watching sports.

“Bye.” Woman says and walks off and heads to mall to buy 197th pair of shoes, to which she will hide in the laundry room which her beloved rarely frequents, and pay half of the shoes with cash, and the other half with the VISA , so that if beloved actually does look at the visa statement this month, the amount spent at favorite shoe store won’t be so startling, plus it somehow ‘feels’ less expensive that way.

Whatever!  Like you’ve never done this before!

Okay – so I joke, but not really! Much of the time we totally hide from money conversations because we don’t want confrontation.

Let’s just all agree that being in a relationship, making financial decisions and dealing with money – the good, the bad and the ugly (even if you keep everything separate) is much harder than when you are single, foot-loose and fancy free.

Did you know that in your relationship your money anchors were set back on your first few dates?!

If he always paid when you were first dating, chances are, years later, he still whips out his credit card at the restaurant when you are on a date.  If you both always split everything, years later, chances are you still split everything.

That is “Relationship Money Anchoring”  – a term that I just totally made up, but you know it’s true.  As peoples we like norm, habits, and always choose the path of least resistance.  This I have observed in my own life, and it rings so true.

Why change the status quo?  If two people can make it work, then I say great.  Whatever norms you and your beloved have around money it’s because of what causes the least resistance for both of you in your life.  So if it ain’t broke don’t go fixing it.

Unless, of course, it needs fixing.  Then you have to work on it!

The beautiful thing about relationships is that there is no right or wrong way to have them, and no right or wrong way to make agreements with your partner.  You can be as totally conventional or unconventional as you want to be, as long as you BOTH agree on it.

I think that’s the good news here – you can create whatever you want with your partner! The bad news is that you still have to agree on the same things most of the time, and that is easier said than done.

Where the problems lie with so many couples is in the ‘how we are SUPPOSED to be’ versus just marching to the beat of our own drum as a couple.  We are too worried about what our parents, fam, friends, society, church, neighbours think of us or how we have to present ourselves to the world.

I call this the “SOUPOZEDTO DISEASE”.  I think the word ‘supposed’ should be banished!  And yet it comes out in nasty forms, typically in the heat of the moment, “You were SOUPOZEDTO do the laundry yesterday!” SEE! No good comes from this disease!

Plus, we all too often feel like we are SOUPOZEDTO do this and SOUPOZEDTO do that. It’s a word that bears no fruit. End of story.

BOTTOM LINE: Making financial decisions are hard for all couples and the best way to work around it is an honest heart to heart while trying to minimize the SOUPOZEDTO’s so you can let LOVE triumph!