129 | Compelling Reasons

One of the questions I ask all of my clients is, “What is your compelling reason for doing the work to improve your finances?”

You’ll inevitably experience setbacks and challenges on this road to manage your finances better.

Having a compelling reason behind your efforts will mean the difference between giving up and continuing to move forward to achieve your goals.

In this episode, let’s talk about the compelling reasons that drive me in my finances and my business and how having a compelling reason impacts the way you approach your goals.

• the reason I ask clients their compelling reason for doing the work to improve their finances
• the impact of having a compelling reason for doing the work
• the compelling reasons that drive me in my finances and business and how they impact what I do in both
• the importance of having a compelling reason to keep driving you forward with your finances

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If you’re ready to learn the mindset and strategies to master your money, let’s schedule a call.

You’re listening to Wealthyesque. We are a community of lawyers who believe that true wealth is having control of our time. I’m Rho Thomas, and as a busy wife, mom and former Biglaw associate, I know all too well the tension between the culture of the legal profession and pretty much everything else you want to do in life. That’s why each week, I’m bringing you the information and tools you need to improve your money mindset and manage your money to create true wealth. Because ultimately, it’s not about the money. It’s about the freedom and flexibility the money affords.

Hey friend. Welcome back to the show. I hope you’re doing well and having an amazing day so far. Today we are talking about your why. When you get on a consultation with me, one of the questions that I’ll ask you is what is your compelling reason for doing this work of improving your finances? And the reason I asked that is because when you’re trying to change the way you manage your finances and you’re changing your habits and you’re learning how to be intentional with your money, there are going to be times where it feels hard. There gonna be times where you experience setbacks, you think you’re going along doing great and then you fall off track for some reason. There can be times where you need that extra motivation to keep going to work to manage your money better and to achieve your goals. You want something beyond just thinking that this is what you should do or you do think it’s a good idea because that good idea is going right out the window when you don’t you’d like to get your mind right when you want to go out and you seem to have the money in your account or the available credit on your credit card and you just eat on yourself you can get back on track next month. When you see something cool on Amazon that you want or your favorite store has a sale or your favorite singer or band is coming to town you want to go to the concert but it doesn’t fit within your plan for the month. The thing that’s gonna keep you on track and doing the work even when it’s hard is a compelling reason. So I want to share with you the compelling reasons that have kept me doing the work to be where I want to be financially and the one that keeps me doing the work in this business, even when those things may feel hard sometimes. And when you’re thinking about improving our finances, I invite you to find the thing that moves you, right that motivates you that’s so meaningful to you. It compels you to keep going when it would feel maybe easier to stop. So we’re gonna start with my compelling reason for doing work on my own finances. I have mentioned before that our whole thing it was only really started after having our first child. I had actually been interested in personal finance for a while before that and I learned to stop swiping my debit card and drawing my checking account down to $1 every other pay period before my husband I got married but beyond the basics of learning not to spend everything on me. I hadn’t really done much more than that. After my husband I had our first child I was looking at doing this reduced hours program at the firm I was with where I could bill for example 80% of the total requirement for 80% of my salary. The problem was our finances were not in a place where we felt capable doing that. So we didn’t take advantage of that program. But that realization about the state of our finances that I started on this whole journey of improving them. Before that point I have been telling my husband about things I read or heard about like paying off student loans early or saving or whatever else. But I didn’t have a reason why other than that, it seemed like a good idea. Or in reality, I had a reason but I wasn’t able to articulate it at that point. But when we had our son and wanted to make this change for our family and were able to I was able for the first time to articulate to him why it was important to me that we got our finances under control and put ourselves in a better place financially. I hated feeling constrained and feeling like I couldn’t do what I wanted to do. And I wanted us to be able to make the decisions that we want to make for ourselves and our family without having to worry about where our money so having our son helped me to articulate that to my husband and it was a compelling enough reason for him to get on board as well. And it’s been robbing us in our finances ever since. And we tell you my husband really wasn’t with it before that like I would tell him about being a red or a story about someone paying their loans or whatever. And he was very much in the mindset like I’m gonna deliver so long. Everyone has loan, it’s fine. I’m ready to hear and live. But having a compelling reason helped him to shift that perspective and get on with what I’ve been telling him about that can help me to lead us to manage our finances much differently than we could have. So we saw our friends and colleagues getting bigger houses and nicer cars and taking international vacations and all of that and we eventually decided not to do those things. I will say at least for us having babies help with a gentle piece because when my kids were younger, I felt like we’re basically taking our lives with us to make sure that we had all the things they need. And it’s a lot easier to do that when you go somewhere within driving distance than if you have to go on a plane but we had the money to spend on other things if we wanted to. We were making the same money as them right the same as the friends and colleagues that we saw so the money was there but the priority for us was getting our finances in order and building to the point that we can make decisions without worrying about money. So instead of using the money to buy those things, we were paying off dozens of hours a day each month. And to be clear, we still spent money in that time we went on vacation and went out to eat. My husband did actually get a bigger car that nicer than the one he had been driving since we graduated college. And he wanted to be the one when we had our second child because before that he was running and only one of us and one kid at a time. So we want to get up a little bit. So I don’t mean anything I don’t mean to suggest that we didn’t think we’d recommend paying off debt and building our finances that we want them to be. I’m just saying that we were more thoughtful about how we use the money than we could have been. And we stayed on track with our plan because we had this bigger vision right this compelling reason that we wanted to have more control of our time in our decisions. The other compelling reason I want to share with you is the why behind our business. I have talked to so many lawyers over the years who feel like they can’t do a redo schedule or get a different job or otherwise do something different in their careers because of money. And many of them are making multiple hundreds of 1000s of dollars. And I can see so clearly because I’ve done it, how they could just make some tweaks some little shifts in the way they handle their finances and open up those options for themselves. That’s the work I’ve done with my clients and it breaks my heart to know that so many lawyers feel trapped in that way, not to mention that our profession suffers from high rates of substance abuse and mental health issues. And I know that money isn’t the only interesting factor there. But I believe it’ll be one that underlies a lot of the things that contribute to those issues. So my compelling reason for this business is wanting lawyers to not be suffering in their positions because the finances want people to be able to make the decision that they want to make and not feel like finances are hindering them especially since I know somebody will easily set this up to do whatever they want to do if they just have this information. And so I’m gonna make sure that everybody in the world knows that I’m here and I’m able to help them and I can give them this information so they can manage their money a little differently and have those options available to them. And that compels him to show up to help to connect with people to put out this podcast to post on social media to send emails right that compelled me to leave a job that I overall enjoy it was making good money and to go all in on this because I still believe in the work that I’m doing. And I know that life changing it’s changed my life is changing my client lives. And I know that if you implement for yourself people change. I went everywhere who wanted to experience it. So those are two compelling reasons behind what I’m doing in my life. And the main thing I want you to take away from this episode is that having a compelling reason behind what you’re doing will keep you moving forward. Because you have this bigger why in mind, and so I want you to think about the compelling reasons why you want to do the work on your finances to improve your personal finances. Some of my clients have said things like they want freedom. They want to create generational wealth for their kids. They want to be able to take care of their parents because their parents sacrificed so much for them. They just don’t want to be stuck in the cycle they’re in with their money, right? They’re sick and tired of feeling the way they’re feeling. Those things are gonna compel them to do the work and go after the results they want no matter what no obstacle is gonna stop them. No setback is gonna make them quit. They are all in because the why is so important to them. And they feel like they have to do this now there is no plan B. So you want your compelling reason to feel that way to you. If you’re like I have to do this because if not, and the first time it feels hard. The first time that you have a setback or you don’t hit a goal or you’re not turning things around as quickly as you want to. You’re going to be so much more likely to give up. You can’t do I think it’d be nicer Oh, I think I should. It has to be something meaningful, important to you that’s gonna drive you forward and keep you showing up and trying new things and getting back up every time you fall until you get your goal until you achieve what you set out to achieve. So ask yourself what is the only reason I’m going to do this on my finances? What is gonna push me to keep going until I get where I want to be. And when you have a compelling reason and if you’re somebody that you just have to get your finances in order, let’s talk about we can work together to set you protons.com/waitlist To get started. Alright, so that’s it for this week’s episode coming to me over on social media. You can find me on LinkedIn, rho, Thomas, and Instagram I am rho Thomas. Subscribe to the show and leave a review which people find it and please think of a friend or two and tell them about what we’re doing over here. As I told you, I want all the lawyers to know that I’m here and I help them and so I would love if you could just share this episode with them. All right. As we close out, friend, I pray that you take information you learned here, apply in your life and open up to the realization that that wealth is available to you. As you do that consistently. Week after week. You’ll continue to take steps to control your time, build wealth and live a life of freedom of choice. You deserve. Talk to you later.