The Swan Effect - Creating and Sustaining Your Financial Wellbeing
The Swan Effect - Creating and Sustaining Your Financial Wellbeing
S2 E14 The Way It Makes You Feel
With only three months left of the year, Arthi & Malika use episode 14 in Season 2 of the Swan Effect podcast, to discuss how your moneyverse makes you feel and how a positive mindset is really key to achieving wealth.
Arthi associates the brains’ prefrontal cortex as being your internal financial advisor further explaining how integral the brain is when it comes to creating & managing your wealth. Arthi explains that we can rewire our brains to ensure that we are making the best decisions for our moneyverse and shares two techniques to help you begin.
Malika reminds us how education is another key investment and allows us to create the kind of wealth mindset ensuring we are open to opportunities. Arthi shares an experience she recently had with a Finnish ambassador and how the mindset in Finland around entrepreneurship has resulted in businesses viewing taxes as an investment that directly results in better knowledge and workforce. This inspired Arthi to create the habit loop for us all to try.
Listen in to hear Malika and Arthi highlight:
- How our brains play a vital role in managing our finances
- Techniques to changing how your brain works when it comes to your moneyverse
- Having awareness of the cons of wealth
- The habit loop (cue-routine-reward)
- Importance of short and long term goals
- Inspiring other people to change their mindset
And so much more!
Remember: “mindset is way more important than any amount of money that you can have”
We would love to hear your views based on the concepts covered in this episode.
Do rate, write a review, and share with others.
This episode is proudly sponsored by Old Mutual Wealth.
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Arthi Rabikrisson:Hi, there, I'm Arthi Rabikrisson
Malika Petersen:Hello, I'm Malika Peterson.
Arthi Rabikrisson:Welcome to the
Malika Petersen:Swan Effect podcast.
Arthi Rabikrisson:Money makes the world go round yet it's not so easy to understand its complexities, particularly when it comes to investing.
Malika Petersen:That's why Arthi and I are using this platform to educate, inspire and help you gain confidence in your relationship with money
Arthi Rabikrisson:so that you can better manage your finances and investments.
Malika Petersen:We are two women in finance.
Arthi Rabikrisson:That's pretty cool, isn't it?
Malika Petersen:It certainly is. You've been in stock broking private wealth management, asset management and now an award winning business woman who is coaching and assisting businesses with capital and strategic advice
Arthi Rabikrisson:and Malika you have a wealth of experience in well excuse the plan in financial planning, investments and relationship management. So you're also at the coalface when it comes to where and how people are investing or getting it right and getting it wrong
Malika Petersen:and stuck in the grey areas to. Indeed I've seen the many phases and moods of financial cycle and how our decisions that those times impact us. So listeners and subscribers if you are looking to get unstuck, feel empowered and make some strides in how you tackle your money. We are here to help you.
Arthi Rabikrisson:And it all starts with listening to this upcoming episode. Enjoy Welcome back to another episode of the Swan effect podcast everybody, they are officially three months left in the year, dont know whether to scream or not. We are fast approaching the silly season isnt Malika? Oh goodness, before we get started on the episode though everybody remember, please do go back to our earlier episodes and seek out our tips and tricks that we've been sharing with you since the start of the year because it's all gonna help you as we approach as we're calling it the silly season. Remember, planning starts now today. Okay, hI Malika have you started your planning today.
Malika Petersen:Oh, hi Arthi hi, everyone. I defintely started implementing the tips and tricks that you've shared before so I'm feeling significantly more relaxed and positive about my financial situation. Today we going to dig quite deeply into the importance of a positive mindset right on our on our financial journey. So our episode is actually named the way it makes me feel...
Arthi Rabikrisson:This is a song we need to record. Definitely, you know what Malika we've spent quite a bit of time around fleshing out understanding and practical tips that it takes to build and maintain our moneyverse. But the reality is, is that you know, what some of our listeners may hear and understand it, you know, very rationally, all of these things that we've been sharing on the show, they are only some, unfortunately, who are actually going to implement some or all of it. Okay, this is the reality everyone. So listeners, this is a really, really good reason why we're talking about this topic today. You know, we tell ourselves so often, oh, we're going to start with that later or one day when things get better when less stressed. There is always this ideal time when something can begin, oh, actually we say to ourselves, Well, I don't have enough time to do this right now can't deal with it. And also things like, oh, I don't want to pay any more tax, or why should I be doing this strategy? You know, these are the things that come into our mind. And actually, everyone these thoughts are called script, okay? It's the brains way of protecting us from what it believes is a threat to us.
Malika Petersen:Now, this is all very interesting to me Arthi you know, I said this to you before, and I often hear people say that they don't believe that this will really make a difference. Now, a few years ago, I was also very sceptical about understanding the impacts of a positive attitude on my moneyverse and hot it grows. But I've since learned that there are just too many examples for me to ignore. Rich isn't an amount of money. It's a mindset about how you live. If you believe you can when you can. And that's that's it. That's a quote by Dave Ramsey, right. So
Arthi Rabikrisson:Thats a great quote,
Malika Petersen:Absolutely. And a positive mindset is really key to achieving wealth. There are so many stories of wealthy individuals who have lost absolutely everything, only to recreate the wealth a short while later. I mean, we use the example in a previous show of how this is possible, how that is happening. Right, we use Donald Trump and I'm not speaking into big things. But he is an example of a wealthy individual, who had lost everything and rebuilt all of his wealth, and then some a short while later. And then you also hear the very, very sad stories of people who have won lottos and lots and lots of money, only to find themselves in bigger debt and worse poverty than before. So both of these examples show us that your mindset is way more important than any amount of money that you can have.
Arthi Rabikrisson:Malika this is so so correct. I mean, I can't I can't underscore this more more than then what you're saying. Our brains plays such a significant role in how we manage money and you know, the one critical region to understand about the brain, and no, I'm not going to launch into a whole thing about the brain. But this is important for us to understand everybody, because I call it a process of coming to consciousness here, when we aware of have something, and it's right in front of us and we can't do anything. We're seeing it for what it is, we can then take some action. So this is what this is, right? This critical region of the brain to understand it's called the prefrontal cortex. Okay, this is responsible for our decision making for things like even planning, goal setting, it's about where do we make those next steps, right? Think of it everyone as your financial GPS, right? Or you could even think of it as your internal financial advisor. Okay, when this prefrontal cortex is in top shape, right, you make some of the best financial decisions. But here's the kicker, okay. The brain often seeks short term rewards over long term gains, in other words can be a little bit lazy in that, oh, I'll go for the low hanging fruit, because that's easier. So that means sometimes we're going into that impulsive spending and buying and we're not saving enough a whole lot of consumption areas. Okay.
Malika Petersen:Yeah, sure. So it now that we kind of understand why the brain does what it does. Let's dive a little bit into how we change it. And I think you hit the nail on the gate, the first step is absolutely awareness. Right and, and listening to this podcast, it's kind of one of the first steps that allows us to be aware of exactly what's happening. It's interesting. I recently attended the conference, where the speaker asked us to all list down the cons of achieving the wealth that we aspire to. Now, as you might understand, everyone was quite perplexed by this because we couldn't understand why there would possibly be cons associated with achieving wealth. But as we spend some time journaling, we quickly realise that we had collectively come up with quite an extensive list of cons associated with achieving our financial goals. Now, some people have appeared that the responsibility of taking care of others will increase dramatically, you know, to the point where maybe the wealth that they created would no longer be enough, okay, some feared that they wouldn't be happy would they would be less happy than there are now some fear that they would lose family or friends. Others thought about not necessarily knowing what to do with their time if they didn't kind of need to work. The reality of the situation that everyone fell to fear right and after that was quite interesting.
Arthi Rabikrisson:I mean, what are the what are the different level of awareness, right? Flipping it around because often people ask us, Well, what are the pros associated with having wealth, right? And we talk about that a lot, too. So I really like this example, where she's, you know, the speaker. So I'm just assuming it's a she, but it couldn't be the guy. The speaker actually then asked you to flip it to figure out what are some of those fears? What are those things that we're thinking about? And now bringing to awareness, as you said, because now and I'm assuming the next steps after that must have been towards coming to some deliberate decisions about that, right? Because that's what awareness does, it creates an ability to make a decision to have a choice. And you know, it's far more productive to come to that and to start instilling these new productive decisions over time consistently, because that is what forms habits. So I know, everyone's probably wondering, you know, what can we actually do to change this? If this is how our brain is wired? Is there a way to rewire our brains to make better financial decisions? Absolutely, it is. Right. And I think I've mentioned it in earlier episodes about this concept of neuroplasticity. And I mean, neuro talking about the brain and nervous system plasticity in talking about plastic as we know it, that hard substance, but plasticity rather in the sense of the malleability and ability to change. And everyone, our brain has that ability to do that. And there's things we can do to push that forward. So I'm going to share a couple of techniques as ideas and everyone you're welcome to do more research around this. And so one example is the technique of visualisation, okay, this is where you're, you're bringing in a little bit of that right hemisphere of your brain that goes very creative and starts to imagine, right, so imagine the possibilities, imagine your financial goals vividly okay, the brain responds so well, to very, very clear images. So using a simple example, let's say you want to buy a house, you can close your eyes, picture, every detail of this dream home that you'd want to have, from the front door, the surrounding garden, your cosy living room with a fireplace. This Prime's your brain to actually work towards that goals. I mean, it's really beautiful as a technique, everybody, I did this when I was saving, years ago for a trip to go to Europe. And you know, I did a slightly different in terms of I used to love cutting out pictures from magazines, and putting it on a bit of a vision board for myself. So here I was, with this vision board of all the pictures of places I wanted to go and visit and shops and eating things I wanted to go in experience that motivated me to save because I knew again, that pair of shoes, that's actually going towards this particular treat for this trip. So that was very helpful for me.
Malika Petersen:Wow,
Arthi Rabikrisson:Another powerful technique, everyone is positive self talk. Okay. In other words, affirmations, we've heard of affirmations, you maybe even practice some of them. It really is about communicating and vocalising the thoughts in order to replace them with more productive ones. So you would replace for example, your negative money, thoughts, or, you know, especially with things like Oh, but I don't understand this, or I don't know how to do this with positive affirmations such as I am good at managing money. I am on the path to financial success. So it's important to start to believe it, the more you say it, the more you start to believe it. You know, when when I think back to when I've completed my studies, I had to pay off student loans. You know, I It's obviously a very stressful time, right? You're young graduate, you're trying to find a new job, or maybe you've just started, one of the things that I used was a little bit of that affirmation to say it but I am in control of my finances because I'm a smart young lady, I can do this. And that really did boost my confidence and got me towards my goals of clearing that debt as soon as I possibly could. So yeah, these are just two practical examples. Affirmations visualisations, everybody that can actually help you towards creating those productive habits.
Malika Petersen:I love that Arthi I'm still I'm still visualizing that beautiful fireplace. So the next step in my opinion is education Right and and, and I think the thing the nice thing about education is that we almost prove ourselves wrong. I think when we seek knowledge by reading by listening to amazing podcasts like this one
Arthi Rabikrisson:like this one, yeah.
Malika Petersen:And kind of doing research we almostbust the myths that our brain is created in order to protect us. And I think by doing so we really empower ourselves with information, we create the kind of wealth mindset that allows us to be open to opportunity. And I think what that allows us to do that we go about our day in the world, and all of a sudden, we were just able to see opportunities that grow our moneyverse, which I think is so key to kind of taking that big leap forward in our financial journey.
Arthi Rabikrisson:I love what you said about the wealth mindset Malika. You know, and part of that wealth, mindset and growing wealth. And we have covered this in previous episodes as well. Everyone is about investing and it doesn't necessarily mean monetary investing, what Monica is talking about is actually investing in yourself actually investing in your brain. And it might seem daunting, but remember, your brain loves to learn, right? So I'm just, I'm just underscoring what Malika is saying here, around the education piece, start small start to educate yourself, your brain will lap this up, right, and it starts to adapt, and actually change that neuroplasticity that I was talking about starts to change when you gain new knowledge and new experiences. And that then just helps you get onto this path of almost a bit of a thirst of wanting to know more and growing and developing more. The other piece that I think I want to mention on the back of that is a little bit relate to like the positive self talk. But now just around more positive environments as well, to surround ourselves with this. It's a very, very powerful tool. And you know, you would have heard the adage, you are the company you keep you know, so the more you surround yourself with positive influences, that kind of rubs off on to you, I'm going to share an example of a bit of a fortunate experience for myself where a couple of weeks ago, I was actually able to meet the ambassador of Finland to South Africa. Thanks to funding initiative that's currently underway, create impact social impact in south in South Africa. So it was a morning event. and as part of the event, everybody there was such a beautiful video showcased which was highlighting Finnish entrepreneurs discussing why they are so happy in Finland, right? it in a nutshell, it came down to a really beautiful mindset construct also aided by some really wonderful support by the Finnish government towards entrepreneurs, building up their businesses, their work, they work ethic as well. And also speaking to the sort of family or life balance as well, which is seen Malika as a key priority in their lives. And as a result of this, entrepreneurs and businesses actually see taxes as a form of investment into the country. How amazing is that? Right? So it's not this big, like, as we think of taxes like, oh, this money is just going away. And we start to have these doubts about the where is this money actually being spent. Right. Rather, they've got this view that this investment starts to skill, the populations, right, because it's investing in education, it's investing in the in the workforce as well. And that then brings more labour, skilled labour, and more opportunities for other entrepreneurs to come into the economy. So imagine that like, that's the whole circular kind of economy, just helping happening there. Sorry, with very healthy, happy citizens. I mean, I was just blown away. I was really blown away by this. And you know, no wonder so many of the Nordic countries, everybody consistently voted some of the happiest places to be in the world every time. So you know, I was inspired by that Malika. So I would propose our own little loop or a little circular kind of option here and call it the habit loop Okay, the habit loop, which I believe everyone is crucial for wealth building, it's made up of three things, a cue, a routine and a reward. Okay? So for example, a cue could be it's payday, right? So you're gonna get money coming into your account or paycheck, depending on how you paid or physical cash, the routine could be, I'm gonna put away a savings portion immediately. And then the reward is actually based on that routine that you've put in place. For example, watching your savings grow, like getting those statements in to see oh, what's the battle and say, Oh, fabulous, it's actually grown. Now, imagine if we put that habit loop with everything that we're doing. Okay. Other things you could do, for example, is you know, you can change up your routine a little bit by for example, using the same example putting an automatic transfer right into your savings account from your salary, as soon as you get paid, so you don't even don't have to think about it, it's just getting done on cue. And that's a pun, that i wanted to put in there. You know, and the other thing is you can also alter your rewards for yourself as well. Again, these don't need to be extravagant rewards, because then that would defeat the purpose, everybody, but then you want something that will just help you acknowledge your progress, motivate you to continue. Okay, so small rewards can also accomplish that. What do you think of that as another little thing?
Malika Petersen:I love both, you know, the Finland example and that habit loop. I think it reminds me of a tip we we can share earlier in the series, right? He said, everyone must attach goals to the journey. We discussed the importance of short, medium and long term goals, we spoke about the concept of delayed gratification, you will recall, and I think the reward that is associated with the achievement of goals along the way, it really reinforces that habit loop that you're talking about. Absolutely love that concept. And with that, I think we come into the end of our conversation, which has got my head buzzing. Yeah, the visualizing, that dream house, im thinking about the habit loop of thinking about all these things. I think before I dive any deeper into it, let me let me share my parting shot. I think my parting shot is that it all starts with me is I have the power to change my financial well being with my thought and my attitude, but also have the power to inspire those around me to do the same. Now I want you to think about this, if I can inspire enough people that will influence the financial future of not only my family, right, but an entire community and potentially South Africa as a whole. And that really gets me excited. What about you Arthi what's your parting shot?
Arthi Rabikrisson:Okay, well, I would say for me, you know, managing and creating wealth, it's not just about the numbers. It's like it's I'm reaffirming what you're saying. It's actually about rewiring our brains for success, everybody, so use the techniques we've we've put forward today like visualising your goals, such as using positive affirmations, building in good financial habits as a result. And, you know, don't be afraid to start small when it comes to investing, right? But understanding a bit of the neuroscience behind wealth management, you can transform your mindset everybody and take control of your financial future. Remember, your brain has the power to actually make you financially successful
Malika Petersen:The way it makes me feel.
Arthi Rabikrisson:Oh my goodness, I love this song, we have to record it. Our ongoing financial empowerment with Malika
Malika Petersen:Isleta continuea, long may it continue
Arthi Rabikrisson:Absolutely until next time, everyone keep nurturing your financial brainpower, right.
Malika Petersen:Indeed until next time. Sharing is caring
Arthi Rabikrisson:and knowledge is power.
Malika Petersen:Time for you to be daring
Arthi Rabikrisson:and let your money confidence flume like a sunflower.
Malika Petersen:Thanks for joining us. We hope you found these ideas and guidance useful
Arthi Rabikrisson:do subscribe share and write a review or send us comments. We would love to hear from you.
Malika Petersen:Catch you on the next episode
Arthi Rabikrisson:of Swan effect podcast
Malika Petersen:Bye for now.
Arthi Rabikrisson:Ciao.
