Over the last couple posts we’ve been talking about money mindset. We talked about why it’s important. We talked about the belief cycle, how beliefs drive actions, which drive outcomes, which provide evidence and how all change needs to start with beliefs.
We talked about identity and money scripts. We talked about how money’s a medium exchange and how it’s a tool to be used.
Today I want to continue to help give you some perspectives regarding money mindset that might be beneficial. And so today I want to talk about stewardship, what it is and why it might be important to you.
What is a Steward?
Now, stewardship today really is more of a Christian word but it stems from an occupation.
So in the Bible, you can read about how Abraham had a steward. Joseph was a steward of first Potiphar’s house and then eventually really Pharaoh. And that kind of title lasted really until about the 17 hundreds in England or so. But today it’s, it’s not so common in older times.
A steward was a person who was responsible. For the management of someone else and their possessions of their household. We still see at somewhat degree, if you ever go cruising on a cruise line you’ll see it there as a, as a steward who takes care of the guests and the crew and their baggage and things like that.
You might also hear, refer today as maybe a home manager. So, some people have home managers that manage the household, make decisions, execute decisions, take care of things.
Others Verse Yourself
The reality is that when it comes to money, most people know what they need to do. They know what they need to do with money. It’s just the execution part that’s hard, which is why we’ve been talking about beliefs.
I know that to be true because if I brought you someone today and I sat down with you and we looked at their finances, you would probably be able to tell them some things that they could do.
They could spend less; they could make more. They could get on debt, they could save. They could insure themselves properly. Everybody knows they need a will, an estate plan.
It’s not hard to look at someone else’s position and know what they should do, but it is hard to apply it to yourselves, and that’s because money, like we talked about previously, is emotional and its associated with all our relationships and all of our situations.
And the sad reality is that most people work themselves into bad financial situations.
Years ago, back when I was in Omaha, I met with a lady and one of the things I did with clients and still do as we made a net worth statement, we kind of unpacked, you know, here’s all our assets, here’s all of our liabilities, and down the bottom we calculate her net worth.
Now she, at the time, she was 28-year-old, single professional. And she had a net worth somewhere around negative 80 to $90,000.
So, if you think of net worth as like a building and flights up, so if you’re, if you have a negative net worth, you’re essentially ground zero, you’re at the ground level of a building and each, you know, maybe a thousand dollars, your flight of stairs up.
And the idea is you want to build, you know, skyscraper, you want to, you have a lot of wealth.
But she was 95 stairs underground. So, you walk in the building and you go down and down and down and down and down. And as she left, you know, I reflected on it a couple days later and I thought the reality was this lady, when she was 18, she had more wealth then.
Then she does today.
Because when she graduated high school, she probably didn’t have any wealth. She probably was broken like most of us, so she probably had a net worth of zero or close to it. But 10 years later, she’s worse off financially than she is now after 10 years of working. Well, how did she do that?
She did that one decision at a time.
Stewardship Mindset
A stewardship mindset might have helped. So, if we equate stewardship, again, a little antiquated word to maybe something like management, it helps reframe things a little bit better.
So, a steward or a manager just can’t do whatever they want with money. So for example, let’s say you go down to the bank and you deposit $25,000 there.
That’s your emergency fund. You want to put in the bank and the intent is, you are giving it to this bank to manage and to keep it safe for future use. And one day something happens in your life, and you know, many years later, and you need the money. So, you walk down to the bank and you go into the bank and you say to the teller, Hey, I need $25,000.
I deposited here a couple years ago. I. And I need it.
And the teller says, oh, you know sorry. There’s, there’s been a situation. I’m going to have my manager come talk to you. And so the manager comes out and says, oh yeah hi. Yeah, can, can you come into my office, sit down, I’d like to talk to you about something.
You’re a little concerned, little worried about what you might be told. And so the manager sits down, and he starts telling you basically some reasons why your money’s gone.
Well, you know, school was starting, and my kids needed some clothes. They outgrew last year’s. I mean, who knew? The kids grew.
And so, you know, school time came, and it was kind of emergency. Couldn’t send them off to school with new clothes. So, we needed to get some new clothes.
And you know, I work really hard here at the bank and last, last year my wife and I needed a vacation. And so, we went down to Hawaii and we didn’t have the money. So, we used some of yours.
You know, our car broke down two weeks ago and I didn’t really have any money.
And Christmas snuck up on us. Again, you know, we were sitting there. All of a sudden, we realized as we were eating Thanksgiving dinner, the Christmas is next month and we didn’t have any money and the kids need some stuff. So, we, we, we used some of your money to buy some Christmas. Hope you don’t mind.
We had a medical expense last fall that was really, bad.
And I got a great deal on a motorcycle and so, I’ve spent all your money and I know you know it’s yours, but, but I, but I needed it.
Now, if that situation, obviously that wouldn’t happen with the bank, but if that did happen, what would your thoughts be?
You’d be pretty upset. You’d be mad. You’d be probably going to a lawyer after that. Because here’s the thing. It is your money. You’re the owner. You gave it to him to manage.
So, there’s two different roles that we see in that relationship. You, the owner of the money and him is the manager of it.
Now, the reality is in our situation, Our own personal lives, our own personal finances. We are both the owner and the manager of it. So, it’s hard to differentiate those two roles.
But again, that goes back to the idea that from an outside perspective, if I bring you somebody else as a, you know, and, and show you their financial lives, you probably could tell them how to do things better.
When you add an element of stewardship or management to us, it adds a different level and different mental dynamic to the situation. It helps you restrain yourself. In some cases, it re, it helps you pursue some things. In other cases, it adds a deeper, more meaningful purpose to your money.
A Bigger Purpose
You can’t just do whatever you want to do. You must manage it for a bigger goal or for a bigger purpose.
Now, I don’t know what your cause or your purpose of management of stewardship might be. It could be for faith reasons. It could be for your family. It could be for your future. It could be for your legacy. It could be for a cause or endeavor, but it must be something external to you.
You must view that you are managing this wealth for an external owner. Or an external purpose.
So, for me personally, a couple things are my relationship with God. I believe that God has created everything. Everything that I have came from God, he has given it to me.
Every good gift and every perfect gift coming from above, so he’s given me everything and my goal is to manage it well for him.
Part of my management or stewardship purposes for my wife, there’s going to be a day, more than likely that I will leave this earth before her statistically and just based upon our health and our habits I want her to be okay.
I don’t want her to have any financial stress if and when that day comes.
I want to manage it well for my kids and for my grandkids. So that they can have some things in their lives and achieve some things in their lives. My belief is if I can give them the character and the moral and ethics to live their life well and give them wealth that will enhance them, they can stand on my shoulders and achieve great things.
It’s the David Solomon, David did all the work. Solomon reaped all the rewards.
And frankly we have a lot of ministry endeavor goals that we want to do things with personally. That’s our own personal things. And so those really four things, God, my wife, my kids, my future grandkids, and the ministries that we want to help, that adds a new dynamic to money.
So, I’m not just managing money for myself, it’s something that’s external to me. It helps me want to do better with my money.
My guess is that you two are partially and me as well, and all of us really are partially blind to doing as well as we could when it comes to our financial decisions, to building wealth, to our retirement planning, to whatever we’re trying to achieve, and an outside perspective or an external purpose away from you personally. Might provide you some motivation.
So, stewardship, it might bring some intentionality to your money. Stewardship might bring some discipline to your money. Stewardship might bring a higher level of diligence to your money. Stewardship could also bring some contentment, and I know for sure that it’ll help you foster in the wealth building process.
But here’s the thing, we need to be conscious of it. So, in the future we’re going to talk about life planning. It’s something that we, we do from a financial planning perspective.
This Week’s Micro Action
But until then, here’s a micro action that you might do this week to help you. Take some time to reflect on some external entities or entity could be singular, plural, could be a being, could be a faith perspective. It could be a person, it could be a cause, that you feel that you could apply to have a stewardship or money management mindset.
So, take some time to reflect on it this week. Maybe write it out. There’s something just great about writing it and seeing it about what some external entities are or causes that, what you could apply a stewardship or money mindset to.
Hope this is helpful for you. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out.
You can email me with any kind of feedback or questions you might have at Mike@True@ealth.Show. And until next time, I hope you have a great day.
