86. The Self-Investment Dilemma: How to Make the Right Choice

In this podcast episode, the host, Laura Sexton, discusses the importance of investing in oneself and how to make informed decisions about such investments, whether it’s hiring a coach, going back to school, or purchasing a course. The host emphasizes the need to clearly define and measure the return on investment (ROI) before making any decision. The episode also includes anecdotes from the host’s experiences with clients, highlighting the impact of coaching and guidance on personal growth and financial decision-making.

In this episode we’ll discuss:

.    Defining your ROI

.    Overcoming the fear of starting

.    Personalized Coaching

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Transcript

Laura: 0:02

Hello and welcome to the Accelerate Your Legacy podcast. I'm Laura Sexton, your trusted financial coach and money mindset specialist. Join me as we explore the world of money and money mindset while also paving the way for a lasting legacy that extends far beyond money. Together we'll eliminate stress, amplify freedom, and ensure you stop paying for your past so you can start saving for your future. If you're seeking peace in your finances, more margin in your budget, and a legacy that inspires generations to come, you're in the right place. Hey, accelerators, I want to talk to you today about something I think is really important and we don't necessarily cover this very often and it's been coming up a lot for me. Part of it's because I've been talking to a lot more people. I've been having a lot more initial conversations with people and they're asking. How do I invest in myself? How do I take the time to invest in myself? How do I utilize my money best to invest in myself? And I think it's a really important question. I wanted to cover that with you today. So some of the questions, the way that they're posed to me go like this. How do you make the choice? to start working with a coach. How do I make the choice to go back to school? How do I make the choice to buy the course that's going to help me grow and develop? It's hard, especially on things that don't have a clear and tangible result, right? If I go out and I buy a pair of running shoes, I know what they look like, I can hold them in my hands, I can smell them, I can feel them, I can throw them. I know what it is when I purchase it. It's right in front of my face. But with something like education, it's hard to see what the return on investment is. How do I know? How do I observe the return on investment? Well, I guess it depends. You have to establish in the beginning what you expect the return on investment to be. You have to write down, this is how I measure success. How do I measure success is a very important question to ask yourself before you invest in anything. for listening. Some things can feel so easy to jump into. I had a gentleman call me one time, and he asked me what I thought about this retail home investment product. And at first, I thought he meant a REIT an R E I T. And I was like, those can be good. It used to be they were super scammy, but now it's more kind of like a mutual fund, but instead of different company funds, it's mortgages, and it's, you know you know, some consumer, some personal residences, so it's different types of real estate. Investing is like, great. And he goes, great. So this guy said that he was going to help me pay my property taxes. I wasn't gonna have to pay those anymore. And in turn, he's going to take about 80 percent of the equity in my home. I was like, hold up. I'm sorry, we're going to pay this man. 80 percent of your home value, so he's going to cover your property taxes moving forward. He was like, yeah, and he's going to give me a return for my money. I was like, this sounds like a reverse mortgage. except it's all up front. You give 100%, you know, you give that full 80 percent of the property value right away. I was like, no hard pass. No, absolutely not. Because what that's what that sounded like for this gentleman. He's like, I'm never going to pay property taxes again. his house was paid for so he wasn't gonna have to pay anything anymore. And he was feeling this peace of mind of not having payments. I'm all for not having payments. And once your home is paid for. The only payment you have to make is your property tax and if you have a homeowners association, your homeowner's insurance, they're going to be things that you have to pay as a homeowner. Your utilities never stop. Right. But he was thinking, oh, this man's going to take this payment away from you. I'm not going to have to make it anymore. And I was like, well, what is your home value? He said, oh, the home values around a million dollars. If I tell you I was completely speechless. I'm not exaggerating. He wanted to give this man 800, 000 of equity to cover what? 5, 000 of property taxes every year? It would take decades to break even. It would take him, if his property taxes were 10, 000, it would take him 80 years to break even on this deal. He's like, well, he'll give me money every month to pay my other bills and I was like, Oh, we're not going to give him 800, 000. So he can give you 10. Absolutely not. Not going to happen. No. Sometimes we have to, we have to figure out what the actual return on investment is. What are we actually investing? And what are we actually getting in return? What is a measure of success? Success for this gentleman was not having to pay his property taxes. I said, if you don't want to pay property taxes, you should rent because they're going to be property taxes. That is just a thing. I'm sorry. It is. Once you know what your return on investment could be, should be, and you know how you want to measure your success, the next question is when are you ready to start? And in my opinion, if you think you might be ready to start, today's the day to start. There's so many of us that keep putting barriers in place because we're scared. We're too afraid to start something. I remember a couple of years ago, I invested in Amy Porter Fields, digital course Academy. And my thought was, well, I'm not ready to start a course. I had already had my better budget bootcamp, which I absolutely love. It's great. It's only 27. It helps you create your first budget. It's fabulous. It gives you special tweaks in there that you may not have thought of. It's fabulous. I love it. But I was thinking, you know, in the future, I might want to do a course on something a little bit more in depth. So I went ahead and bought Amy Porterfield digital course Academy. It's been 2 years and I haven't done anything with it. And that was the thing that I was worried about. It's like, I'm going to spend this money. I'm not going to do the things I need to do with it. To be completely honest, I don't feel like I wasted my money. I learned a lot and I have lifetime access to it. So it's not like I'm never going to go through it or I'm not going to be able to use any of that information. I went through the whole thing. I learned so much, but I have not used it for what it's actually supposed to be used for. Does that mean I didn't get the value? No, it just means that I'm putting off that measure of success, but I've gotten so many other successful things from it. So, I have a couple new clients that I've been working with, and I want to tell you a couple of the conversations that we've had when we were getting started. I'm not sharing anybody's names, so don't worry about it. If you're 1 of my new clients, you're like, wait a 2nd, you're going to talk about me. I am going to talk about you, but nobody's going to know that it's you. Okay. So, 1 of my clients I've been working with he had said yes to coaching. He had said, yes, he was ready. And then he called me the next day and he was like, I just have a couple more questions, which is totally valid. Totally fair. And I'm always here to answer them. And what he said to me was. I've never learned about money before. No one ever taught me. And I think, no, I know now is the time, but what does it actually look like? What does sessions look like with you? The cool thing about coaching, at least the way that I understand coaching is that everything is based off of you. What do you need to learn? Where do you need to grow? Where are your goals and your values and your assumptions that need to be challenged? So my sessions never look exactly like from one person to another. There's no identical session. But I said, here's what it's going to look like. Like, usually we work together for around an hour at a time and we set our goals. We set our visions. We make sure that we know where we're starting from. And then we make sure that we're taking the steps to get there. It is a chance for you to grow in education. If you have questions, I'm here for you. And so I just started talking to him about what it looks like to actually get into the. nitty gritty of things, but I can't give him anything specific until I know what his specifics are. This gentleman in particular did not have any of those in our initial conversation. So, we have to get those to get started. Another couple that I've just started working with recently said, well, we want to work together. That's their, that's their goal. They want to work together. They have been through a long road of recovery. They're both Retired veterans. Thank you so much for your military service. And through that, they've had some struggles and they are on the road to recovery. They're doing great. But 1 of the things that they have discovered that they really need to invest in themselves is to have a guide, somebody to hold their hand and walk them through it to make sure that they're actually taking the steps that they say they want to take to hold them accountable to do the things they want to do. That's my role for them. It's less teaching and it's more guidance and accountability, which is great. It's super fun. It's a different way to have conversations with people. I love it. I have another couple. They came to work with me and they were like, I just need you to tell me what to do. We are so lost. We are so confused. We know we have a problem. I just need someone to tell me what to do. And I hear this a lot. My job is not to tell you what to do. Okay, my job is to help you make a decision about what you want to do with your life, which is great. It's very important. I'm never going to tell you what to do with your money because if I did I'm opening myself up to a lawsuit and I don't want to get sued. So, your results are based 100 percent on your actions and not what I have to say. You make your own choices. But this couple, They had been stuck for so long that they needed someone to just tell them this is a good idea. This is not a good idea. Help me create a system. And so I did. I helped them create a system and they started moving forward. And we had this great breakthrough where at the end of the 1st week, they had 30 dollars in their bank account. And it's the first time they have been positive at the end of a paycheck in a very long time. And they were ecstatic through the moon could not be happier. You would have thought that they had 30, 000 in their account for how happy they were to have a 30 positive balance. I'm so excited for this couple because they are going places. They are already in one week. They have already seen huge growth and success. I'm so excited for them. I have another couple that is in the middle of a big life change. They are going to have a baby soon. Maybe by the time this comes out, they will have already had that baby. And when you're in the middle of these big life changes, sometimes we just need somebody to To tell us that we're doing okay, that we're making the right decisions. When big life changes are happening, we don't know, we don't know. And we need to talk through some things with somebody. And so that is what I get to do with this couple. I love babies. I, that didn't used to be a thing. I would say I hated children. I never wanted to be around them. I didn't want to have anything to do with them. You could not have paid me to watch your child. And now of course I have four children. So we're, we're just living in this brand new life. I used to have 300, 000 in debt. Now I'm debt free. I used to hate babies. And now I have. Four of them. So, you know, life changes and when life changes, you just need somebody to walk alongside you. The last client I want to tell you about, she came to me when she was on disability. And when you're on disability, you can't make over a certain amount of money. The disability system wants to keep you poor. They, they actually sent her at one point, they have actually sent her an email that said, don't make too much money. Because if you make too much money, we're not going to give you the benefits, the disability system is built to keep you down and to keep you hurting and to keep you in poverty. I'm just going to say that I'm not going to change my mind on that. You can't tell me. Oh, no, it's here because it wants to help people. Yes, I love that. I think people need to be helped sometimes. But when you have created a system where they cannot make money, or they lose all of their benefits, she is in a place where if she makes 1500 dollars, she's fine. If she makes 1501, she loses all of her benefits. How is that? How is that even possible? I do not understand. Anyway, that's not the soapbox I'm supposed to be on right now. She came to me because she didn't want to be on disability anymore. She's like, I want to change how I see money, how I operate with money, how I feel about money, and you're the person to do it. So I want to pay you, she paid me in full. Now to do that, she had to get a credit card. Normally, you know, me, I don't do debt. I don't like credit cards. I don't want to deal with it. And I don't normally accept credit cards as payment. I would rather you pay me with a debit card, but she came to me and she said, I'm going to pay you. With this credit card, or I'm going to go out and I'm going to buy some shoes, which would you prefer me to do? I said, all right, she pigeonholed me there and I was like, great. We're going to make it work. She's going to spend the money 1 way or the other. And in this process, we have created for her a business where she helps people get off of disability. This woman is going places, and she is doing things, and I'm so incredibly proud of her. She's starting to do her own podcast, interviews, and she's, she's getting out in the community. She's networking, and she's finding other people that are in disability that need hope, and she's sharing it with them. Do you need hope? Do you feel like any of these people that I talked about today, where you're like, I don't know how to make the choice on whether or not to invest in myself, to go back to school, to get a coach. I don't know how to define what my measure of success is or, or how to see what my return on investment is. I don't know if I'm ready to start. I would love to just have a conversation with you. Let's jump on the phone. Let's schedule a zoom meeting. Let's have a call. Let's just have a chance to chat with each other so I can see how I can best help you because that is the whole goal of my business is to help you change yourself so that you can invest in the future that you want, that you can live the life that you love. That's why I do this friends. I do it for you. I hope that I get to have a conversation with you soon. Please share this with a friend that you think might benefit from this. Anytime you share this podcast or tell somebody about it or write me a review. Anytime you do that. I am just so blessed and I see you and I am thankful. I know that's happening. My numbers are going up, which is wonderful. We are reaching more people and we are sharing more hope and I could not be more thankful for you. So accelerators, you know what to do. Go out and make a difference. Thank you for investing your time with us today on the Accelerate Your Legacy podcast. Remember, your legacy isn't just measured in dollars and cents, but in the tools, habits, mindset, and reputation you leave behind. Don't just listen to the show, but take action on what you've learned. Share this wisdom with a friend who can benefit and help us spread the word by rating and reviewing the podcast. For questions or encouragement, reach out to me on Instagram at Accelerate Your Legacy or explore the resources listed in the show notes. I will be back with you next week. Until then, build your legacy with intention.