Do you approach money with a positive or negative mindset? If you don't have a clear answer, it's time to think about how your money mindset is impacting your finances. Having a positive money mindset leads to better financial decisions and improved financial health. Conversely, having a negative money mindset can lead to debt, financial stress, and other money woes. So, how do you change your money mindset for the better? Luckily, there are some simple steps that you can take to get started. Check out this blog post for more information on how to cultivate a positive money mindset and improve your finances!

Conclusion

So, what have we learned? Well, your money mindset is vitally important. It influences how you save money, how you spend money, and your whole reaction to that here in the world of finances. We hope that this podcast has given you some tools to work on your own money mindset – both for the good and for the bad. And if you have any thoughts or comments on today's episode (or previous ones), please head over to Apple podcasts and leave us a review! We love hearing from our listeners, and we'll be sure to stay in touch through our social media channels as well. Thanks for joining us today – until next time!

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On most things in life, we can't choose what goes on around us or we can suddenly influence and change how we react them. And in this context your money mindset is really, really important. It influences how you save money, how you spend money, the whole reaction to that, here. Money mindset and how it can impact on your finances for both good and the bad is the theme and the topic of today's broadcast.

You're listening to the I Hate Numbers podcast with Mahmood Reza. The I Hate Numbers Podcast mission is to help your business survive and thrive by you better understanding and connecting with your numbers. Number love and care is what it's about. Tune in every week. Now, here's your host, Mahmood Reza.

Hi folks, my name is Mahmood and just for a few moments we're going to talk about money mindset. What it is, where it comes from, why it's so important, how does it impact on your finances, and also it wouldn't be the show without actually some tips about how you can improve to go from what we call a negative mindset to a more positive mindset. So let's crack on with the show. So what does it mean to you folks when you hear that whole idea about money mindset? Now we can use different words and different terminologies to explain it. You can be talking in terms of attitude to something and I know that how we react to things, how we view them and how we choose to deal with them (I notice I use that word choose to do) that has a real big impact on how we feel ourselves and whether things get done or not.

Now please don't interpret this as me saying if you have something that's a positive mindset in life. Automatically things become rosier, automatically things become prosperous, automatically you become a wealthy person or rest of it. But it certainly does play a major role in terms of how you get yourself out of a situation where perhaps you might have debt, perhaps you can move forward in your life and improve your finances if you've got some aspiration targets here. So it's about a slight adaptation there to actually have a big impact in terms of your bottom line as well.

And this applies both to your personal finances as well as your business finances. So you know that to me they're pretty much one of the same. So first of all, let's think about where it actually comes from. Now, the reasons or the origins of our mindset, our attitudes are very complex here. I'm not going to redact them in a few moments and study that's it; there's lots of psychology involved. We know that there's a big impact from how you’re brought up by your parents, whether they discussed money, whether money was actually a taboo topic, whether finances were actually discussed in open, whether the finances were discussed more in private.

So money was not a topic that was discussed that often, or money was discussed more in terms of to show we had the less saving aspect of that. That's going to be an impact. So certainly your upbringing is going to be part of that equation, but it's not the only source. You've also got things in terms of your own practical experiences, whether you had a part time job. I mean, I started, I think my first part time job was when I was around about twelve or 13, coming from a situation where one of nine children, which I’m very proud of, not a great deal of money to go around necessarily. So having some financial independence was really quite important, actually. Having some money was quite a valuable thing to do.

So if you started working young, you may have appreciated the actual value of money. If you didn't work, if you've had jobs in your life, in terms of whether you see money as a liberating factor, whether you see money as a sort of a restriction, whether you find money quite grubby. I've met people with different attitudes to money. Some of them think in terms of that it's quite a grubby topic that shouldn't really be discussed there as well. And our own attitudes are quite complex. And I think the useful for individuals is just to sit down, have a reflection, and when you hear that word, you're out of money. When you hear people talk about money, what does it come up in your own mind? What's your own sort of feeling?

What's your attitude and reaction to it? So having understood about where it comes from, let's have a look in terms of some of the aspects about negative mindset. Now there's a big climate created here. We know in the UK and around the world, we know there are prices going up on subs, utilities, commodities or elswhere. We know there are sections of society that are actually experiencing financial pressures more than others. We know there's an inequality about income distribution. All those things are taken as read. And in terms of how we deal with that, let's assume that you're in a situation that you have been mired by debt.

If you are of the opinion that you cannot see any way out of that, if you feel that actually that's going to be weighing you down, then that's likely to actually sort of materialise as well. Now me saying having a positive mindset to money means that you're selling me free of debt, it's not what I'm saying. But what it's saying is that you have that affirmation that you can actually see the possibility of getting yourself out there. I think with the climate that's going on at the moment, it's quite easy to get into that project fear, it's quite easy to be overwrought by that topic of money and it assumes a proportionality that perhaps the actual reality doesn't necessarily merit.

So we talked about what money mindset is actually and all of us are complex creatures. We will have a different approach to it. We all know in terms of some of the origins that go behind that, we're talking about also the impact that it can have. But also what we're going to do is actually think in terms of some practical stuff about what we can actually do to improve on it as well. Now, it's important here because I think there's a definite correlation between how we react to money and our sort of well being, and how our well being impacts also on our money mindset as well. So there's a bit of a circularity that goes on there as well.

Now, what this all sort of for me leads into is that in your personal finances, if you've got that money mindset here that doesn't look beyond next week, doesn't look beyond the next couple of weeks here, you're gonna find it a very, very difficult sort of situation to progress out of. And one practical way of actually sort of improving your personal finance situation is to generate what's called a budget. Now, in next week's show, I'm going to talk you through about how you go through constructing and building a financial plan for yourselves, how you go around building a personal financial budget.

But for now, I try to sort of set the stool and to create some elements here that I think it's worthwhile thinking about. Now, if we take the concept of a personal budget, for example, many people will look at a personal budget and think, oh, that's a big massive constraint, that's more of a restriction. We're using the organisational side of things when we talk about budgets. Budgets typically are there to say what you cannot do. They're not very creative devices there as well. For me, I actually see budgets in a slightly different way. Now, it's unfortunate that about a third of households produce budgets and look at them, which is quite a low number in my experience.

It's probably quite standard, but it's far too low in my thinking. Now, it's not to say a budget is there to say that restricts activity, but actually, if anything, it gives you that ability to direct what you can save. It gives you the ability to where you can spend your money, gives you the ability to actually have a look more transparently what's going on in your household and make more meaningful decisions for yourself and your family as well. Now, that principle applies also in a business environment, but I think if we concentrate on the household side of things, you translate that across to the business side of things and you'll find that a business approach is pretty much like a household budgeting exercise, except the numbers just get slightly larger, slightly bigger.

What about some thoughts and some tips about how you can improve what goes on between the years there as well? I think there's a few things we can think about. The number one: comparisons. So in no particular order of importance. Never compare yourself to somebody else. So, for example, in the context of when we look at, for example, and I think social media gets a hard time, but if you look at social media feeds, whatever that feed actually is, you can look at people and you can see that they're actually aspiring to have quite a good lifestyle.

You may look at your own neighbours, you may look around you and think, oh, actually, we've got a situation here where person down the road, person we're viewing that we know has got a good lifestyle. They've got a company car. They’ve got this, I've got that. Well, you don't actually know below the surfaces, how that's actually financed. You don't actually know whether an amount of debt has been incurred to actually produce that supercar,

to actually have those sort of material things there as well. And I'm not anti materialism by any stretch of imagination. But don't compare yourself to others because you're only going to see a peripheral of what's going on. And secondly, comparing yourself to others isn't really a way to go forward. Great in terms of aspirational targets here, but you cannot actually compare yourself to others and suck that in as an influence about how you should spend your money. Other things to do: goals. Goals are really quite important here. So for yourself and as a household, what are your financial goals? Do you have a target in mind for maybe a holiday that you've got at some point in the future?

Are you looking to more long term? Perhaps you might be thinking some future retirement plan, moving on? So having goals gives you a direction, gives you a focal point, which is really quite important when you're thinking about your own finances. There's a school of thought that says in your circle of acquaintances, in your community, in your tribe I think that's the more modern phraseology that's adopted for these things here is make sure that within the community that you inhabit, make sure the tribe, the friends and circle that you've got a similarity of likeminded people.

Now, there's two schools of thought here. Some people say you should always surround yourself by likeminded people, lots of positive people. That's perfectly fine. You don't want to be dragged down by negativity, you want to be dragged down by people who are actually always looking at the glass half empty as opposed to half full. And there's a bit more to go in there. On a personal preference, I actually prefer to have that blend, that ying and yang amongst my people that I know. I've got lots of people that I know in my circle of acquaintances and friendships who are quite homogeny. Some are very upbeat. You know, human beings, we all just display different levels of emotion here. But in terms of what's around you, in terms of if you are in a sea, an ocean of people who look at things in a very glum, despondent way,

that's about to have an impact on you. So, be conscious, be careful of those around you and making sure that they reflect your values, reflect how you want to see the world and don't actually get sucked in by those outsides. Aspirations. Do you have actually aspirations that you set yourself here and again that should be part of any financial planning that you do? So let's have a think in terms of personal aspirations. Your personal aspirations, again, maybe a holiday that you set yourself out to achieve. You’ve got the idea of how much the holiday is going to be for yourself, your family, by yourself perhaps. And you know what your target is going to be. To actually get that, you need to build that into your sort of financial plans, your financial routes.

Again, when we dive into this topic in a bit more detail with some apps and numbers and framework next week, then we can actually see how we practically put those things together and actually construct our own personal financial story. Now, what else can I wrap up with the folks here? So I suppose gratitude is another thing here. So just look at this one. I'll take the example of debt here. Now, this reflects on two aspects. One is the idea about your mindset of how you handle debt there as well. If you feel that you are going to be forever trapped in a cycle of debt, if you feel that you'll be forever trapped in a cycle of never progressing forward here, that's what's likely to happen.

Now, if you acknowledge that the debt is there and again, please, by me saying have a positive mindset, it doesn't make the debt disappear, it doesn't make the debt more manageable, but it means that you know that you are going to get yourself out of that situation eventually. It may not be right now, it may take several months here, but you know that you can consciously move yourself and progress to actually reduce that level of debt. You've got to avoid hiding under that duvet, you've got to avoid sinking like your life is going to be as it is now forever and ever. There are things that are within your control and capability to influence and to impact on there as well.

So effectively wishing it will go away by not actually confronting it, by not actually dealing with these things head on, it's going to be a very bad counterproductive mood overall. All of us have anxieties, all of us have fears. I think the trick is sometimes just to appreciate them, acknowledge them, accept them, take a breath, do a plan and you can actually move on beyond that. OK, folks, let me just wrap up with a few things, just to summarise the essence of what this short broadcast is about. What goes on between there, the biggest battleground in your life possibly what goes on there has a massive impact on how you handle your personal finances.

If it's on more towards the negative side of things then understand that that may be is not a good way to be. You've got to try and not to be sucked in by an idea that finances are beyond your control. Finances cannot be managed. That money is that dirty grubby thing here. Money is that essential oil, that essential fuel that goes around to keep everything going on as well. It helps us deliver that why, it has lots of positivity about it. So therefore you've got to learn to embrace that and actually deal with that adequately. Don't compare yourself to others. It's not a very good thing to do anyway. Lots of different guys is here. But comparing yourself to others suddenly from a financial perspective is not going to be good.

And effectively, you don't know what goes on behind closed doors. You don't know what goes on beneath the surfacing. Money mindset means that we are in much stronger control. We are in much stronger command of what happens to our own finances and money and therefore work on it. The recognition of what your own financial attitude is all about. If you like it, fantastic. Carry on with it. If you don't like it, then it's within your capability of trying to change that.

Folks, I hope you found some benefits, some use from this. I'd love to hear your comments about what your own thoughts are about money. Do you think you have a negative mindset? Do you think you have a positive mindset? Are you indifferent to it? Let me know in the comments and until next week where we're going to be going through a more practical approach about how we could put our own financial stories together. I love it if you could share it with those that you feel would benefit.

Leave me some comments, subscribe or even better comment and tell me what you'd like covered in a future podcast. Check out the show notes. As I said, my book I Hate Numbers is there to help you get more closely associated with your numbers so you can power your business forward. Until next week folks, have a good week.

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