The markets are reaching new highs, and interest rate cuts seem imminent. The political volume is 11/10, which might surprise our summer interns who expect the phones to light up with client inquiries. Spoiler alert – at LeConte, they don’t.
When we apply the four core aspects of Purpose Built Planning to a client’s dreams, they discover a sensible roadmap that is understandable and attainable. They realize that while much is beyond their control, they possess enough influence to shape a life of purpose and fulfillment.
This summer, I have a two-and-a-half-year-old grandson living with me. His vocabulary and verbal skills are impressive because his mom invests time in them. However, his emotional focus is still developing. He adeptly expresses age-appropriate displeasure when he doesn’t receive an answer that he wants. I learned a simple trick to deal with these episodes. When he comes to me in a meltdown, I get down on his level, look him in the eye and, here’s the trick – I ask him to spell a word for me. “Parker, how do you spell ‘Lolli’?” Or, “what letter does ‘Jeep’ start with?” This simple technique interrupts his emotional thinking and reorients it to a rational cognition center in his brain, helping him forget what he was upset about. Try it.
How do you turn down the noise? How do you find contentment while avoiding complacency? The first step is to deal with negativity. Reflect on the thoughts that have occupied your mind over the past five days. Were they mostly positive thoughts or negative? Jon Acuff, author of “Soundtracks,” suggests a straightforward test for evaluating your thoughts: Is it true? Is it helpful? Is it kind?
This is a straight-forward way to determine where to turn down the volume between our ears. To do that you may need to turn down the rhetoric that is reaching your eyes and ears. The next step is to flip the script and replace any negativity with positive thoughts. Anything you can say to yourself that is kind, true, and helpful will reorient you away from a bad place and back to your God-given purpose on this rock.
Replace: If I owned “XXX” stock, I would have made a fortune. With: I have stocks that are producing gains. I’m adding to my portfolio every month. It’s working.
Replace: I’m never going to get that job promotion. With: What can I do tomorrow to prove to myself that my work is excellent?
Replace: Our political leaders are destroying our country. With: 380 million, mostly hard-working Americans, are more powerful than a few thousand politicians. Our country will survive this.
I ended the examples with an ambiguous political comment to highlight one area that has consumed a lot of my own thoughts in the last week. Focusing your awareness on what is happening around us is ok, letting it consume your thoughts and conversations is not.
Over the next 6 months, expect to be bombarded by outside demands for your most valuable commodity – your attention. It’s okay to divert your focus away from your investments and financial condition and consider the weightier matters in front of us. It’s not okay to become reactionary to these external soundtracks.
Turn down the volume by asking the three questions (Is it true? Is it helpful? Is it kind?). Change to an honest, helpful soundtrack like I do with my grandson. Surrender every single thing that you have no control over to the One who has control over it. I believe prayer heals and reveals. That’s my loudest soundtrack.