Recently, I signed up for a 12-week spiritually based finance course to sharpen my spending, savings, and investment habits. The Wealth with God course also includes charitable activities, as well as both financial and time commitments.
All prerecorded during the pandemic, the pastor leads students through a thorough and candid process of truly evaluating your income, expenses, savings, and investments by providing tools and techniques to simplify the personal finance process.
What makes this course different from others I’ve taken is the passion and purpose factors. Rather than focus solely on managing money from a “now” perspective, the course also considers future wealth-building strategies, goals, objectives and recommendations on side hustles aimed at turning your dreams into reality.
While it’s a spiritually based course, the teaching does not punish or diminish pursuing wealth; in fact, it bold-faced promotes the pursuit. Why? Because people who earn, spend, save, and give from a soul-based foundation are happier, healthier, and more generous than those who live in fear of the future financial unknown. They worry less about the future and focus on the now while helping those who are in need.
What strikes me the most about the course is one of its latest segments regarding the convergence of passion and purpose. More plainly, using the divinely inspired talents we’re given to pursue the purpose we have in this lifetime.
Many of us take jobs that do not inspire us, demotivate us, or drive us to drink. Why? Because the money is good, or worse, great. These career choices drag us down rather than lift us up, and we stick to them because we’re convinced that the money makes up for it.
But what if there was a way to do what you love and earn enough money to cover your lifestyle expenses and provide gifts to others who aren’t in your shoes just yet? The Wealth with God series teaches you how to get there while you’re where you are today:
- Understand that the challenges of your current role may be setting you up for success in your next one.
- Leveraging educational benefits, financial flushness, and flex time can contribute to your personal goals.
- Remember that the most difficult people in your career life may be your best teachers.
- If you’re earning variable pay incentives, such as bonus, 401k match, or stock options, they can be foundational to your leave-it-behind launch pad.
Use the skills you learn today to build the future you want tomorrow.
The other poignant message I took away from the teaching is from a case study referenced in one of the lessons about a man who built up a $40 million company and lost it all. When reflecting on his losses, he didn’t hesitate to sum it in one short sentence. “It’s only money.” Those words sat with me and sank in, deep.
For me, money is security. It’s there to reassure me if bad things happen. However, money can’t cure all ills or reconcile all sins (financial or otherwise) so it’s not a solution to every problem. Expense reduction, mindful savings plans for large purchases and rainy days are all good strategies; however, they should be part of everyday financial planning, not as a Hail Mary play. The course teaches that integrated financial planning and management should be an integral part of your weekly rituals, and not an afterthought.
Money can be made and lost only to be regained once again. The point is regardless of how much or how hard we work, money will come and go so it’s important to do what we love, with purpose, so that the money we earn can purchase things we value rather than be used as salve or a knee-jerk response to an impulse buy.
Well-managed financials mean the freedom to make changes, explore your options, or take a break from the rat race if, and when, you please. If you don’t know your numbers, current, and forecasted, you may not have the stability you need to turn your passions into purpose; keeping you imprisoned in the very job that pays you well but bleeds you dry.
By taking stock of your financial habits, goals, and forecasted expenses, you have a better chance of living the life you want and saying goodbye to the one you don’t while having a security blanket for the bumps in the road as you travel from one to the other.
Cha-ching!
Coach M