17. Finances and Your Fabulous Life

I know you may not believe me but you don't need a lot of money to have a fabulous life!

Hi, I'm Lisa Barry, a radio DJ who's been in pursuit of a fabulous life for 20 years and I'm here to help you get unstuck from an average life and give you the tools and secrets to create a fabulous one.

One of the biggest fallacies of this earthly life is that you need money to be happy. Your life can't be fabulous unless you've got a lot of cash in the bank. If that were true, no one would be happy without money and that's just not true. Some of the happiest people in the world have nothing, zero, squat.

We believe money will make us happy because we see the lives of people who have money and we think, I would be so happy if I had all those things. But you know what's true, in every financial layer, there are people who have less and people who have more. Someone who lives in a trailer park knows who has the best trailer in the neighborhood. They're considered "rich". There's also someone with the most rundown trailer and they're considered "poor". In a middle class neighborhood, there's the fanciest house, and they're considered "rich" and the most modest house, the people are considered, maybe not poor but "less well off" . In Beverly Hills, there is someone who has the most expensive house and they are considered "rich" and the least expensive house is considered "less well off".

Someone was once asked how much money he would need to consider himself rich. He said, "$100 more than I have right now." Wanting more is not a money problem, it's a heart problem, a mind problem. Very few people are content with the amount of money they currently have. Do you think the person on Instagram wearing the most expensive clothes constructing the most opulent closet is content with all that money? Probably not, because someone else has more than they do.

I know you don't need a lecture on why money doesn't bring happiness but most of us are really, truly stuck there. We know with our heads that money doesn't bring happiness but we are pretty sure if we had a boatload of cash, we'd be the exception to the rule. We'd be the one just happy with what our riches could buy and no more. We'd at least like the chance to try!

Isn't it funny how when couples who've been married a long time and gained a lot of wealth, look back on their lives and they point to their early, financially destitute years as their happiest! Isn't that astounding? Why is that? Because what made life good was the struggle, the striving for a better life, the growing the planning...sound familiar? Yes! The planning and the dreaming and the struggling IS the fabulous life! And even better news is that if you're in pursuit of better things in your life, and making a difference in this world, you're already living this phase of your fabulous life! It's not in the having and completing and arriving, it's in the climb.

Now, having said all that, we do need money to survive in this world. And even though money can't make us happy, lack of it can make life a harder. Kathie Lee Gifford once said, "money doesn't make you happy, it just makes some things easier." That's true. What makes this hard for you and me is when we see something we want, and don't have the money for, we put it on credit. It makes us happy to have that thing but have you noticed that once the bill arrives, the weight of the bill is far weightier than the joy of that thing we're now paying for.

I recommend getting a financial advisor. You and I aren't experts. In fact, we often avoid financial advisors because we think they're going to just tell us to stop spending, save more and live in squalor for 50 years until our net worth is to a certain level and then we can live it up for 5 years until we die. LOL! Actually, the reverse is true. A good financial advisor wants to know your dreams and hopes. They will help devise a plan so you can have some of the things you want now, while you tuck money away for bigger things. One of the best things I ever did in life was to listen to people smarter than me and submit myself to their leadership.