Yearbook Quotes That Came True

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Partial Transcript

[The following is a partial transcript of this episode of The Scott Alan Turner Show. Listen to the full episode to hear this story, listener questions, money hacks, and inspiring stories of people that are changing their financial lives. Subscribe to the free podcast on iTunes or Google Play]

In the political news someone is in big trouble for some yearbook photos taken twenty years ago. I decided to go look at my high school yearbook. Have you done this recently? Might be fun to do. More on that in a moment.

Your state of mind and your confidence are vitally important to your next level of success, wealth, and joy.

Listen to this story:

Carol Stinson let the villain run her life, in no small part because she had grown up extremely poor in Philadelphia. Then she eventually moved to a not-so-pleasant area in New Jersey. She summarized her philosophy this way: “The poor stay poor. The rich get richer. They have advantages no one else does.”

But it wasn’t just her upbringing that allowed the villain to dominate her thought and her life. As an adult, she encounter one hardship after the next. Her husband lost his job during one of the toughest economic periods in American history, instilling even more negativity and supporting the villain’s cause. She was raising five children of her own plus tow grandchildren – the youngest was a special needs child. Some days all they could afford to eat was peanut butter, and their electricity was turned off because of nonpayment of bills. Carol believed “When you’re from the wrong side of the tracks, this is what you believe is the lot in life yo were dealt. You’re supposed to live in poverty.You’re supposed to live in scarcity. You have envy and disdain for those with money because you feel, somehow if they’re making money, they must be robbing it from us.

After you get the basics of personal finance down, most of what comes after that is behavior. Sticking to your plan is behavior. Habits. The spark to light the fire is some type of revelation or inspiration. The fire, how hot it burns, how long, how big it is, is it an inferno or a candle, is you’re goal.

Under our senior pictures in the high school yearbook we each had a little paragraph. These are the ramblings of an idiot 17 year old with no clue. I won’t read it all, a lot of it was related to my friends at the time. Think about this list of what I included:

• Money
• Rolexes
• Porsches
• NYSE

For some reason I wrote Boo Berries, I would guess that was may favorite cereal at the time.

Here’s what I knew about money, rolexes, porches, and the NYSE as a 17 year old. Nothing. Even though I was from a tiny town, didn’t grow up with much, had weird hair then too, there was clearly a belief these things were possible to have. Especially the Boo Berries. I was 17, I certainly didn’t know how. Again, those are silly things a 17 year would say. Just like my 5 year old might say we’re going to live on the moon next month, right daddy?

Maybe not next month, but someone will, someday.

Carol’s story is the opposite. She didn’t have the belief.

Yet both our stories have a similar outcome. Carol’s story is in the book Millionaire Success Habits by Dean Graziosi.

She changed her thoughts, her success habits, and her story. She insisted she could be wealthy. She started her own company, generated hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars and she got her family out of foreclosure. She bought a new house and a new car. She took her kids school-shopping in malls where they had never shopped before and on vacations that they had only dreamed about.

The fuel to keep it burning or to make it bigger, are your beliefs and your vision and habits. Those build and sustain the momentum to go from a candle to a big ol’ bonfire over time.

Carol didn’t believe in fire, until someone showed her fire, gave her a spark, and she found the fuel.

For me, I believed in fire even though we didn’t have any, someone gave me the spark, and the hard work for many many years was the fuel.

You don’t have to have fire right now, to believe in fire. You do need to know fire is out there. Carol found it.

You may not have found the spark yet. Carol’s story is a great spark.

You may be lacking in fuel right now. What you need to know is – they’ve done it, I’ve done it, I know you can do it.

I teach people to wakeboard when they come to our lake house. You will go where you look. Look down, go down.

Keep your head up. Have a vision of where you want to go.

Keep your eyes fixed on the location, the destination, and you will get there.

Why do professional athletes – gymnasts for example – spend so much time visualizing and thinking about their routines? Because the body follows the mind. Knowledge follows behavior. Get the knowledge first, then build the behaviors and habits. Have a vision.

If you’re like I was, immediately you start to think ‘this is that brain trickery stuff’ I just want to make some more money, have some more money. Would you expect a person who doesn’t believe they can save $1, to ever save $1? No. Because someone who says ‘I could never’ has doomed themselves before they even start.

Rediscover what your 17-year-old self had visions of – good or bad – and see how those beliefs are impacting where you are right now. Carol changed her story, so can you. It starts with changing your mind.

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