In this Best of Series episode, we feature Mastery of Money Guru, Adam Carroll, on Owner’s Mentality and Building a Bigger Life.

I interviewed Adam for this podcast back in July 2018.

Adam is an internationally recognised financial literacy expert, author and speaker.

He is a two-time TED talk speaker, with one of his talks surpassing 6 million views.

He is the founder of The Shred Method™ a fintech business that  guides you step-by-step to optimise your income, eliminate debt & build real wealth in record time.

Adam is also the founder and curator of MasteryOfMoney.com, and creator of the documentary film, Broke Busted & Disgusted.

His passion is helping people build a bigger life, not a bigger lifestyle.

In this episode we talk about:

• Cultivating an owner’s mentality in ourselves and our people
• The biggest mindset shift we as individuals need to make
• Giving kids the ability to make mistakes around money at a very early age, and
• Why he greets each day with love in his heart.

Connecting with Adam Carroll

You can connect with Adam via The Shred Method website or LinkedIn

Books and resources

• The Greatest Salesman in the World – by Og Mandino
• Watch Adam's TED Talk – When money isn't real
• Listen to Adam’s epic podcast – Build a Bigger Life
• Read his blog – Mastery of Money
• Watch his movie – Broke, Busted and Disgusted

“I think the biggest mistake is we wait. We wait for other people to recognise our greatness instead of claiming our own greatness.”

On raising financially responsible kids

• Zig Ziglar says, “Money is not everything, it’s not the most important thing, but it certainly ranks right up there with oxygen on the got-to-have-it scale!”
• I have heard parents say, “I love my kids, I don’t want them to struggle.” So as a result, they take care of everything for them, they buy them what they need, they pay for their meals, they buy them toys.
• So, what we started saying was, “I love my kids and I want them to struggle.” Because people who struggle financially, especially when they’re young and they make solid decisions with small amounts of money, they become really successful adults who make solid decisions around large amounts of money. So that’s the goal is we try and give our kids the ability to make mistakes around money at a very early age so we can correct and change their behaviour down the road.
• Behaviour is multi-causal, it’s multi-functional and it’s multi-dimensional. So, we don’t know why people behave the way they behave, nor can we assume to know because there are so many different things that can impact behaviour.

On ownership mentality

• There are three things required for shared ownership: information, decision-making and consequences.
• Information is telling people everything necessary to be informed of decisions that are being made.
• Decision-making means how many people are involved in the decision of do we do this, do we not, do we spend this money do we not, do we invest this do we not.
• And consequences – if there is information and there's decision-making and there are consequences understood then we have shared ownership.

On building a big life

• See yourself as the architect of your own life. If you’re going to build a big life, you have to ask yourself really big questions, such as, “I don’t know how to do this but if I did, what would I do first?” Or, “I really want to live a vacation lifestyle, what would I need to do?” Then they let those questions simmer in their subconscious. You know as well as I do that your subconscious mind is the most powerful supercomputer ever designed. Its goal is to answer the questions that are posed to it.
• You said in your book, Chief Maker, to be bold and make a difference. Bold is not just offering help, but it’s asking for help. Because when we don’t ask for help we deny someone the ability to offer help or to give help.
• We don’t realise just how powerful our networks are in helping us accomplish what it is we want to accomplish.
• I've always in my life held high intention but low attachment. I have a really high intention that things are going to happen, but I'm not directly attached to the outcome.
• Life for me is about financial freedom, it’s about time freedom, it’s about relationship freedom and it’s about service freedom, those four things – money, time, relationships and service. If I have the freedom to do all those four things I have a real big life.
• Service freedom is the ability to give back where it’s most meaningful. I'm a big believer in financial literacy and teaching young people about money. For me my service freedom comes in when a group calls and says they’d really love to have me come speak to them. They could be a not-for-profit so I’ll go do that for free because I want to provide that service.

On going into each day with love in his heart 

• A good friend of mine once told me, “When something is placed on your heart, that idea, that burning desire, that thing that you absolutely must go do, your head will attempt to justify. It will say, “No, Greg, you can't do that, you’re not old enough, wise enough, rich enough, famous enough!” But your heart will never justify. Your heart will always want what the heart wants because that’s what God put in your heart for you to go do or the universe or whatever being you believe in.
• So, if there's something on your heart that continues to come up, pursue it, go after it, it’s there for a reason and that is your service freedom. If you have to reorient your life to go do it, by all means, go do it.
• I will greet each day with love in my heart. The whole idea was that love is the greatest weapon and the greatest shield because no-one that I encounter when I use love can defend against it.

Final message of wisdom and hope for future leaders 

• I love the quote by Marianne Williamson in the poem ‘Return to love’. “Our deepest fear is not that we're inadequate, our deepest fear is that we're powerful beyond measure; it is our light not our darkness that frightens us most.”
• We have no idea what we are capable of unless we try. I think there are people out there who have ideas that they deem grandiose but in reality they’re super small. You have all the capability in you right now to go after whatever it is that keeps you up at night.

Stay epic,

Greg