I’m fortunate enough to have many very supportive and influential people in my life. One bit of advice I received a while ago came from a very close family member, and I’ll never forget it. This person has experience both sides of the financial spectrum from being without to living in financial abundance. So, this particular advice resonated deeply.
“Any problem that can be solved with money is not a real problem.”
Now, there’s a million different responses to a quote like this, such as “easy for someone with money to say” or “not if the mob is your problem.”
But let’s think about this objectively.
Yesterday my son couldn’t find his phone. When we tried to find it on the tracking app, it said that the phone was most likely outside. As soon as he heard that, a wave of panic consumed him because it was downpouring rain. No doubt, if the phone was outside, it was underwater and probably wouldn’t work.
I said, “buddy, relax” and his response was, “I can’t relax, if it’s outside the phone is probably ruined and it cost you over $1,000!!”
I didn’t want to get into a discussion of insurance, but I did want to take the opportunity for a good lesson.
“Any problem that can be solved with money is not a real problem”, I said. He looked at me with a puzzled expression. “Sure, it cost $1,000, but if we can sort this simply by buying a new phone, then it’s a problem within control. If it was something we couldn’t fix with money, then the problem is further from our control.”
I continued, “what is within your control is how you are responding. You are visibly upset which means your system feels like it’s under threat. A system under threat cannot problem solve, it can only survive. Also, this type of stress is not good for your health and is completely useless.”
That’s where the conversation ended. Within minutes he was calm and relaxed, and wouldn’t you know it, he found his phone immediately after. It was under a bunch of games he was playing with just 5 minutes before, go figure, lol!
Is this applicable to the things that you stress about? Problems that are controllable are usually a calm, self-regulated system away from a solution.
