Speaking and Communicating Podcast

If we treated a significant other the way most of us treat money, that relationship would be over very, very quickly.

We demand that it's there when we want it.

We just wanna drag it around and show it off to everybody so we look good.

When it's not there, we don't think about it, we don't pay any attention to it.

It's just, I need you and I want you when I want you, and I want you to provide what I want, and there's no appreciation, there's no gratitude.

That relationship would be over in a nanosecond.

Welcome back to the Speaking and Communicating Podcast.

I am your host, Robert and Leila.

If you are looking to improve your communication skills, both professionally and personally, this is the podcast you should be tuning into.

Communication and soft skills are crucial for your career growth and leadership development.

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Now, let's get communicating.

Now, let's get communicating with, let me get this right, Pericles Rellas.

You got it, Roberta.

You have such an unusual name, both your name and surname.

So I've been practicing for the last few minutes.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

I was working with yours, Nindilela.

You did it.

Oh my goodness.

Yeah, it's beautiful.

I love it.

So we both have names that we can work on.

For sure.

Thank you so much.

I don't know how you did that because I'm South African, so we have so many different tribes, and then you have other races as well.

You have people who have been in my country for generations and they still don't know how to pronounce me last name.

That is amazing.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Well, with the name like Pericles, I love names, so I always practice different names.

Right, right.

And you are original from the US.

That's been your name?

Yes.

My grandparents on my father's side were Greek immigrants, and I was named after my grandfather on my dad's side.

Oh, wow.

Very interesting.

I hope you don't bully this kid.

You can be so mean.

Yeah, it had its moments, but no, I made it through.

I'm glad.

Welcome to the show.

Thanks for being here.

Please introduce yourself to our listeners.

Well, thank you for having me, Roberta.

I am Pericles Rellas, and I'm a mindset expert.

For the last 25 years, I've been working with people around their money mindset.

You know, it's not a sexy thing to talk about, but it is an important element to anything we do.

You know, communication is all about the world that we create for other people, but it's also about the world that we create for ourselves.

And so when we're communicating certain ways around money, we can actually diminish our ability to create the kind of wealth that we want.

And so for the last 25 years, I've focused on helping people, what I like to call, reset their financial thermostat so that they can earn more money, have more money, and have a better relationship not just with money, but with themselves and the world around them.

Well, we're looking forward to learning so much of those tools because first of all, we obviously need them.

But more than anything, like you said, it's not a sexy topic and we'll get to the whole, what was said in your childhood scenario in a moment.

But let's talk about, you know, when we first start working, nobody tells you how much they earn.

It's a secret.

Only HR knows.

Why do corporations do that, do you think?

Well, I think we live in a culture where there's a lot of disparity in the way people are paid.

And that is something that on a corporate level, you want to keep secret.

Because if you've got Jane and Jill working side by side, you don't want one to know the other one's getting paid more for doing the exact same job.

But we also live in a culture where there's this taboo, at least in my family, when I was growing up, we never talked about money.

We never asked about money.

We certainly never asked anybody how much money they made, nor how they made it or how to grow it or what to do with it.

We just never talked about money.

And now we live in a society where people like to look like they have a lot of money.

They like to put on the show of having a lot of money.

I mean, just look at our social media.

All the people that are spending all this time trying to look beautiful and exotic and wealthy, but when you pull back the curtain and look behind the scenes, that's not the case at all.

You're dealing with people who have debt.

You're dealing with people who are upset or unhappy.

And so, the work that I do is really about cutting through all of that noise and getting to the place of do you want to actually have wealth or are you more interested in looking like you have wealth?

The people I work with really are interested in having the wealth, having that sense of satisfaction, joy, and happiness in their lives.

I do prefer the latter as well because I always say for me, ideally, I'd like to be so rich, but nobody knows that I am.

Can I get into the wall?

Nobody knows that I'm rich because sometimes we think wealth is associated with being famous and everybody knows, oh, that guy is a billionaire, oh, that's Jeff Bezos walking down the street.

But there's a phrase somebody said, rich is allowed and wealth whispers or something like that.

I don't know if you've heard that.

I've heard something similar and it rings very true, is that people who are truly wealthy have no interest in people knowing that they're truly wealthy.

They don't wear the clothes with the big brand names on them and the jewelry and all.

They're generally very low key because they don't care.

People who don't have a lot of money tend to be more interested in people thinking that they have a lot of money.

So they buy the branded things.

They buy things that they really can't afford so that they can, quote unquote, look wealthy.

But really, they're just struggling.

I knew somebody years ago who had this beautiful Mercedes or all this great jewelry.

But then when you kind of pulled back the curtain, you realize he was living in a very, very cheap apartment.

He had very, very little money.

He was in a lot of debt, but he wanted everybody to think that he had a lot of money.

And that I think is a culture that's kind of systemic in our society of this is the way things are.

So I'm really interested in educating people about money, their relationship to money, how money works, how money doesn't work, what it can provide us and what it can provide us, so that people can have an empowered relationship with money and start to live the kind of life that they really want to live.

And we're going to certainly get into that and dive deeper.

Let's talk about what you said of the fact that you never talked about money growing up in your family.

Sometimes you have that scenario, but also sometimes you have a scenario where when money is being mentioned, if you say to a kid, Mom, please buy me that bike.

And they say, we can't afford it.

So, that hearing, no, we can't afford it sometimes is what people grow up with, and it's deeply embedded in the subconscious.

Have you had clients who say, this is what I was told about money, that you can't afford this, whatever you want?

Yeah, every one of us has some conversation from when we were very young around money that is negative.

Now, there are people out there that have positive conversations and it empowers them.

Those are the people you see that if they tripped over something, it would be a bucket filled with money.

Money just flows to them.

They were raised in an environment where the conversations around money were positive, were open, were about learning and expanding our knowledge and understanding of money.

But in my world, nobody talked about money, as I said.

And for most of us, we have negative connotations associated with money.

For me, it was, I remember when I was six years old, we were watching a show called Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.

I'm dating myself now.

But it was all about these families that had lots and lots of money.

And generally at the end, it showed some negative side to it.

Like they've got all this wealth, but there's this horrible aspect of it.

And I remember at the end of this particular episode, my mom said very nonchalantly with no agenda, I never want to have that kind of money.

You'll lose your whole family.

Well, in that instant, that six-year-old boy made a decision, I'm never going to have a lot of money because I don't want to lose my family.

I love my family.

Now, I didn't realize it, but that conversation ran the show for me.

And for years and years and years, I could not break through that glass ceiling or that mindset of, I never want to have a lot of money because you lose your family.

For some people, it's money's the root of all evil.

For some people, it's we never have enough money.

For others, it's you've got to work really hard to make a lot of money.

Or if you've got a lot of money, you're crooked in some way.

You're a crook or a criminal or you've got it in a bad or evil way.

So all of these negative thoughts around money drive who we are and how much money we can actually earn.

Now, I'm going to share a distinction with you, which I think will bring us in a little bit more clarity.

Money flows in a circle.

So money is a currency.

And as a currency, it's like any other current, like electricity or water or wind, it flows.

And money flows in a unique way in that it flows in a circle.

So it flows to us and then through us and then away from us and then back around to us, through us, and away from us with a reservoir on the side that we get to keep.

Now, because money flows in this circle, blocks anywhere in that flow are blocks everywhere in that flow.

Just like if you were to start throwing rocks and boulders into a river, you would start to block the flow of water.

Now, the same is true for money.

Now, blocks in the flow of money look exactly like what I was just talking about.

Money is the root of all evil.

Money is bad.

Money is hard to come by.

You have to work really hard.

The wealthier, evil, and bad.

If you have a lot of money, you're going to lose your whole family.

Those are all blocks in the flow of money coming to us.

Blocks in the flow of money going away from us look like, I never want to spend money.

I'm going to hold on to every penny.

I hate paying taxes.

I hate paying people on time.

I never want to pay people what they ask for.

I'm always going to try to negotiate it down.

These are all blocks in the flow of money going away from us.

Now, again, because money flows in that circle, any one of those blocks is going to block the flow everywhere, including that reservoir on the side that we get to keep.

So what do we do about this?

Well, we need to clear those blocks, just like jumping into the river and pulling those logs out and pulling those rocks out, so the money or the water can flow more abundantly.

We need to go in and clear those blocks out.

And I've got a very specific way to do that if you'd like me to share it.

Please, yes.

Who are we waiting with bait of bread?

So it's very simple and it's very complex at the same time.

It's kind of an oxymoron.

So the first thing we need to do is we need to notice those negative conversations.

And for some of us, they're so subtle and they're so unseen that we would never even notice them.

And it's one of the reasons people have a hard time manifesting.

They think, well, I've learned everything about manifesting.

I know what to do.

I'm meditating and I'm visualizing.

I do my affirmations.

Yes, exactly.

And none of it's working and they can't figure out why.

And it's because of this.

It's those blocks in the flow.

So we say, I'm going to manifest money.

Then you hear this little voice.

Yeah, but it's never going to work for you.

Yeah, but you're not smart enough.

Yeah, but money's the root of all evil.

Any one of those conversations.

Or that voice says, if you look at the facts, if you look at the current situation, how is that going to happen?

Because I think that's where a lot of us get stuck.

If you don't have the, oh, but I'm invested in the S&P 500, and I got this business, and you look at the actual numbers in your bank account and the voices, that's not going to happen.

Look at the numbers in front of you.

That's why a lot of us struggle to money.

Exactly.

And all of those conversations are blocks of the flow of money.

It's that simple.

So it's important, the first step, for us to notice the conversation and then own that we have the conversation.

So for me, it was, wow, I always had it that if I have a lot of money, I'm going to lose my whole family.

I can own that I've had that conversation for decades.

That's been my conversation.

Okay, I can own that I've had that conversation.

That's step one.

Now, for some of you, you may say to yourself, but I don't know what the conversation is.

All I know is I can't make more money.

Great.

You don't have to identify it specifically.

You just have to know that there's an it there.

Whatever it is, you have to own it.

So I don't know specifically what it is, but I have this it, whatever it is that's stopping me from having the kind of money that I want.

So step number one.

Step number two, let it go, release it, give it away.

You give it away and you say this out loud, I release that block.

I give it up into the care of God or the universe or the trees outside.

It doesn't make any difference, but I release it out into the care of, I like to do the universe.

I hand it over to the care of the universe.

It is no longer mine.

It no longer has space in my psyche.

It no longer has dominion over me.

It no longer has power over me.

I release you into the care of the universe.

And I say it over and over and over again, until I feel a sense of kind of relief or release, like, oh, yeah, I can feel it going away.

And then in that moment is when we take step three.

And step three is, what is money for you now?

Or who are you in relation to money now?

Newly, money flows to me easily and abundantly every single day.

Money is my ally, and it loves to come to me every single day.

Anything that you want.

Now, you want to keep it short and sweet.

A lot of people go sideways, and they start writing these long, you know, journals about all the things.

No, no, no, it's just money flows to me easily and abundantly every single day.

End of story.

Or money is my ally, and it loves coming into my life.

End of story.

Money is just everywhere.

End of story.

Go anything like that, and then write it down.

And you want to feel how it feels to have that in your life.

And then put that post-it next to your bed.

You want to have it on your mirror in the bathroom.

You want to have it on your computer.

And every day, you want to re-emphasize this new way of relating to money.

Now, you can't do this on its own.

This is why affirmations don't work.

We have to first do the number one and number two steps, because if you don't, what you're doing is you're building a foundation on top of an insecure ground, and it will just shift and not work.

The building will fall down.

You have to make sure that all of that stuff that's under it, those negative conversations, you've released them and let them go.

Then you can create this whole new relationship to money.

And the more you do this, the longer you do this, the more it becomes your dominant conversation, the more it becomes your way of life.

And then when you turn around and look a week later, two weeks later, a month later, a year later, suddenly you realize, my gosh, I have this unbelievable relationship with money and monies everywhere.

It's flowing to me everywhere.

It's easy for me to make money or whatever it is that you've created.

Change the conversation.

So that's what you talk about when you say, you're going to change your relationship with money and your relationship with yourself, how you communicate about money to yourself.

Correct.

Exactly.

I love this analogy.

If we treated a significant other, our husband, our wife, or whoever that is that we're with, if we treated them the way most of us treat money, that relationship would be over very, very quickly.

We demand that it's there when we want it.

We just want to drag it around and show it off to everybody so we look good.

When it's not there, we don't think about it.

We don't pay any attention to it.

It's just, I need you and I want you when I want you, and I want you to provide what I want, and there's no appreciation, there's no gratitude.

That relationship would be over in a nanosecond.

But if we treated money the way we ought to treat a significant other, where all we do is think about them, and we think about, how can I improve that relationship?

How can I expand it and make it better?

How much gratitude I have every time you come into the room.

I'm so grateful that you're in my life.

I'm so appreciative of the things that you provide me, and I want to bring as much as I can of myself to this relationship, so it just gets better and better and better.

Oh my gosh, we'd have the most amazing relationships, and we'd have the most amazing relationship with money.

And that's why I say, when we shift our relationship to money, we shift our relationship to ourselves and to the world around us.

So you brought gratitude into that to say, I'm so grateful that the money does this and does that for me.

What about people who say, you know what, I don't want to be stressed about money issues anymore.

I just see it as something that helps me to pay bills to live.

I just want to enjoy life and smell the roses.

Then do that.

That's exactly what you should do.

I've worked with lots of people who have very, very little money, and yet they're completely satisfied and fulfilled in their life.

There's no stress.

There's no anxiety.

There's no worry.

And I've worked with people who have a lot of money who are in the same situation.

They have no stress, no anxiety, no worry about money.

It's not the money.

It's our relationship to the money, because on the inverse, I've worked with a lot of people.

I've worked with certified billionaires, like on the Forbes list, and I've seen them miserable, unfulfilled, unhappy, constantly trying to fill a void in their life with the money that they have.

And I sat down to dinner, and one of them actually said, well, there's just never enough money.

And he's a billionaire?

Billions of dollars, yes.

And there's just never enough money.

It's the same exact conversation.

There are just more zeros behind the dollar.

And that is why I say, it's not the money, it's our relationship to the money.

So when we shift our relationship to the money, we can have as much money as we want, but it's not about the money.

It's about us having the life that we want and desire.

And every time we go to another level, we're still bringing that joy and happiness that we already have from within, not expecting the money to provide us with joy and happiness, not expecting the money to bring us security or that sense of fulfillment, because money can't provide any of those things.

People think, well, I'll find love when I have a lot of money.

No, not going to happen.

I'll be happy when I have a lot of money.

No, not going to happen.

I'll have security when I have a lot of money.

Never going to happen, because I've seen people with a lot of money.

They have no joy and happiness.

They have no sense of fulfillment, and they have no sense of security.

So don't fool yourself into thinking that money can provide things that it can't.

Money can only provide us with things that we can buy.

Now, I surround myself with things that I love.

They're beautiful.

They're things that I've collected over the years, but they're not the source of my happiness.

I'm happy in and of myself, by myself.

But when I come into my office, I'm grateful for everything that I have.

I love that they're in my life.

I love that I get to be the steward of these things while I'm here, but they're not the source of my happiness.

Yes, they can bring me some temporary joy and happiness as I look at them and I think, oh, they're so beautiful.

Look at this and look at that.

But I have a different relationship to them than most people have.

They buy these things so they will be happy versus being happy and then buying something that enhances their own joy and happiness.

That is a very good point.

And here's why, because there's always this debate of does money bring happiness or does money change people or are people already who they are?

Money just shows the rest of the world who those people really are.

When I saw that on your profile that you talk about the happiness aspect of an asset, I hope he doesn't come here to say money doesn't bring happiness because somebody who can't pay their rent, what do you expect them to do?

You know what I mean?

So sometimes we take these extreme stances on these conversations.

However, like you said, it only starts with the relationship you have with yourself.

And then the money is just the manifestation of that, so to speak.

It's the icing on the cake.

You know, we want money, so the illusion is we want money so we can be happy.

So we can do the things that will make us happy.

Well, what if you could actually tap into that happiness right now, before you ever got the money?

What if you could actually be happy?

I know lots of people, they don't have a lot of money.

They may have been struggling paying their bills, but they still have joy and happiness in their life.

They have friends and family.

They have people around them that they love.

The work that they do, they love.

They just don't have a lot of money, and the money isn't the issue.

For them, it's all about, am I seeking?

Am I pulling joy and happiness towards me?

Or am I pushing it away and using, I don't have enough money as an excuse?

Because if that's what you're doing, what you're going to do is manifest more of that.

We get what we focus on.

So if we're focused on, I'm unhappy because I don't have money, you will continue to not have money and be unhappy.

Versus in that same moment, we can shift, we can let go of that conversation and create a new conversation where I am joyful and happy every single moment of my life, and I feel that joy and happiness.

While I'm dealing with all the things that I'm dealing with in my life, look, I've dealt with some extraordinary things in my life, things that I would never wish on other people, that never diminished my own joy and happiness.

Yes, was I grieving in a moment?

Absolutely.

Was I suffering in that moment?

Absolutely.

But did I lose sight of the fact that I have an extraordinary life?

Not for one second.

It's when you can be that powerful in your life, that no matter what your circumstances are, you are the one that's the source of your joy and happiness.

You mentioned work, hard work, and that myth of if you work hard, you'll make more money.

And whenever that is brought up, some people say, there's some people on the African continent who walk four miles each day to work, and they work for a dollar a day, and they work very hard, but they get paid a dollar a day.

So hard work and money doesn't seem like there's always this correlation.

Yeah.

What would you say to that?

There's a context that we all live inside of.

And what I mean by that is I'm going to share this.

I think it's a parable, an old parable.

There's a man walking down a road and he comes upon another man who's chipping away at stones, and he's sweating, and he's angry, and he's cursing, and he just looks miserable, and he's just chipping away at these stones.

And the traveler says, What are you doing?

And he says, I'm just chipping away at these stones.

He says, Okay.

And he carries on, and a little further down the road, he comes upon another man doing the exact same thing, but he's whistling and humming and singing, and he seems completely joy-filled.

And the traveler says, What are you doing?

He says, I'm building a cathedral.

They're doing the exact same thing, exactly the same work, same tools, same exact thing.

And yet one of them has found joy and happiness in what they're doing, and the other one has found misery.

It's all about how we hold things, which is why communication is so important.

If you're communicating negative things about your life every day, you're going to bring forth more negative things in your life to communicate about.

But if you shift your conversation and you start communicating positive things about your life, the work that I'm doing is not what I want to be doing for the long haul, but I'm grateful that I have the opportunity to do it so that I can pay my bills and work towards this new career or whatever that looks like.

You want to bring it to the positive rather than the negative.

And there's something we can all be positive about because no matter what situation we're in, there's always someone else that would look at what we have and pray to have what we have.

They would love to be in our shoes for a day because for them, we have a life that's blessed.

So if we stay true to that, we remember that we can always create a new positive conversation.

And the choice is yours.

You can choose the negative conversations and you'll get the outcomes of that.

Or you can choose the positive conversations and start to reap the rewards of that.

Now, I want to give you one more thing on this because this is sometimes where people get tripped up.

They think, okay, well, I'm going to choose the positive.

I'm going to feel the positive.

And then they try it for one day, and they don't notice the difference.

They're like, ah, this doesn't work, and they throw it away, right?

And this is where we need to continually find the joy and love in our life.

I say to people I work with, I say, look, do you want more money in your life?

Yes.

Okay, great.

I want you to go out and look for money.

Watch for money.

Tell the universe you want more money every single day.

And then I'll check in with them.

So how's it going?

No money is coming in.

Like really?

No money at all?

No.

So you haven't seen money anywhere at all?

Well, I saw some money on the ground, but I wasn't going to pick it up.

It was only a penny.

Mike, great.

You just said to the universe, you really don't want money.

You don't like the way it comes packaged.

Exactly.

Exactly.

And it's kind of like saying, I love my significant other, but their hands are ugly.

I don't want to look at their hands.

It's like saying, I don't want the penny because it's not a dollar or a hundred dollar.

Well, you know what?

That dollar is made up of a hundred pennies.

And if you're unwilling to pick up that penny and celebrated and express gratitude that it was put in front of you as a result of your requesting more money in your life, then you're never going to find more money.

I have a jar in my house that I put found money in.

And one year, I counted it up at the end of the year, and I had almost $800 in found money.

It's just money, me walking around and never over...

Well, there were times when it was too dangerous for me to grab something, or it was really like in a urinal or something like that.

I wouldn't touch it, but I would still thank the universe for showing me that money is everywhere, that money flows to me easily and abundantly every single day.

And I say, thank you.

And I'm not going to pick that up because it's too dangerous for me.

It's on a railroad track or in the middle of the road or something like that.

But I always look for money.

When we declare we want something, when we're really committed to manifesting something, when we feel what it feels like to have that thing in our life, that's the first really powerful step.

The next step is, are you looking for it, or are you looking for what it's not?

And when we're looking for what it's not, we've just killed the whole idea of manifesting.

Because the minute we think that we know what it's going to look like, you've lost.

Because we don't know what it's going to look like.

You've never had it before.

And so, if you want something, money, to show up in your life, you need to be open to all the possibilities of money coming into your life.

You may have a friend that comes up to you and starts talking about this new possibility, this new venture they're working on.

Not listening to that.

Well, you just killed off a possible opportunity.

Doesn't mean you need to take it, but be open to it.

Listen to it.

Lean into it.

Look at what's there, because the universe will put things in front of us.

And if we just keep batting it away, and batting it away, and batting it away, at some point, the universe is going to be like, okay, they're really not interested in money.

They're interested in something else.

So we'll start putting that something else in front of them.

That is so true.

Gratitude.

That's why gratitude is a word that just circulates all the time, because we need to constantly see what we already have appreciated.

That's when we even recognize more, like you said, when you walked down the street.

Now, I'm about to just take a bit of a controversial take, because as a South African, one thing I've only been here for years, one thing I've noticed is, well, for starters, even when I was home, we used to watch TV, and Americans have these storage facilities.

We were like, just get rid of the stuff, you know?

Sometimes I'd visit some of my friends' homes here in America.

You have so much stuff, and why do you need four different coffee makers?

You need one.

I have never seen car garages where it's stuff that's kept there instead of the car.

The car is parked outside.

So that's just a cultural shock for me, one of the cultural shocks between here and back home.

Because one of the things I noticed was just this keeping of stuff and not letting it go.

Yes.

Is that some form of my friends in this country wanting to feel abandoned, that I just have so much stuff around me?

I think there are several things to it because it is something that I've noticed.

We have an extraordinary desire to have things in our life.

We have this sense of, I see it and I want it, I'm going to have it.

And I may use it once, and I'm going to put it away somewhere, and I'm never going to use it again.

I think it's instant gratification versus, I lived in Europe for many years.

And I remember when I sold my home in Los Angeles, which is where I was living at the time, and I was moving into a much smaller apartment in France, and it was like, I had to downsize.

I realized, whoa, I'm going to have to live in a lot less space, have a lot fewer things.

And as I was living there, I realized people don't consume the way we consume in the United States.

They relate to the things that they buy in a very, very different way.

I'm looking at this thing.

I'm considering this thing.

It's beautiful.

How many times am I going to use it?

Maybe once.

I'm not going to get it.

But if I'm looking at something, I'm saying, oh, I love this scarf.

This scarf is beautiful.

I'm going to wear it every single day.

I'm going to really enjoy it.

Well, in the United States, I can't be seen in the same scarf every single day.

I'm going to wear a different scarf.

What are people going to think?

Right.

Well, people are worried about what other people think.

And in other cultures, that's not a concern.

So there are multiple things that I think that may be going on.

One is we're trying to fill a hole by buying things that can't be filled with money or things.

And again, it comes back to us when we're satisfied with ourselves, when we have that sense of what enough is in our life.

Suddenly, we look at things like, you know, I don't need to buy that.

It's beautiful.

I could think about how it would be cool to own that, but I really don't need it.

I might use it once or twice and that's it.

For Thanksgiving, I went to a really good friend of mine's house and he just bought this new dartboard, digital dartboard.

It was amazing.

I haven't played darts in years.

And we spent the whole night playing darts.

It was just so much fun.

And I thought to myself, wow, I should probably get this dartboard.

It's so amazing.

It's great.

And I've been thinking about it ever since then.

And the more I think about it, the more I really sit with it, the more I realize how often am I really going to play darts?

How often am I really going to stand up and play darts or have someone over to play darts and join them?

It was great while I was there.

And next time I go over, we'll probably do it again.

But I don't really need the dartboard.

Whereas I think most people would think I'm going to get the dartboard.

Then they get the dartboard and it just becomes something else that they have to store.

And then once their house fills up, the garage fills up, then they get a storage unit and then that fills up.

And we've got things that literally we don't even know we have anymore.

Or if we do know, we haven't looked at.

And so can we separate ourselves from those things?

And just so you know, some of the billionaires that I've known, they've got multiple storage units, storage units that are massive.

And they just keep accumulating more things.

And it's things that they're never going to see.

Do what with them?

Like, sorry to interrupt you.

That's okay.

When you have this list, okay, so all these things are in all the storage units.

One day you will what with them?

I don't think that's a thought.

That's not part of the psyche.

That's not something they consider or think about.

And I think that, again, we don't want to ever do without.

We don't want to ever say, oh, I want this.

I can't.

Oh, but I don't have it.

Or I had it.

The fear of not having, which is another money relationship issue.

Exactly.

And when we really look at it, and I lived in that world, too, where if there was something I wanted, I'd buy it and I'd have it.

You know, five or six or seven different watches.

I don't even own a watch nowadays.

I don't care about having a watch anymore.

You know, I've got my smartphone.

If I need to know the time, I look at my phone.

I live in a different world that things are not as important for me to accumulate.

If there's something that I'm going to buy, I've been thoughtful about it.

I've been considered about what am I going to do with it?

What is it going to add to the quality of my life?

And if it isn't going to add to the quality of my life, then I'm not interested in having it in my life because I don't want to have to find space for it and spend money on it.

And look, we have a lot of people.

We look at this whole last couple of years leading up to the election and people talking about how hard it is and there's no money and the economy is terrible and we created this mindset coming out of COVID, that there's no money, where everybody's, it's just horrible.

And then what happened on Black Friday?

Record spending, unlike anything we've ever seen.

So the money suddenly appeared.

It all of a sudden magically appeared.

No, we had a mindset around money, and that mindset was driving the conversations.

And I've had this conversation on a couple of shows before where people literally bought into this mindset.

We've been saying it to ourselves so long, and we're so used to see the economy is bad, the economy is bad, the economy is bad.

Well, you know what?

Unemployment is at record lows now.

Inflation is coming down to where it was pre-COVID.

The market is at record highs.

Payrolls are going up.

There are lots of indicators that the economy is doing really well, but we've fixed ourselves in this conversation that things are bad, and we've gotten stuck.

And just like the guy chipping stones, they're just miserable.

Rather than, whoa, I got to look around here.

I'm doing really well.

I'm just not being responsible for how I'm spending my money.

I'm just out there being reckless, spending money on things I don't need to spend money on, versus, wow, I could start saving more.

I could start putting money aside.

I could start being more responsible about what I'm spending my money on, and have a whole different quality of life.

Someone said that when we do all these things of buying the Mercedes and things we can't afford, and trying to show off to people, we're living a lie, because we're lying to ourselves that we have the money to afford that lifestyle.

So we lie to ourselves, and that's why we lie to others.

So since you talk about our relationship to ourselves, what actions can we take in order to start being truthful to ourselves, and having a better relationship with ourselves, so that we have a better relationship with money eventually?

I think the first thing is look at your life and look at the things that you have and take stock.

Really take stock.

Look at how much money you earn.

This is the first exercise I give to anyone that's working with me.

I want you to look at every penny in your life that's coming to you and that's going away from you, and that's going to that reservoir on the side.

I want you to look at that.

I want you to get clear about every single penny.

Most people don't even know how much money they earn every month, much less what they're spending that money on.

They're just spending money on all sorts of things, and they're paying the minimum on their credit card.

They don't realize how many streaming services and how many recurring services that they've got.

They've just got a whole bunch of things that they've been flowing money out to, many of which they don't even remember.

They're just paying the minimum on their credit card, and they're building that debt up.

When they stop and they really take stock of, okay, I'm making X number of dollars every single month, whatever that number is, I'm clear this is how much I'm earning every single month.

Now, I want to get clear on every penny that's going out.

And then, they almost always see like, my gosh, I'm spending more money than I'm earning.

What's going on?

Yeah, that's why your credit card debt's going up, is because you're closing that gap by using debt.

When they start to get really clear about that, suddenly, they're like, well, I don't want to spend money on that anymore.

I'm taking that out.

I'm canceling that.

I don't want to spend money on it.

I'm canceling that.

And all of a sudden, we close that gap to where, at the very least, they're now earning what they spend.

Then we take it to the next step, which is, okay, let's take it so you're actually spending less than what you're earning, and you're flowing that extra into savings, into short-term, long-term savings, retirement savings.

Then they start living in a whole different reality.

Suddenly, they start thinking, whoa, I have these three distinctions of the flow of money.

One is we're catching the flow, so we're behind every single month.

At the end of the month, we're behind.

Then we're in the flow, which is like at the top of the wave, where we're just breaking even.

But then they get ahead of the flow, where now we've got all this momentum of the water pushing us or this money pushing us, and suddenly we're ahead of the flow.

We're like, I'm not losing this momentum.

I'm going to really be careful and responsible about not just what I'm flowing my money away from me to, but I'm going to start expanding my ability to grow the money that I'm saving.

I want to get really smart about this.

And a lot of times people will say, I'm just going to turn it over to a professional.

Well, that's the fastest way to lose your money.

It would be like saying, I'm going to get a babysitter, I'm just going to turn it over to the first babysitter I find.

I'm not going to find out anything about what they're going to do or their background or how they're going to take care of.

We would never do that.

But we do that with our money all the time.

Well, I'm just going to have someone else say, well, that's how you get your money disappeared.

And I'm not saying this about everybody.

There are people out there that are very happy to take control of your money and separate you from your money as quickly as possible by putting it into things that benefit them and not you.

As professional ballplayers.

Yeah, exactly.

Or people who win the lottery.

This is one of the reasons they go bankrupt in such a short period of time.

That financial thermostat that I talk about.

It's set at a certain amount of money.

It determines how much money we can earn, how much money we can keep, as well as our thoughts, feelings and emotions around money.

So if you're somebody who's financial thermostat, it's set at let's say $32,000 a year.

That's where it's set.

And then you win millions in the lottery, that thermostat kicks in immediately, and you just start disappearing money and disappearing money.

And that's why we see them.

They're buying houses and they're buying investment properties, and they're buying boats, and they're doing all this crazy stuff, and they're just disappearing money at a record pace.

And then suddenly, they're over their head, and then they have to declare bankruptcy.

It's because that thermostat, just like a thermostat in your house, it gets too hot in the room, it kicks on the AC, it's got to bring the temperature back down.

Well, we have to reset our financial thermostats, so we can manage that money, so we can have the capacity to deal with that much money.

Most people don't.

If I said to them, here's a million dollars free and clear, what are you going to do with it?

Well, I'll buy a new house, and I'll buy a house for my parents, and I'll give some to my family, and I'm going to buy a new car, and I'm going to go on vacation.

Well, you've just created a recipe for disappearing that money in no time.

Maintenance, insurance, property taxes.

Exactly.

Nobody thinks about those things.

They just think about, oh, I've got all this money.

And they're not thinking about, well, how can I leverage this money to make more money?

How can I get this million dollars to last me the rest of my life so that I've got a steady flow of income?

But nobody wants to look at that.

They want to look sexy.

They want to look like they're really these great players, but all they're doing is disappearing money.

Shift your mindset to, I've now got this opportunity.

I'm ahead of the flow.

How can I leverage this to make it better?

Kind of like that relationship.

Wow, I just got into this new relationship.

How can I leverage it to make it better?

How can I make this relationship more enriched, more fulfilling for both of us, rather than, well, how can I just use it?

How can I show it off?

That's never going to provide you with what you want at the end of the day.

That is so powerful.

Any last words of wisdom, anything you wish you would have shared with our listeners that I haven't asked you yet.

Just look at what it is you want money for.

Really look at what it is you want money for.

Most people never think about it.

They just say, oh, I just want lots of money.

I just want lots of money.

What is it you truly want money for and why?

What's the why behind that money?

What is it you're truly looking for?

And then look at, is money really going to provide that for me?

And then open it up to the universe.

Ask for it to show up in your life.

Don't expect it to show up in the way you think it's going to show up, but always be looking for those opportunities and keep letting go of those negative conversations and creating new, powerful, empowering conversations.

And keep looking for it showing up in your life and express gratitude, gratitude, gratitude.

Gratitude, gratitude, gratitude.

Words of wisdom from Pericles Rellas, who is from Vegas and is a money mindset expert who's been coaching his clients for almost 30 years and has taught us today so much on how to adjust our financial thermostats.

This has been very empowering.

Thank you so much for being on our show today.

Roberta, thank you for having me.

It's been a pleasure.

My absolute pleasure as well.

Before you go, would you like our listeners to reach out to you and where can we find you?

Sure.

There are two places you can go.

You can go to periclesrellas.com or resetyourfinancialthermostat.com.

They both go to the same place.

And on the landing page of my website, it's a free masterclass, The Four Keys to Resetting Your Financial Thermostat.

Absolutely free.

I recommend everyone watch it.

It will give you everything you need to get on the road to resetting your own financial thermostats.

We love freebies.

Thank you very much for the free masterclass.

I'll put all the details on the show notes.

Thank you, Roberta.

My absolute pleasure, Pericles.

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