Transforming Limiting Beliefs. Jeremy Clark

[00:00:00] Jeremy Clark: There’s two conversations happening, right? There’s the ones that we’re not having out loud with people, and then there’s the one that is so loud in your head that you don’t realize that you’re having. They’re the conversations that’s making sure you’re not saying anything out loud. These are the worst conversations if you don’t realize you’re having them.

Do you

[00:00:20] Bob Wheeler: ever feel held hostage by your own negative thoughts? Does that cruel inner self critic keep you stuck in self doubt and fear? In today’s episode, we’re exploring how shifting your mindset can transform those destructive voices to unlock your full potential. Our guest, Jeremy Clark, is a motivational speaker and author of the book, Did You Know You Are the Shit?

Positive Affirmations Overcome Self Doubt. After a profound personal loss, Jeremy courageously re evaluated his life. And left his corporate job to pivot to find his true purpose. He now speaks and writes to help others overcome limiting beliefs, practice self love and unlock their full potential through shifting mindset and the power of affirmations.

I’m Bob Wheeler. And this is Money You Should Ask. This podcast, our books, online courses and newsletter all focus on awakening your money mindset. Our mission is to normalize conversations around personal finance, so you can better understand why we do what we do when it comes to money.

Ensure you never miss an episode. Click that follow button on your favorite podcast platform. When we change our thoughts, we change our reality. Let’s dive into my conversation with Jeremy Clark. Jeremy, welcome to the show. So excited to get into this abundance mindset or a mindset shift with you. So welcome.

Thanks for being here.

[00:01:52] Jeremy Clark: Thanks for having me, Bob. This is a pleasure for me to be here and I’m excited to get this show rolling with you. Well, cool.

[00:01:57] Bob Wheeler: I’m just going to ask right off the bat, like, tell us a little bit about your journey because I can’t imagine at five years old, maybe you were, but at five years old, you’re like chanting affirmations.

You’ve got the mindset set and all that stuff. What was your journey to get you where you are now?

[00:02:15] Jeremy Clark: Yeah, affirmations definitely weren’t on the menu when I was five years old. Growing up, all I thought about was sports, sports, sports, man, if I could be a professional athlete, that’s all I wanted to do. And that didn’t work out like a lot of kids in America, this doesn’t work out.

So I went to school, got my education. I got my master’s degree in business. And I started a career in HR. That’s what I thought I wanted to do based on what my parents told me to do. Right. Right. My father was my biggest inspiration to him along with my mother. Right before the pandemic hit, I lost my father.

He passed away. And then that kind of started making me question. The meaning of life, purpose, what are we here for, what are we doing? And then after making those questions and hearing what people had to say about my father at his funeral, I started to think, what are they going to say about me? What impact am I going to have?

What is my legacy? When I got back to work, things just didn’t feel the same. I felt like what I had worked for wasn’t necessarily what I wanted, but it was what I worked for, right? So at that point, I realized I was actually in control. up until that point, even though I didn’t like where my control took me.

Yeah. And at that point, I continued to work because it was the middle of the pandemic. But then I got fired, luckily, in the middle of the pandemic. Right? And at first I was pissed off, like, why would you fire me in the middle of a pandemic? But then I started realizing everybody’s getting fired right now.

And I began to write affirmations at that point, as far as what I believe to be true about myself. Mm hmm. And the more I wrote, the more I realized I have a lot more to say. And I felt like more people are probably in this position than I probably realized, so let me continue to write. And that became my first book, titled, Did You Know You Are the Shit, which is about using positive affirmations to overcome self doubt.

Shameless plug, you can find it on Amazon right now.

[00:04:10] Bob Wheeler: We love shameless plugs, so that’s all good.

[00:04:14] Jeremy Clark: Yeah, man, and that sparked this beautiful journey of purpose. I had a book signing about a month after the release or so, and I’m giving the speech about how I got to that point and the things that I’ve manifested up until that point.

My mindset shifts and the things that happened to me, and then the reception I got from that was just something like no weather, no weather, man. So many people are having shared experiences and not saying anything. Yeah. And being able to make an impact that way pretty much sparked my journey to be a motivational speaker and, and want to find my purpose from that question I asked myself from my dad’s passing.

So that’s how I got to this point.

[00:04:54] Bob Wheeler: Wow. While you just said something that intrigues me, and I think it’s so true, and it’s so, in a way, simple, we all have shared experiences that we’re not talking about. Absolutely. And so, we’re having this experience, we’re thinking, it’s only me, and I’m not going to say anything because I don’t want to embarrass myself, or look weak, or look like I need support.

And probably half the people around me, if not 80%, 90% of the people are in the same boat. And if I would just say something, the support I could receive would be incredible.

[00:05:27] Jeremy Clark: Absolutely, man. A lot of times we have, there’s two conversations happening. There’s the ones that we’re not having out loud with people.

And then there’s the one that is so loud in your head that you don’t realize that you’re having. Right. They’re the conversations that’s making sure you’re not saying anything out loud. These are really the worst conversations if you don’t realize you’re having them.

[00:05:49] Bob Wheeler: Absolutely. I refer to that as the under voice, the voice that nobody’s hearing that’s going, you can’t do that.

Don’t say anything. Don’t look stupid. And you’re like, what, what, what? And then you’re listening to that one instead of like reality, right? Because that voice is strong. That voice is strong.

[00:06:04] Jeremy Clark: That voice is so strong that we don’t realize. That that’s our voice. Yeah. We’re the ones saying that. And we’re strong.

We believe it.

[00:06:13] Bob Wheeler: We do. And you know, I tell people sometimes when they hear that voice, they’re like, Oh, that’s my parents. At a certain point, you’re using your parents voice, but it’s your voice. You’ve taken it on. You’ve taken the mantle. It is not your parents. It’s you.

[00:06:31] Jeremy Clark: It’s you. That’s why parents are like, why are you blaming that on me?

I didn’t make you do that. It’s like you told me to when I was younger. It’s like, ah, you’re older now. No, you make your own decisions. That’s right.

[00:06:40] Bob Wheeler: Change the narrative. Yeah. The other piece that you mentioned that I want to go to because I’ve actually had this conversation with clients and people that sometimes question if it’s really true.

I believe it’s important to have purpose, to know your purpose, whatever that purpose might be, whether it’s serving other people, whether it’s being Super rich, I’m not here to judge your purpose, but I do think if we know our purpose, the bigger picture, even if we don’t know exactly how we’re going to serve in that capacity or how we’re going to show up, if we know where we’re going.

And the intention along the way, I think it’s so much easier for the universe to conspire with us when we have a direction to head in.

[00:07:21] Jeremy Clark: Absolutely. I believe purpose breeds action. Even if, let’s take out the life purpose of what am I supposed to be doing, right? Let’s simplify it. Right. If you have a job, and that job starts at 7 in the morning.

The only reason you wake up out of bed around like five is because you have a purpose to do something, even if that’s not what you want to do. Like on a simpler thing, like that’s your purpose, right? Right. And talking about on a life scale to want to continue to get up and continue to go to that job that you probably don’t want to go to because you have these other aspirations.

It’s still giving you the action to get up because you have something to work towards, but someone with no purpose, they might take a little bit longer to do action or if they might do meaningless action because they don’t necessarily know what it’s culminating into. Right. So I definitely believe that as far as purpose being absolutely necessary for you to pretty much live this life.

[00:08:14] Bob Wheeler: Absolutely. And I think the other important thing that it took me a long time to learn because I didn’t learn this as a kid, you’re actually allowed to change your mind and pivot. If you’re going down a path that you thought was the path and realize this isn’t the path, you’re allowed to backtrack.

You’re allowed to turn left. You’re allowed to jump over. And for so long, I thought I had to stay the course. Because as a kid, I made a choice. I had to live with it forever. I’m like, Frank, that’s a long time. You get to change your mind. You get to course correct. You get to pivot.

[00:08:44] Jeremy Clark: Absolutely. There’s no rules to this game of life.

And sometimes the best thing you can do is pivot. That’s honestly the best course of action for a lot of people. And the problem with pivoting for a lot of people is, like you said, they made a decision and they felt like if they go off course of that, then they’re failing or they’re giving up on what they wanted to do.

But reality is you tried it and you won because you tried it. You’re successful because you tried it and now you’re going to be successful because you realize that’s not what you want to do. So you’re making a successful decision to pivot. Yeah. Pivoting is very important. Like you have to pivot. I did not want to continue to work HR.

And be in the environment that I was in. And when I got fired, I had enough experience to apply to another corporate job. But I wanted to pivot. You get to make your own rules. That’s the beauty of it. The problem is we start thinking about what other people are going to think about our pivot. Right. How are people going to perceive our pivot?

Is it in brand with what we’ve shown up until our life? And then at that point, we start questioning ourselves because of, it’s not necessarily what we would do. Because honestly, if there was no one’s opinion involved and we could do what we want to do, we would pivot all the time. So it comes down to personal will and overcoming what you think you should be doing based on the perception of what you are currently doing.

Yeah,

[00:10:03] Bob Wheeler: it reminds me. It’s a lot like comedy or in the world in general, but in comedy you get to a certain level, right? And people think you’re funny. Well, now you got to play it safe. You don’t want to try a whole bunch of new stuff. And then everybody go, Oh, he wasn’t as funny as I thought. All right. And so you get stuck in a rut because, well, I’ve got to present a certain way.

And if I take a risk, I might fail or people might see me differently. And I’m not sure I’m ready to be seen differently. So we hold on to and protect this little piece because I can’t believe I got here. And so I better hold on to it because it could all be taken away.

[00:10:39] Jeremy Clark: Absolutely. And the ironic part is say for a comic or someone in regular life to get to where you got to, you took that risk first, right?

You were already taking the risk. So now that you’ve gotten to this level, you think risks are not in your wheelhouse anymore. But really that’s how you even got to this point in the first place, betting on yourself, taking the risk. It’s like remembering how you started is always hard. Remembering why you started is always hard, but you started because of a

[00:11:06] Bob Wheeler: risk.

That’s right. And it’s up here. It’s the mindset. Now, I’m curious. You said you had a lot of support from your parents when you lost your father. Certainly you lose some grounding there a little bit. How did you, like, were you reading books? Did somebody recommend affirmations? Was it just something that?

You were like, you know what, I think I’m going to try this. Like, how did you get there? Because I know a lot of people out there that are silently sharing shared experiences, but not talking about them. How do they decide to make that pivot, to move into affirmations, to move into mindset shifting? How did it happen

[00:11:41] Jeremy Clark: for you?

For me, first and foremost, I had to sit with it. I had to sit with the pain, sit with the understanding of what is. And personally, I’m a very spiritual person. So I’m looking for the meaning of life. I’m looking for my father’s spirit and different things. We, and him, we shared a bond of music. So. For a lot of that time, the purpose and the meaning that I’m looking for is like through music.

I’m seeking out the music that we listen to, you know, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Earth, Wind Fire. So I’m getting a lot of like vibrational vibes in that and like it’s raising my energy. So it’s allowing me to become in a state of understanding, a state of reception. And then that’s when I started seeking and the first book that actually helped me understand what seeking is and the importance of that was the Alchemist.

Okay. So my father passed away. I’m sitting with it for like two months or so and that’s the first book I picked up. And I don’t know why I picked it up. I think that’s just how the universe works sometimes. They have you gravitate to the things that you need to hear at the right time. Yep. Or read at the right time.

I picked it up, read about my boy Santiago, the journey that he took, and how… It was a really truly about the journey, even though he had a dream, right? He had a dream, but it was about the journey and the people he met along the journey, things he experienced along the journey and had me started thinking about my own journey.

And that actually gave me hope to understand that, okay, I’m going to have a goal, but there’s things in between that’s going to build my character, things I have to pay attention to on a daily basis. And that’s going to force me to be present. And forcing me to be present, I had to start thinking about myself, I, I affirmations, right?

Who am I? What do I aspire to be? What do I believe in myself to be? And that started trickling into saying affirmations, doing affirmations daily. My favorite affirmation to say is, I am the director of my movie, because I truly believe if the camera’s following you, what does your scene look like? Is it sad?

Is it boring? If it is boring, what can you do to make it exciting? Where can you go right now? How can you make it a nice dramatic scene, right? So that’s really how I sat with it. And I believe everybody has their own process when it comes to loss and grief and how I would advise anybody else who could be going through this is to just find your calm that allows you to understand.

My calm was the music, the bond, but that’s not going to be everybody’s calm, right? To some people, that sounds chaotic. Right. Music at a time like this, how can you? There’s a deeper understanding for me. So for someone else, that may just be sitting at a lake, sitting at a park, or roller skating, or cooking, whatever that may be, that has to be something that you’re no longer consciously thinking.

And your subconscious is working for you because you’re just being in the moment, which is going to allow you to slowly, but surely adapt and become something that you can be proud of, really.

[00:14:39] Bob Wheeler: Yeah. And I want to go back to this piece about the journey part. It’s the journey, sitting in your pain, like you can’t go around it.

Right. Unfortunately, as much as I’d love to say, Oh, you get to bypass a lot of stuff. You actually have to go through it. And even though it sounds counterintuitive. It does make you stronger when you deal with the grief, when you deal with the fear, whatever it might be. And I know, at least in my own family, there’s a lot of people in that family that spent their time trying to play it safe and just try to get to the end without any bad marks on their resume.

The thing is, it is the journey. I’m not ready to get to the final destination. Like, I want to take my time. And have those experiences, but I do think a lot of people out of fear and I was one of those people for a good long time that I’m just going to play it real quiet and safe so that nobody has anything bad to say about me and let’s just see if I can make it to the end instead of let me just show up and let me experience life.

And there’s going to be some dings, and I might have a couple scars, and there might be some tears, but it’s going to be a much more fulfilling ride. Absolutely.

[00:15:45] Jeremy Clark: It’s a scary thing, but allowing yourself to sometimes be a blank canvas to vulnerability, and what that means is… Giving yourself grace to say it is what it is.

Whatever comes my way, I’m going to take it. And that’s honestly taking the smooth road, right? There’s two ways you can go somewhere. You can either go on the road or you can go off roading. Yeah. Sometimes going on the road feels rough, but a lot of people choose the off roading part because they feel like that’s going to be the easier way to get there.

Cutting through, but that’s actually off roading that’s rougher on your vehicle than it would be for the regular road. So,

[00:16:21] Bob Wheeler: exactly. Well, let me ask you this. I’m thinking about mindset and I’m making these choices. How does self responsibility come into this? Because for me, if I can own things that I don’t really want to own.

Yeah, I f ed that up. Yeah, I really missed the mark on that. And I see where I negatively impact you. There’s a lot of freedom in that when you can actually, yeah, this was not what I intended. Let me make this right versus no, no, no, it’s your fault. And I was really busy and wait, let me get my list of all the reasons why I shouldn’t have to take the fall for my

[00:16:57] Jeremy Clark: actions.

Right. I’m a firm believer in accountability. Like I said earlier, I am the director of my movie. That’s my affirmation. Meaning, you know, if something goes wrong and it wasn’t necessarily my fault, I may have put myself in that position in the first place. So there’s accountability and then there’s costs, right?

Right. So what are you going to be accountable for and what’s it going to cost you to not be accountable or to be accountable? What’s it going to cost you to not own up to this decision? What’s it going to cost you? To actually make things right and put yourself in charge to actually create better circumstances, even if you’re not the creator of the last circumstance.

What’s it going to cost you? What’s it going to benefit you from actually making that decision to say, I messed up. Okay. That was on me. I should have did this, or I should have invested that, or I missed the mark on this. But now that I know that I did that, what can now I do to actually manifest? Who can I talk to?

Who can I grab as a resource? Sometimes it’s not in your control to make things happen. Sometimes it’s in your control to grab the other person that needs to make it happen to make the machine work. So it’s that mindset of, okay, taking that accountability, self responsibility. What can I actually do will make you go farther in life than not putting anything on yourself at all, right?

Because at that point you’re perfect and you can’t do no wrong, right? You’re just that’s right What can someone tell you when you’re saying it’s never been me yeah, then you just

[00:18:24] Bob Wheeler: sort of floating through life really because You’re not in control, so. You’re

[00:18:28] Jeremy Clark: not in control, you’re perfect, and nobody wants to work with you because you’re too perfect.

And can no one, like, tell you anything? You’re perfect. Yeah. And because you’re so perfect, they don’t want to be blamed for not being perfect. Yeah. Because you believe you’re so perfect. Exactly.

[00:18:41] Bob Wheeler: I believe everybody should be a student. Right? We’re all learning. I hope we’re all learning along the way. So the point that I get to where I think I know everything kicked me off the pedestal.

Absolutely. Kick me off, kick me off. Well, I love that you talk about the cost and benefit. I’m an accountant, right? It’s my background. So cost benefit is something I talk a lot about because. People will say, well, I didn’t want to take that job because I was going to have to speak or manage people. And then what’s that costing you?

The dreams of having more money or the dreams to be able to get ahead or whatever it might be, there is a cost. And then we have to figure out. The cost to our story. And is it too much of a cost to bear? Like, are we willing to change our story so that we get a better outcome? And we’re like money well spent.

[00:19:28] Jeremy Clark: Right. What is it going to cost you? If someone were to tell you, if you do this one action that you don’t want to do, it’s actually going to put you light years ahead of where you want to be. Are you still not going to do it? No, you’re going to do it because you understand what is going to happen to you.

But problem is we don’t have that genie on our shoulder telling us what’s going to happen if you make that move. Right. So we think, okay, this one move is going to lead to unhappiness when really that one move far outweighs the other moves that you’re thinking about because those other moves are super comfortable for you and you feel like this is what I need to do because I’m good at it.

Yeah. Sometimes you need that pressure to grow. And then bring those other strengths that you were willing to exude on a daily basis and enhance those based on the weakness that you just turned into a strength. So that’s how I feel about it.

[00:20:16] Bob Wheeler: Yeah, I think that there are so many people that the fear holds them back the fear of how is it going to look?

How is it going to play out? What will people say when we can just say, this is how I feel and not apologize for it. Or you can even apologize for it. Look, I know it’s going to look crazy. I’m sorry, but I feel called to do this. This feels like my purpose and I’m going to check it out. And it may not be like, if we can learn to be okay with not having to be stuck with our choice and be willing to let go and not hold onto it for the rest of our life, you made that one bad choice.

So you’re probably gonna make another bad choice. Yeah, I’ll probably make a hundred bad choices. What am I going to do after I make the hundred bad choices? Am I going to keep moving forward?

[00:20:58] Jeremy Clark: Yes. Sometimes the moves that we fear are the moves that we need for personal growth. And if we can view those moves that we fear for personal growth.

As just an itch that you need to scratch, you’ll scratch it because it’s going to be uncomfortable if you don’t. Yeah. The problem is we view those fears not as an itch, we view those fears as a detachment from us, away from us, something that we don’t really want to walk to.

[00:21:21] Bob Wheeler: And the other piece of that, you talk comfortability, right?

Yeah. If I’m comfortable, I’m not being challenged. And the reason that we actually move… Often from one place to the next is because we’re uncomfortable. It now is more painful to stay here than it is to move over there. And so for me. We got to get really uncomfortable and be okay with that. It’s going to be uncomfortable.

[00:21:46] Jeremy Clark: Yes. Sitting in that uncomfortability, that’s a scary thought, because what does that mean? We know it’s not going to kill us, but what does that mean? I think the moment you can start thinking about what does that mean is the moment you’re on to something. Yeah. Any time you have to question something that you know could potentially benefit you, In a certain way.

I mean, obviously not everything that you question that could benefit you. You should just hop on. But yeah, you know what I’m saying? I mean, common sense is not common, but let’s try to make it as common as possible. It’s pretty true. So whatever that move is, you should probably allow yourself to sit in it a little bit longer as uncomfortable as it may be to then make that uncomfortable decision that actually might benefit you to three, five, 10, 20 years down the

[00:22:30] Bob Wheeler: line.

Yeah. And I’m thinking about it. In your case, you were in a job, you were making great money, big paycheck, unfulfilled. Questioning, then they sort of helped you along, right? And they’re like, yeah, bye. You probably would have gotten there anyway. It might’ve just taken a little bit longer. So the universe was helping you.

But for you, since you’ve had this shift, you got uncomfortable, you got laid off. Has your mindset around money changed? Because it sounds like that money, even though it was initially like, this is cool. I’ve made it. Yeah. Oh, now I’m here. It’s actually money isn’t the value.

[00:23:06] Jeremy Clark: No, absolutely. My mindset on money has changed exponentially in the sense that before I’m working for that paycheck every two weeks and for those two weeks, I’m feeling like whatever, whatever, until I get the paycheck.

I’m like, Oh, okay, cool. That’s great. Right. It’s Friday now, let’s go have a drink or something, right? And then I noticed that was just a cycle of like, I don’t even know what the word is, because I don’t want to like downplay depression, because that’s a very real thing. But acute minor depression, because you’re actually coming from a high to a low, insistently, for myself at least.

And it was all based on around the fact of if I don’t do this, I won’t get paid. So I have to do this. And now I’m being forced to do this in my mind. And when I get to work, I’m being reminded by my coworkers and superiors, you need to do this to get paid. So that adds a lot of added stress. Since I got fired or let go, it’s been more so, okay, now that I’m making money for myself, I’m an entrepreneur.

I had to make a shift in terms of value. It’s no longer about That two week consistent check, it’s that value now. What value can I provide in a service that I couldn’t make in one check? This one service I’m providing now covers, you know, five, six checks. Right. That would have took me eight weeks to accumulate.

So that mindset shift of, okay, know your worth. Know your value and charge accordingly, but be of service so that you can actually be worthy of what you’re asking for has definitely shifted my whole perspective and mindset on money. You can ask a thousand people, a million people, their opinion on money, what they think it is, how they think it should be used.

And out of those a thousand or a million people, you’re going to get a thousand or a million different answers. Right? Yep. My answer just happens to be the one that I feel like a lot of people have figured out, which is just money depends on what you value it to be and what you value your service or your offerings to be.

When I was working for the company, my value was every two weeks, this is what you do, and this is what you get paid. And that was my fair value until I realized I have more to offer and it’s not going to be here. But as long as you’re here, that’s your value. And you cannot complain because this is what’s on the job description, this is what’s on the duty list, and this is what they deem the value to be.

So,

[00:25:36] Bob Wheeler: yeah, and I do think it’s important, like, you definitely want to know your worth and you definitely want to know your value. And for some people, it might be good to get a little bit of feedback or make sure it’s grounded in reality. Absolutely. Like, I may be most passionate about playing football, but I’m 5’4 I’m not going to be on the defense line taking out the quarterback on the opposing team.

That’s just a reality. No matter how much I think, I’ve got great value. Like, I do think it’s important to know your worth. And also realize sometimes there are certain limitations just by the nature of things, and it’s not good or bad. Know your worth in a grounded reality.

[00:26:13] Jeremy Clark: Absolutely. Sometimes it is what it is, whatever you’re doing, it’s important to study your market.

If you want to value yourself above the market, that’s fine. What are you bringing to the market that’s not already there that’s of higher value that you, you know, and then what is the backing about that? Like, what’s the proof that that is actually above market value that you’re bringing that extra sauce, flavor, whatever you want to call it.

That’s like that extra, you know what I’m saying? Like, what is that? Right. Yeah, man. Who said that’s that? So I definitely agree with you. Like. To have that perspective also means you have an understanding of the capabilities of what you bring to the table.

[00:26:52] Bob Wheeler: Yeah, absolutely. So let me couch it with this.

What advice would you give to somebody who is struggling with negative self talk and limiting beliefs like, I don’t have the value. I’m not sure I can do this. What would you say to those

[00:27:05] Jeremy Clark: folks? The first thing I would say is write all that down. All those thoughts that come to mind, write that down. And then I would ask them to ask themselves where that came from.

And if they do agree with that, do they want that to be true? Because at that point, you’re in control of, okay, I don’t want this to be true, so I know this is something I have to work on. And how do I work on it? You’re gonna find your own answers. Unless you seek a coach like myself, or unless you seek some other professional, you’re gonna do everything in your power to make sure you don’t have that truth at the end of the day.

Thoughts aren’t truths. Thoughts are things that could be true if we manifest them in our lives. But thoughts also have power. That’s why we say affirmations. Right. Because that allows you to become that person. That you will to be like the old affirmation says, I am who I will to be. That’s the truth. If you follow through on the will part, key part being the will.

[00:27:55] Bob Wheeler: Well, and it’s great because to me, affirmations help. It’s not that they keep blinders on, but they keep me focused so that instead of waking up going, Oh, it’s another day. Oh. Today, I’m going to be of service today. I’m going to show up in a way that’s an integrity with how I want to show up in the world.

And so my actions are going to reflect that. Oh, great reminder, right? Not that I don’t sometimes go or make my little snap judgments at somebody that drove in front of me. But having those affirmation going to help me get right back on course. Let me.

[00:28:25] Jeremy Clark: Absolutely. We are tested every day on our beliefs.

The things that we say that we want to do. And those tests are literally just that. Tests. They’re tests. Can you pass it based on what you say that you want to do? Right? Yeah. If in the middle of the day you’re saying, this is going to be my greatest day ever, and something extremely shitty happens to you, what can you do at that point to make your affirmation true?

Or does that ruin it? Right. You’re in control of that decision. And I’m not saying something as dire as death or something like that, that completely throws you off course. Of course, it’s not going to be the greatest day, right? But at that point, you have the conscious decision to just sit in it and then come back to that later.

But what are you going to do to make that true for yourself? It’s a choice. And it’s okay to sit in it for five minutes, ten minutes, on whatever the terrible thing is. It’s okay to sit in there. I’m not saying ignore it. I’m not saying it didn’t happen. It did happen. Acknowledge it happened. Sit in it. Be mad for a minute.

But then get back to doing what you were doing to make it a great day and then have that part be just a blip in your day that you either laugh about or be like, man, I wish that it didn’t happen, but it didn’t really ruin the rest of the

[00:29:32] Bob Wheeler: day. And I’m alive and I’m still breathing and I can still show up.

[00:29:37] Jeremy Clark: Absolutely. You have another

[00:29:38] Bob Wheeler: opportunity. Another opportunity. As long as you’re breathing, another opportunity. Oh, yeah. Well, Jeremy, we’re at the Test Your Nerve moment, so we’re going to shift the energy just a minute. If you want to explore your relationship with money, go to our free quiz at testyournerve.

com and start to uncover your money story. We’ve all got one. All right, so we’re gonna, a little down and dirty, we’re gonna just throw these out. What’s your favorite guilt pleasure expense that always brings a smile to your face?

[00:30:09] Jeremy Clark: My favorite guilt pleasure expense. Oh my god, man. I’m not gonna lie. My guilt, like, pleasure expense is really… Ice cream and candy.

[00:30:22] Bob Wheeler: You can’t go wrong with ice

[00:30:23] Jeremy Clark: cream. Ice cream and candy, man. Like, if you look next to my bed, you’re gonna find some starburst gummies or something just sitting down. Like, what is this doing here?

And it’s funny because I’m a very health conscious person. So anybody that knows me knows I’m very healthy. I don’t eat certain things. I work out every day. So sometimes they’d be like, why do you have all these junk though? What’s going on? Are you a fraud? It’s like, no, it’s just, this is the thing for me.

This is my like itch. This is my 1%. This is my opportunity just to be free.

[00:30:56] Bob Wheeler: Yeah, absolutely. No regrets. Yeah. If you could travel back in time to a younger version of yourself, what’s one piece of financial advice you would give

[00:31:05] Jeremy Clark: yourself? If I could travel back in time, It would probably be to my middle school self.

And the advice I would give to that kid is If you like that, if that makes you happy, make that purchase. You’re going to get your money back as long as you’re going to do what you say you’re going to do. Make that purchase. It’s because that kid lived in a very scarcity, you know, mindset. I wasn’t making money.

I’m like 13, right? So 20 a day or 20 for the week was. For some reason, it seemed like it lasted a longer time than it does now. For sure. You know, so make that purchase, man. Like your happiness right now will shape you later on. Cause you know, you’re going to be able to make that back based on what you’re capable of.

So

[00:31:58] Bob Wheeler: now I like that. Cause if you can’t be happy now and you’re waiting for it in the future, you’re probably not going to get it. Cause it’s always going to be over there out of reach. Always chasing. Absolutely. If you had to spend your money on one experience, not a thing, but an experience, what would it be?

Is it

[00:32:13] Jeremy Clark: something I’ve already done or is something I want to do?

[00:32:16] Bob Wheeler: If you’ve done it and you want to do it again, you want to do

[00:32:19] Jeremy Clark: it? One experience, it would be traveling to Africa again. If I hadn’t had that experience of going to Africa, I would have said traveling in general. But having that experience of going to Africa actually made me understand my roots better.

It made me understand the culture, why certain things that I do now in my life, how it’s deeply rooted in the culture. And that experience is honestly so priceless that I can’t even put a dollar amount on it. So if I had an unlimited amount of money, I’d do that trip and others ten times, a hundred times over.

[00:32:56] Bob Wheeler: Yeah, I’ve been to Africa a couple times. I love it. I’ve been to different countries, but the continent is special. Like if you don’t get to travel anywhere else, I would highly recommend. I’ve been to Zimbabwe and Botswana and Kenya and Tanzania and Egypt, which is still on the continent. Yeah, very different.

Yeah, I agree. Travel is so important. What was your last impulse purchase and was it worth it?

[00:33:23] Jeremy Clark: My last impulse purchase and was it worth it? Hmm. My last impulse buy. It’s kind of embarrassing. I was at the flea market and there’s this like vintage suit. It’s this nice, like a 1970 two piece suit, super clean.

And it was, I had bought it for like a costume party. Right. But I really bought it. Cause I’m like, I’m gonna wear this. Like for sure, for sure, for sure, for sure. It was such a nice suit. I think the lady charged me like 400 for it or something like that. It was one on one. It was vintage. It was nice. Like, yeah, it was definitely worth it because it made me happy.

And I look at it now and I can’t go find it nowhere else. Yeah. I had to make it. So. Honestly, I think impulse buys are always worth it. It might hurt a little bit, like your soul later, thinking about it. I don’t know if I should have did that, but you did it for a reason, right? Like it made you happy. Now I’m not talking like things that like hurt you, harm you, detrimental stuff.

Right.

[00:34:33] Bob Wheeler: But all right. Follow your impulse. Yeah. You did it for a reason.

[00:34:37] Jeremy Clark: Thank you. Absolutely.

[00:34:39] Bob Wheeler: Live your life. Live your life. Do you know, and do you track how much money you make and spend each month?

[00:34:45] Jeremy Clark: Yes, but I operate off a system of saving a little bit of what I make, putting some into investments, but just understanding my personal cashflow.

So absolutely.

[00:34:58] Bob Wheeler: That’s great. Yep. Just have to have the awareness. Yeah. If you want to stay on track. All right. We are at the Eminem moment, our sweet spot, money and motivation. I’m wondering if you have a practical financial tip or a piece of wealth wisdom you can share with our listeners.

[00:35:11] Jeremy Clark: Yes. The advice that I would say is just know your value.

I mean that if you could be working for a company, you could be a part of a large B2B company, small B2B, or it could be your own entrepreneur, whatever it is, know your value. If you’re working for a company, do you feel like you’re worth more? If so, look to what moves can you make to where you can either get a raise, promotion, or get up in a company.

If you know you’re worth and you know you’re not charging enough. Or it’s not meeting your bills, evaluate your service and what you bring, and you may honestly be doing way more than what you’re charging or the value that you’re giving. So just evaluate yourself, understand your limiting beliefs regarding that and make the changes accordingly to what you believe based on what evidence that you have to make the changes accordingly.

[00:36:05] Bob Wheeler: I love that. Know your worth. And Jeremy, the thing that I. Really enjoy about this conversation is again, the mindset piece. If we’ve got a mindset, that’s going to take us down a path of despair and destruction and unhappiness, uh, not going to be a very fun journey. And so if we can pivot and shift our mindset, if we can get real intentional, take some self responsibility, but this piece about awareness, consciousness, conscientious, knowing your purpose so that everything we do moves us towards that purpose.

Or reaffirms our purpose. And so I just really appreciate you taking the time to share your perspective. And I know you’ve got a book out there. Where can people find you online and social media so that they can get a little bit more of this positive affirmation mindset shifting?

[00:36:56] Jeremy Clark: Absolutely. First and foremost, you can find my book.

Did you know you are the shit positive affirmations overcome self doubt. You can find this on Amazon right now, right now, full of affirmations and also doubles as a journal for you to document your own goals that you’re trying to work towards. So after a certain portion of books, there’s a writing portion where you write down.

Pretty much the answer to the same three questions daily, along with the affirmation of the day, right? So you have three questions. What am I grateful for? What do I want? And what can I do today? Answering that consistently should get you closer to your goals on a daily basis, if you’re doing what you need to do on that day.

And you can find me on all my socials. I’m active on Instagram, Twitter. Even LinkedIn, you can find me there with my blog on my website, jclarkspeaks. com or at jclarkspeaks on all of my profile handles, that’s J C L A R K S P E A K S.

[00:37:56] Bob Wheeler: Awesome, we’ll put all that in the show notes. Jeremy, thanks again for taking the time to share your perspective.

I really appreciate it and I hope you have an awesome rest of your

[00:38:04] Jeremy Clark: day. Thank you for having me, Bob. It was a pleasure to speak with you, man. Absolutely.

[00:38:13] Bob Wheeler: Hey there, Money Master. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Did you learn some valuable insights around your relationship with money? Our guests shared some of their financial epiphanies. You might have experienced one, too. Don’t just sit there with that aha moment. Share it with us and the world by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast platform.

Or leave a comment on one of our socials, at Money You Should Ask. Let’s spread the word and help others explore their financial health, too. But that’s not all. Do you want to live in abundance and build wealth that can sustain you and your family for generations to come? It only takes one thing, the willingness to change the way you think about your money.

It’s time to test your money nerve and discover what’s been holding you back from financial freedom. Take the free quiz now at themoneynerve. com and begin your journey towards a prosperous future.