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Anne-Lyse Wealth: This is The Dreamers Podcast episode 127. Today is November 28th, 2023
I'm a firm believer in the power of gratitude, finding, Something to be grateful for. And because, you know, we often get stuck into what we don't have, but this book really helped me find gratitude in just everything that I already have, instead of focusing on where I want to get to what I'm missing, what I'm lacking, and it helped me create a gratitude practice.
just thinking about what I'm grateful for. In the morning, end of day, but also, years down the line, I started developing a gratitude practice for our family, started doing that with our kids. So at the dinner table, wewe go around and we talk about three things that we're grateful for.
Hello, welcome to my channel. I'm Anlise Wealth. I am a CPA by trade, a storyteller, an author, but I'm a bookworm. I love to read books and I love to learn from books. And that gave me the inspiration for this video. I'm going to share with you three books
These books Were very influential in my life. they are sleepers. They're not as mainstream, but they had a life changing impact on my life. At least they're not mainstream in my community. So the first one is I've been thinking reflections, prayers and meditations for a meaningful life. By Mariah Shriver, and I just realized that instead of picking up the book, I picked up the journal, but you should definitely check out the book.
It was such an amazing read, and it prepared me for so many challenges in life, and I'm going to select a few chapters from the book. One is Life is Yours to Create and Recreate, and so I'm going to go ahead and read an excerpt. it starts with a quote from Rumi, It's your road and yours alone. Others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it with you.
now here's the actual book. I've seen people who lost everything, pick themselves up and start over. I've seen people make huge life mistakes, but then recognize it, take responsibility, make amends to those they've hurt, and move on, stronger and better.
In each of these cases, Turning their lives around require the courage to face the fear of the unknown. It takes courage to push up against the way it is or the way it has been. It takes courage to push back and be creative with the gift of life, but that's exactly what building a life of our own requires.
Thinking outside the box, being creative, being flexible, facing the fear of the unknown, stepping into it. And being willing to start over, a few years back, I was successful on paper. I had a job that I worked really hard to get a job that, many people, wanted.
I guess that was the definition of success in, my field. And after a few years, I felt like there was more. Right? had to rethink my life outside of this path that I had picked and let go of society's expectations, family, friends, and just go for the unknown. So I could start living the life that I live now.
And I try to live every day, living a life of purpose on purpose and life that's fulfilling to me. And it's not about a monetary amount or anything. It's about doing something that. You enjoy in that you think that is contributing to just society. And so I like to positively impact people with my work and my mission.
And, that chapter, was just an amazing reminder. Another chapter that I truly enjoy in the book is the power of gratitude. And so here's an excerpt from the book. Scientific research backs that up.
It shows that making a conscious effort to be grateful does, in fact, make you a happier, more helpful person. I'm a firm believer in the power of gratitude, finding, Something to be grateful for. And because, you know, we often get stuck into what we don't have, but this book really helped me find gratitude in just everything that I already have, instead of focusing on where I want to get to what I'm missing, what I'm lacking, and it helped me create a gratitude practice.
just thinking about what I'm grateful for. In the morning, end of day, but also, years down the line, I started developing a gratitude practice for our family, started doing that with our kids. So at the dinner table, wewe go around and we talk about three things that we're grateful for.
And so that was such, such a powerful chapter. Another chapter from the book is the power of your story.
You are the hero of your own story. So own the story of your life, value it. Give yourself credit where it's due and this chapter was such a great reminder that we are unique our individual stories are unique
it helped me look back at my life, the the good decisions that I made that got me to the point where I, am today and be proud for those decisions. But also look back and think about all the lessons that I learned from the decisions that I made that weren't the best ones, but also that all of these together make up.
My story, it makes up, all the things that you go through, they make up your story and your story can help someone else. All right. i'm going to move on to the next book, which is, lighter. It's about money and it's called Smart couples finish rich by David Bach and David Bach is known for The Last Day Factor and this was such a great book to read early on, in life because know, it's a reminder that if you work together with your spouse, you can build a wealthy life. it made me believe that we could be a wealthy couple if we strategize and we're consistent with our, strategy. we're consistent when it comes to investing and planning and things like that. This book, beyond teaching you or talking to you about managing finance as a couple, it helps with, asking the right questions.
So you and your spouse can work together towards investing and building wealth and living a life that is aligned with both of your values, right? something that was very helpful from the book is, you know, there was a quiz for couples, about finances. it helps you frame, values as your couple that you want to live by.
the book also made me discover, the solo 401k for the first time, which, you at the time I wasn't an employee, I didn't have my business, but when I had my business, I realized that, oh, this is actually something, that I need to look into now. And I'm so thankful for it. But you this was such a great book, it also talked about the importance of having different money baskets, right, beyond having an emergency fund, like a security basket, you want to have a dream basket, so you can invest in your dreams.
walks you through the process of determining some of those money basket that you want to work towards, invest in so you can design the life and live the life that you want. Also, the book was a great conversation starter for estate planning for a family, even though we didn't really have a family.
It was just two of us at the time. And, it helped us develop the money dates, having conversations, talking about money, talking about plans, dreaming together, prioritizing such a great book. here's an excerpt from the book. it's about growing with each other and loving life together in five years.
You can either be five years older or five years older living with more passion, living more richly, and being closer to finishing rich.And the last book I want to talk about is Black Privilege by Charlemagne Thagod.
I read this book years ago, and at the time I was somewhat familiar with but I wasn't really following him or anything, but the book was such a great read. It was actually the first time that I saw Black and Privilege. these two words together I'll talk about two chapters in the book that really spoke to me.
the first one is access your black privilege. Privilege is something everyone can access. I call my personal version. Black privilege doing so allows me to ignore the social norms that consciously and subconsciously tell me I'm inferior because of race, gender or class, no matter what sort of struggles you faced.
You still possess a unique privilege. Do you have arms and legs? Do you feel relatively healthy today? So he goes on and explain, how each one of us has privileges that we can leverage to become who we are meant to become or who we want to become, go after our dreams. So, It really doesn't matter what color you are, what gender you are, what class you are. There's something that you have that someone lacks. And if you learn to appreciate that, then you can tap into that and then achieve greatness. that's really what this passage, told me. another chapter from the book that really, really spoke to me, it's not the size of the pond, but the hustle in the fish, this man is here telling a story today is a radio all the famer.
He's a multimillionaire. He has had so much impact on the culture, but he was four times before. Starting the breakfast club. He he just never gave up. And, here's an excerpt from the book. Geographical location doesn't determine what kind of success you will have, but your psychological position always will.
When you stop complaining about where you are physically and start focusing on where you are mentally, that's when you'll start to transcend your circumstances. , I remember reading this book and, at the time I was thinking about writing or sharing my writing, right. and I had doubts, English is my second language.
It stopped me from sharing my work until, I started doing it and I'm so glad I did. I started writing a blog and then I wrote a book called Dream of Legacy, where my first chapter is called Black Privilege because that book was so impactful to me. writing a book was really one of the hardest things that I've ever had to do, but on the other side of it was freedom to be me, share my gift with the world.
And so, highly, highly recommend those books. And then I couldn't end the video without sharing a bonus book that changed my life.
Dream of Legacy, Raising Strong and Financially Secure Black Kids. That's my first book. And it helped me start on this journey as a personal finance educator. It helped me, start writing for, very well known established publications, start an agency.
And so, I had to add the book to the list. So if you like this video, make sure that you subscribe and stay tuned for the next video.
See you soon. Bye.