Logic > emotion.
You know better.
Wait.
Do you?
Do you logically know something, but your feelings don’t match.
Do your feelings betray you?
Sure, you understand something.
You hear it, it makes sense…logically.
Yet worry plagues you?
Feelings haunt you.
Heard (or said) this before?
“I know it is wise to invest in myself, but still scrimping away.”
“Save, save, save, for retirement.”
“Living meagerly.”
If this isn’t you, it is someone you know (and love), guaranteed.
I teach it:
Abundance.
Prosperity.
Living wealthy.
But I’m not impervious to scarcity
or mistakes,
or anger and frustration.
I am a recovered Miser.
Oh yes, the good old days:
Holding on to get ahead.
Obsessing about saving to secure my “best” future.
I was good at it.
Not something to brag about.
Ingrained, it was an identity.
My family proud.
They taught me.
Balancing the checkbook to the penny (yes, that ages me).
I tracked every dollar I earned and spent… by the age of fifteen.
My money bible was The Millionaire Next Door.
Until it wasn’t.
The book says save yourself miserable. You’ll have a million. But what good will it be, when you are miserly?
Millionaire Next Door has merit.
Especially in its advice to avoid consumerism.
But it teaches the sloth-like, tortoise pace, snail’s way to become a millionaire—never spend.
And by the time you get there, inflation won’t let you buy much (if you would part with any of that precious money anyway).
Multi-millionaires and billionaires operate differently. Opposite, in fact.
But I didn’t know better when I read the book. I didn’t know any multi-millionaires or billionaires. Plus the book played into my family mantra: SAVE!
How far could I go to avoid spending?
Ride my bike instead of drive—yep.
Stay hungry rather than eat—you bet.
Wear clothes with holes (it wasn’t a style)—uh-huh.
Work instead of play—you know it.
Ask my wife to live in her parent’s basement rent free—ouch.
Black Friday…well, I had to draw the line somewhere—no way.
A miser from my earliest memory.
Fortunately, my friends in college didn’t really have or spend much money either.
And my wife was most impressed with quality time—luckily.
Don’t spend.
In my cells.
My story.
Shit, my identity.
So, it took years for my emotions to meet the logic of “I knew better.”
There were plenty of epiphanies, but my emotions didn’t always agree.
Investing in myself,
Creating quality of life,
Preparing for tomorrow but living well today.
Riddled with the obsession of reduction, I finally focused on adding value.
How?
Masterminds.
Mentors.
Meditation.
Somatic therapy.
40 Years of Zen (working on brain patterns).
CREATION.
Writing.
Speeches.
Asking questions.
Having conversations.
Allocating money to invest in me.
Breaking a lifetime of bad ideas.
Eradicating limiting philosophies.
Addressing scarcity.
It is an imperfect process.
Just do it.
Just start.
Prove you are worth it by investing more in YOU.
Take a step.
Yeah, a step.
Like learning to walk.
Get in the game.
Stumble a bit and learn.
Process emotions.
Go back to childhood. To heal. Replace beliefs that no longer serve you.
Rather than judge, or feel guilt and shame, let go and grow.
Get help.
Speak up.
I could look at my miserly ways as embarrassing. I was doing the best I knew how.
And although I knew this mindset was holding me back, like the 80s rock ballad it was a hard habit to break.
It was addressing my childhood that helped me heal.
It was talking to people who were further ahead.
It was investing time with those that viewed the world through abundance.
Progress.
Breakthrough.
With time I got better.
Awareness.
Now I am aware of scarcity and no longer deem it reality.
It is temporary.
A sign allowing me to learn and adjust.
Painful at times.
Pain can be a teacher.
If we face it.
Pain can nudge us (sometimes not so gently).
Pain can be more powerful than positive thinking.
Positive thinking isn’t helpful as you might think.
Ignoring our feelings with false positivity is a cover up.
Ignoring and pushing down emotions, we ignore the lessons.
We become trapped.
I’m an optimist still, but I give myself permission to feel…
to process emotions,
to vent,
and address and feel the feelings,
so that intelligence wins over scarcity.
Allowing my emotions to match logic.
Pain garners attention. It provides a platform for seeking help, asking questions, learning deeper lessons.
Pain can also create compassion, develop empathy, and gain perspective.
I don’t love pain, but I love the results.
Rather than face pain;
Some become victims.
Some occupy their mind with thoughts of changing the past.
Others worry.
I certainly have.
Yeah, worried about others’ feelings.
What will happen if you have a difficult conversation.
Or if your vision in business doesn’t include people you started with.
It may hurt or be scary.
Ignore it and it doesn’t go away, it just gets more complicated each and every day.
How do you process emotions?
Do you ignore them and hope they go away?
What patterns leave you in dismay?
If we worry about what everyone else thinks or might say, we lose freedom day-by-day.
You can do this different.
You can feel what is meant to feel.
Lose the judgement, learn the lesson, and do the work.
The work that allows your logic and emotion to live in harmony.
With peace, with prosperity.
If this resonates with you, apply for the Multiplier community.
A safe space to learn, to get free, and share everything holding you in captivity.
Send me a message, reply to this email, you’ll be glad you did.
Let’s connect, let’s heal, let’s learn together and turn that mountain of emotion into a molehill!
Garrett “poetic in the end” Gunderson
