Bernie Borges [00:00:00]:
Hello my midlife friend. This is Bernie Borges, your host of the Midlife Fulfill podcast, and this is episode 155. My takeaway episode from episode 154, my conversation with Ashley Patrick. On these takeaway episodes, you know the drill. I Summarize the key discussion points from the previous episode, and then I hone in on one key takeaway that I want to emphasize to you. And then I issue you a challenge to consider on this topic. So first, let me begin by reintroducing you to Ashley Patrick from episode 154. Ashley Patrick has made an unlikely transition from being a detective to becoming a financial expert and a debt elimination accountability coach.
Bernie Borges [00:00:50]:
She paid off $45,000 of debt in 17 months, and then she paid off $25,000 in student loans in 10 months. She discovered the power of being intentional with money and creating a plan for financial management. And she discovered that her calling is to help Others do the same to enjoy the freedom that comes with being debt free. Now There are 3 key discussion points from our conversation. I’ll summarize them, and then I’ll dig into my key takeaway. Number 1, Be intentional with your money. Ashley emphasizes the importance of creating a plan for your money and being intentional with your spending. Number 2, embrace accountability and community support.
Bernie Borges [00:01:40]:
In her group coaching program, Ashley Foster’s accountability and community support health over a 150 women create a positive impact on their finances. And number 3, start small and make incremental progress. Ashley encourages people to take small steps towards this financial freedom, Emphasizing that incremental progress, not perfection, is the goal. And I wanna land on Ashley’s 3rd point for my takeaway. Start small and make incremental progress. But I am not gonna limit this concept to debt elimination. No way. It’s much bigger than that.
Bernie Borges [00:02:22]:
I wanna invite you to embrace this potentially life changing concept across the 5 pillars of midlife. Now as a reminder, those 5 pillars are health, fitness, career, relationships, and legacy. And you know that I close each podcast episode with, if you’re 80% fulfilled, you’re doing great. Do you know what I mean by this? Let me explain. By the time that we’ve reached our forties or fifties or sixties or even beyond, We have had a lot of life experience. We’ve just had a lot of Midlife, and the chances are that each of these 5 pillars It’s not necessarily at 100% fulfillment. And you know what? Maybe that’s an understatement for you. So ask yourself, how fulfilled are you in each of these pillars? And if you’re honest with yourself, you gonna have a percentage for each pillar, and there’s a good chance that you’re less than a 100% fulfilled in each one of these pillars.
Bernie Borges [00:03:28]:
Now for the purpose of brevity and to illustrate my point, I am gonna focus on the legacy pillar. Personally, this is the pillar that I’m working on the most at this stage in my life. I am not 100% fulfilled in the legacy pillar. Incidentally, this is not the only pillar in which I’m less than a 100% fulfilled, but I digress. So back to this concept that Ashley speaks about. It’s actually a thing. It’s known as the study of incremental progress. Let me read you 3 sources of the study of incremental progress.
Bernie Borges [00:04:09]:
Harvard Business Review discusses the concept of small wins as a way to motivate employees in creative work. The idea is to help individuals take small steps forward every day to achieve their goals, emphasizing the significance of incremental progress. A second one is from Stanford Graduate School of Business, which highlights a study where focusing on smaller subgoals before tackling a larger objective led to more successful outcomes. And this supports the idea that incremental progress can be an effective strategy in achieving larger goals. And a third one is a scientific paper that mentioned that incremental improvement projects can have a significant cumulative impact on a company’s product or process. In fact, it demonstrates how incremental progress can result in substantial positive changes. Now these are just 3 examples where incremental progress has been studied and has proven to deliver progress. No pun intended.
Bernie Borges [00:05:17]:
So back to the legacy pillar. In my case, One of the 3 ways that I want to achieve fulfillment in my legacy pillar is by reaching a lot of people over age 40 to empower them in their quest to thrive across these 5 pillars. Now at the current time, My Midlife Fulfilled podcast and my blog and my website are my primary methods to achieve this. Currently, I publish 2 podcast episodes each week, and I average about 1 blog post per month. In the future, I plan to put on events, and soon, I’m gonna launch a free online private group where we can commune Online, talk, listen, engage with each other, and just generally support each other. All of these things, all of them are incremental steps for my legacy fulfillment. And while I have ideas about other ways that I can reach more people to Impact their fulfillment potential, I remind myself that I am making incremental progress. Now this leads me to the other benefit of incremental progress, and that is mental health.
Bernie Borges [00:06:35]:
You see, my consistency of the activities that I just described, which truly results in incremental progress, Also have the benefit of giving myself permission to feel like I’m making progress. And you know what? It feels good. I actually do feel like I’m making progress, and that is good for my mental health. But I admit that I often For myself on the amount of progress that I’m making, it’s natural to do this. I mean, I’m competitive, and I wanna make more and more progress And ideally, as fast as possible, but I also look at the cumulative progress that I’ve made. And I allow myself to have pride in the progress that I’ve already made. This progress motivates me to keep going. You know, I have a hunch that Ashley Patrick has similar conversations with the people that are in her group coaching sessions, and I often remind myself that I’m only human.
Bernie Borges [00:07:37]:
I can’t get everything done that I’d like to get done across all of the 5 pillars. But as long as I am Consistently making incremental progress toward a long term goal. I’m okay with that and you can be too. So my challenge to you is this. In which of the 5 pillars do you need to remind yourself of the power of incremental progress? Are you giving yourself enough credit for the incremental progress that you’re making? Are you on the path to your end goal with this incremental progress? Maybe you’re further along than you give yourself credit for, and maybe you can cut yourself some slack. Hey. Shifting gears a little. I wanna know if you would join a free online community of like minded midlife folks to meet online and share stories and insights across the 5 pillars of midlife.
Bernie Borges [00:08:34]:
And if so, I wanna know which online community platform is your preference. In the show notes, there is a link to a 2 question survey. That’s it. Just 2 questions that I want you to take to help me decide where to launch this free online community. Just scroll down to the show notes, find the link to the survey, and give me your input. Thank you, and I hope to see you inside the community soon. Hey. I wanna thank Ashley Patrick for joining me on episode 154 and sharing her story and her expertise on how to eliminate debt.
Bernie Borges [00:09:10]:
And I wanna remind you that you can watch my video recording with Ashley Patrick on episode 154 on the Midlife Fulfilled YouTube channel, And that, of course, is linked up in the show notes page. Hey. My next guest episode features Denise Gable. Denise is the world’s first Candoologist. Really? She wrote the book on Candoology. Really? It’s called The can do mindset. And I’ve read it, and it’s fascinating. Denise joins me in episode 156 to explain the key principles bulls of Ken duology.
Bernie Borges [00:09:45]:
Hey. Don’t miss this episode. And if you’re a new listener, I invite you to hit the subscribe button on your podcast player so that you don’t miss this episode as well as future episodes. You know what time it is, my midlife friend? It’s that time when I remind you that if If you’re 80% fulfilled, you’re doing great. And if you wanna know how I know this, listen to episode 100 where I explain. I’ll see you on episode 156. I’ll see you then.
