Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Thanks for joining us on episode 1527 of the Inspired Stewardship
Podcast. I'm Elizabeth Brickman.
I challenge you to invest in yourself,
invest in others,
develop your influence and impact the world by using your time,
talent and treasures to live out your calling.
(00:22):
Your life is no accident.
The Bible tells us in Ephesians 2:10 that he has tasks
planned for us to do.
Change the relationship with money and you'll change the trajectory of
your life.
One way to be inspired to do that is to listen
to this the Inspired Stewardship Podcast with my friend Scott Mater.
(00:53):
Wealth Blessed is not a statement of net worth.
It it's a statement of net trust.
It's a statement of net contentment.
In God's provision.
God owns all the wealth.
We own nothing.
So no matter how many homes we own,
we are all renters.
(01:13):
Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship
Podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God
wants you to be,
then you must learn to use your time,
your talent and your treasures for your true calling.
In the Inspired Stewardship Podcast you will learn to invest in
yourself, invest in others,
(01:33):
and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.
In this podcast episode,
I interview Elizabeth Brickman.
I asked Elizabeth to share how her faith reset her entire
(01:54):
relationship with money,
both personally and professionally.
Elizabeth also shares how her new book Wealth Blessed isn't about
net worth,
but rather net trust.
And I also ask Elizabeth to share some of the problems
and challenges Christians have when it comes to money.
I have a great book that's been out for a while
now called Inspired Living.
(02:15):
Assemble the puzzle of your calling by mastering your time,
your talent and your treasures.
You can find out more about that book over@inspiredlivingbook.com
it'll take you to a page where there's information and you
can sign up to get some mailings about it as well
as purchase a copy there.
I'd love to see you get a copy and share with
(02:36):
me how it impacted your world.
Elizabeth Brickman is a compassionate expert in the world of financial
advising and spiritual wellness.
Better known as the Caring Advisor,
Elizabeth is also a multi award winning Arthur whose new four
book series Starting with Wealth Blessed is available now.
Her book will change readers lives As a wealth confident woman
(02:59):
in a profession dominated by male voices,
Elizabeth adds a unique perspective that enriches hearts,
heals financial hurts and invigorates generosity.
Through her writing,
public speaking and the Caring Advisor Podcast,
Elizabeth offers a distinctive approach to wealth.
She helps her audience develop the inner resources of high achievers
(03:19):
by tapping into God's power to grow their financial and relational
lives with confidence and Christ centered happiness.
Her spiritual insights are rich,
loving and lighthearted.
A former nationally recognized,
award winning financial advisor and president of her registered investment advisory
firm, Elizabeth has a proven track record of success.
(03:40):
As a Certified Kingdom Advisor,
Elizabeth is credentialed to provide financial counsel from a Biblical perspective.
Elizabeth offers a much needed perspective connecting finance to emotional and
spiritual wellness.
Her style is engaging,
approachable and fun.
She motivates her readers to achieve victorious breakthroughs via innovative faith
(04:01):
based strategies.
Elizabeth loves her life in sunny South Florida with her beloved
husband of over 30 years and her pet orchid,
Ophelia. Elizabeth is happiest when tucked in her home library,
cappuccino in hand,
reading, writing,
thinking and praying.
Welcome to the show,
Elizabeth. Thank you Scott.
I'm so glad to be here.
(04:22):
Absolutely. I'm glad to have you on.
I talked a little bit in the intro about some of
your history,
some of the things you've done,
public speaking,
being an advisor,
doing all of these different things.
And now of course you've got a book coming out,
Wealth. Blast that.
We'll talk a little bit more,
but can you share a little bit deeper with folks?
(04:42):
I always think of intros as kind of like Instagram photos.
They show us in the best possible light and yet I
know that our journey is never really that straight of a
line that we connect those dots.
So share a little bit more about your journey and what
brought you to the point of wanting to put this message
out in the world.
I think the Lord had this in mind from when I
was very little.
(05:03):
I am a riches to rags story.
When I was raised early on,
that's not the direction that she didn't say that wrong folks.
She really meant that.
Keep going.
By the time I was 10 years old,
I knew what it was to be rich and to be
poor. I was raised initially in a family that had great
(05:26):
wealth and they lost everything when I was 9 years old
and it was like a slow tumbling first we lost the
housekeeper and then we lost the whole house.
And so we were left in a situation where I grew
up probably supposed to be poor,
bereft or forsaken.
I was on that track and the Lord took me on
(05:49):
a winding road and I became a financial advisor and I
also became a Christian.
And what I discovered after being a financial advisor was that
there are a whole lot of wonderful people walking around,
including wonderful Christian Scott,
who struggled with how they see themselves with their identity in
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Christ as it relates to Money.
Some of them are trying to resist that prosperity gospel,
which is a false doctrine.
Others think it's holy to just hate money.
And they're just going to be poor and they're just going
to be miserable.
And many people use money in a way that expresses some
unhealed damage within them.
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We use money to punish,
to please people.
We don't need to be pleasing,
to prove things that we don't need to be proving.
We use money in all sorts of ways to self medicate.
Yes. Because we are just unhealed with some things.
My book is a little bit like going to the chiropractor
financially, just a few tweaks,
(06:57):
turning to what the Lord says and also allowing him to
do his financial therapy within us,
because it needs to start from the inside out.
There's nothing outside you that can make things right within you.
So even if someone gives you a million dollars,
you inherit a billion dollars,
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it cannot make things right within you.
And it might make things worse.
I actually talk to people about money being what I call
a magnifying glass.
Yeah. And what I mean is it tends to magnify the
character and the behavior that you already have.
So if you're disorganized and sloppy and you get money now,
you're disorganized and sloppy on a bigger scale.
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If you,
if you're mean and hateful now,
you're hate.
Mean and hateful on a bigger scale.
If you're kind and giving now,
you're kind and giving on a bigger scale.
It takes the things that you are and just magnifies them.
So true.
So on you yourself,
did you go through a period where you were struggling with
that belief around money?
(08:00):
Did you know,
did you feel like you grew up and you always kind
of had it and I understood it from day one?
Or is it something that you had to go through your
own kind of transformation and how you understood money?
I think that the problem is that I may have expected
to be on the path of somebody who just didn't have
enough. Because from age nine until adulthood,
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there was no safety net,
there were no funds.
I really had to figure out how to navigate my path.
And then the Lord stepped in.
When I was in my early 20s,
I was already working.
I was always working two jobs.
I was always doing a daytime job and then I was
always doing something at night to enhance my future.
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Either going to school or teaching a class or doing a
second job.
Just always something to better myself.
And one of those night classes,
one of my students stepped in and Asked me a question,
a spiritual question.
And she was a stranger.
I had just met her,
it was really the first night of the class.
And she.
(09:08):
It just pierced my heart.
The Holy Spirit used her to pierce my heart.
And that's when all of a sudden all I could think
about was Jesus.
And I never said anything to anyone.
And weeks passed and,
and I finally got on the phone and called my student
who was quite a bit older than me.
(09:29):
I was in my early 20s and she was in her
40s. And I just said I could you just tell me
a little more about what you said last week?
And she said,
I've been praying for you.
I'm so glad you called.
And I was stunned.
I said,
you've been praying for me?
I was living in such a secular survival mindset that it
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never had occurred to me that the Lord could be part
of my making my way.
And so I know you talk about faith intersecting with your
life. Intersection is a perfect word because I was at an
intersection. If the Lord hadn't stopped me cold and caused me
to surrender my life to him,
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I would have been on a very different path and ended
up with a very different life.
And no matter how successful financially I might have become,
I would have been spiritually impoverished.
I would have lived a cold,
brutal life even if I had become a success.
But when I surrendered everything to the Lord,
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which I did,
we, the student who talked to me had several phone calls
with me.
I went to visit her,
we had a lot of conversations about the Lord.
And maybe a month or two later,
I finally was willing to surrender every part of my being
to him.
And that's when I became a born again,
spirit filled Christian.
(10:54):
And what that did for me,
aside from what we know is the obvious,
is it allowed me to reboot my life and start fresh
right where I was.
So all of a sudden it was like putting on glasses
when you've been blind.
Everything was new,
the way I approached everything,
what I wanted from everything.
Now I still was very ambitious.
(11:16):
I want.
I was managing a business and I was doing a self
business on the side at night.
I still was driven to do that,
but in an entirely different way and for an entirely different
reason. Talk about freedom.
Yeah, one of the things too I want to draw out
or follow up on on that when a lot of times
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I think people hear faith moment,
a moment where they see things differently,
they hear that about somebody and I just want to draw
this out to make it real obvious.
So instantly at that moment,
everything in your life got perfect.
And you were thriving and money just showed up.
And isn't that how that works?
(11:58):
Oh, yeah.
No, things got much worse.
Much, much worse.
Because now,
now was the time where I was technically a baby Christian.
I was a grown woman struggling,
but I was a baby Christian.
And so I just noticed things I didn't notice before.
The lack of integrity of my employers.
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The. I looked at my future and my present in an
entirely different way.
And I was given an opportunity out of the blue to
take on a different job,
a much higher paying job.
And I was cautioned not to take that opportunity.
But something in me,
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which I know was the Lord told me to go ahead
and do it anyway.
But I went into it with my eyes opened,
knowing it was not really going to be a perfectly good
thing. And I worked for one year on a project that
completely elevated me professionally.
But at the end of that year,
the owners of the company swindled me out of my one
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year salary bonus and ran off to Saudi Arabia.
And I had been living in a company apartment,
driving a company car,
earning a cushy salary,
and now I had no job,
no car and no home.
It was the closest thing to total devastation that I have
ever experienced.
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But through that experience,
within. Within a week,
someone who was going to be away for a month offered
me to use their car.
I was able to have a place to stay.
I was able to get not a good job,
but a temporary job.
And within a matter of weeks,
I was offered the chance to open my own business and
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be funded.
So God used that.
And through that experience,
I met the man who would 20 years later,
become my husband.
So everything was used.
Whatever was intended against me worked for good.
But what happened was I ended up going into a very
different business.
And I did it kicking and screaming.
(14:09):
I did not want to become a financial advisor.
It had never even come on the radar.
But what happened was I was working in a business and
it was just ethically not a good fit.
I just didn't like what they were doing.
And so how do I support myself?
So I decided to go into the income tax business.
And I didn't want to,
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but my whole family had been in that business.
I had been tutored and schooled and I knew what I
was doing.
So I opened this tax business and people started asking me
to help them with their financial planning and I was not
equipped. So I told them no.
And then finally,
one day,
like a lightning bolt,
the Lord hit me and I said,
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why? Why not?
And so I went back to school at night.
Doing my business in the day and became a financial plan.
What's really ironic is that my brother,
who went through the same childhood experience as I,
also accidentally became a financial advisor.
So I think the Lord gave us both a passion to
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make sure that what had happened to us will not happen
to any other person.
But we,
neither of us saw that at the time.
Absolutely. Yeah.
And I just wanted to call that out because it's.
I think it's funny that.
And I think it's back to.
You were talking earlier about the prosperity gospel and some of
the messages that are come to Christians about money and this
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kind of false belief that we're promised a life of comfort
and ease and everything's rainbows and kittens and it's.
That's not actually the promise that's made now.
Again, all things will work towards good.
So it's not right.
It's not that the bad stuff is there to punish you
or to hurt you or to beat you up,
but there are things that you can learn from and live
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into where you're blessed even in the.
You find joy in the bad times,
you find joy in the good times.
It's different joy,
but you find joy.
I needed to learn to walk with God financially.
I had compartmentalized my life even as an early Christian and
I thought the Lord is the spiritual part of my life
and finances are a separate part of my life.
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And as I began to really read the Word of God,
looking at it financially,
which by the way,
the book of Proverbs alone was worth my entire certified financial
planning program.
But because it really will teach you,
it's better than an MBA too.
You learn more in Proverbs than you do in an mba.
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I know,
and it's so easy to read too.
Bite sized pieces.
Read the same chapter as the day of the month and
you're done a couple of minutes a day.
And I read it again and again.
But I learned to walk with the Lord financially and be
a steward of whatever little or much he chose to allow
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me to manage of his money.
So let's talk a little bit about the book.
So the title is Wealth Blessed and there's baggage that comes
along with that title,
I think.
So what does it mean when you say Wealth Blessed?
Okay, the full title is wealth why Good People Lose Everything
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and why you don't have to.
Wealth Blessed is not a statement of net worth.
It's a statement of net trust.
It's a statement of net contentment.
In God's provision,
God owns all the wealth we own nothing.
So no matter how many homes we own,
we are all renters.
(17:41):
And so we want to allow the Lord to bless us
by not interfering with what he,
not only what he says to do about money,
but all the interferences that get in the way from childhood
on. For example,
as a child who lost everything and became poor,
(18:02):
but already knew what it was like to live in a
rich way without God's intervention and healing,
I might have,
who knows what way I might have responded to success.
Maybe I would have bought myself everything to prove that I
have money,
or maybe I would have only God knows what mixed up
(18:23):
thing I might do.
But as a financial advisor,
what I've discovered to my shock was that helping all these
clients who had worked hard to acquire a measure of wealth,
and most of my clients were Christians,
what I discovered was that those childhood wounds,
or even adult wounds,
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they hound us,
they distract us,
in some cases they can derail us.
And so we need to expose all of those little things
to the Lord and ask for his healing.
Now there's another thing that I learned that was fascinating and
that is if you're the first person in your family to
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have some money,
some wealth,
some affluence,
if there's no other person in your family who modeled what
a godly lifestyle is with money,
then you're just going to guess what and where will you
learn how people are with money?
What, from television commercials?
From television,
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secular television shows that have a very different moral code.
How will you know how to live?
So one thing that Wealth Bless the book does is I
model, oh,
about 40 different elements of clients who lived in a wealth
blessed way.
How they thought about things,
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how they emotionally responded,
even their different styles.
I use mind,
heart, spirit and style.
How they relate to money in these four ways.
And they're just fun little things.
For example,
you might think,
well, if I have a lot of money,
I'm just going to buy the best car and I'm going
to trade it every year.
But wealth blessed people will often buy a moderate car and
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hold it for seven years or more.
But yet there are also very different styles that are all
acceptable. And so the book shows you how to prioritize and
how to understand what's right for you.
Some of that too,
backing up to what you said about where you're going to
learn from it.
I've also seen,
folks, let's face it,
(20:29):
you mentioned secular TV and those sorts of things.
But even a lot of the message we get within Christian
circles around money is not necessarily the most biblically based or
healthy of attitudes around it.
I see that as well,
and I can understand how that happened.
Those of us who truly want to be holy and live
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for the Lord,
we don't want to love money because that is a sin.
And so some of us think the only alternative is to
hate money.
The problem is who is going to fund churches and ministries,
kingdom initiatives,
if we decline the opportunities God gives us to earn and
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give? Isn't it better to earn and be a participant in
all that God wants to do financially rather than to just
disparage money?
Because if,
if all the wealth leaves the Christians and goes into the
hands of those who don't believe in the Lord,
who's going to do this?
So he has a appointed each of us to do certain
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things. It's in Ephesians 2:10.
He's got tasks for us to do.
Those tasks may or may not include being a carrier of
his wealth and passing it on to his initiatives.
Now, we can never have more than he ordained,
but we can have a whole lot less if we don't
do it his way.
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When you think about those challenges that come to us,
you mentioned the past traumas or the traumas that we have
now are going out and performing.
We call it Keeping up with the Joneses,
but really it's just performing for others.
It's part of.
It's often a sin of pride that's being shown when we
talk about this.
For people of faith,
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what have you seen that is helping block or blocking their
understanding or their behavior around the way they relate to money?
That's a really good question.
And I think the single biggest issue that I've seen is
identity. Sometimes when we,
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when we meet the Lord,
okay, the old is dead and we're a new person.
But if we don't embrace our new identity in Christ,
if we just because the old identity is dead,
we're left in that Neverland.
We're not confident,
we're not Christ confident.
And so a poor identity will affect how we use money.
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So some of us are very successful and still see ourselves
through damaged eyes.
And part of what I do is help people see themselves
as God sees them.
A very worthy one of a kind,
much needed person in this world.
Another area that I talk a lot about with folks both
(23:23):
in my coaching business as well as on the podcast is
the mindset versus the math.
And I'll be transparent.
I have seen a lot of financial advisors,
not all by any means,
but a lot will focus on the math side and not
talk about the mindset or the goals or the behavior.
And that side,
what have you seen as that balance between kind of focusing
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on the math and focusing on the mindset and the behavior
side? When it comes to finances,
God says it's appropriate for us to work and earn,
not to be looking for handouts,
but it is also even more appropriate that we give.
Now, you can't give if you have nothing to give.
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So you do need to earn and be an active participant
in life.
But I think the issue is that if we have a
love of money,
we are headed in a very bad place.
So if our mindset is simply the Bible says Proverbs 21,
21 of the translations says the wise man saves for the
(24:26):
future. The foolish man spends whatever he gets.
So saving is appropriate.
We know working is God's will,
but the mother load of financial happiness comes through generosity.
That is God's heart.
If you want to merge your heart with God's heart,
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give something and you will experience a feeling of intimacy with
God, a feeling of confidence,
a feeling of wellness and contentment like you've never experienced before.
And honestly,
I would challenge people too,
because I have heard people say I don't have enough to
(25:09):
give. And the truth is,
there's always a way to give.
Maybe it's time instead of money.
Okay. Maybe it's giving in a different way.
Okay. But there's still ways to get involved with generosity.
It's not an income problem.
It's a mindset and a heart problem.
We all love physical fitness and becoming physically fit.
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And we know that we work a muscle,
we work our biceps and then it.
We work it to failure to the point where it.
And then we say,
yay, that's good,
because that means in a few days it's going to be
stronger. And then the next workout is better and we increase
our weights that we work out with.
Well, it's the same with generosity.
You start today,
you start where you are.
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You write the biggest check you can or give the biggest
amount through whatever means you can.
That may be $10 this week,
that may be $100.
And then allow God to build that generosity muscle.
As he does that,
he seems to provide more for you to give.
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Now, that doesn't mean that it's a straight line.
My husband and I went through a really bad 10 years
after we had learned this,
and we learned what it was to prune our disposable spending.
And so what we did during that time,
and I'm not taking credit for it,
I'm Thanking God that he gave us the mindset to do
(26:36):
it. But instead of taking back what we were giving,
we just cut back on frivolous things.
So instead of a European vacation,
it was a one night stay across town to get away.
We cut back on that and we kept to our giving
goals. And that's another good point.
Set a goal.
Set a giving goal.
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No matter where you are,
you just barely getting by.
Set a goal that this year you will give a certain
amount. And I would even incorporate,
now I hope no criminal is listening,
I would incorporate that goal into your passwords to remind yourself
every time you're typing in a password of what that giving
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goal is,
it needs to be before you every hour of the day.
And what we found is every time we set a goal,
instead of saying how much should we give?
It was,
wow, we're work,
look at this,
we're 60% of the way for the year and every year
increase that goal just a little bit.
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It's amazing when we do the littlest thing,
God seems to do the biggest thing.
It's almost like the parent standing behind you when you're on
the bike and you go to a two wheeler and you're
trying, wow,
I'm going to do it.
And you don't realize your parent is right behind you making
sure that you don't fall.
And if you do fall,
he picks you up.
(27:58):
Yeah, I've even had folks,
so you see this a lot when people are quote getting
out of debt.
But I've had,
I've done it as well with generosity or giving where you
put a big thermometer or whatever on your refrigerator and you
color it in as you go.
This is my giving goal for the year.
And you fill it in,
making it something visual for a lot of folks.
Motivating, like you said,
where you see it,
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and this is what I've said I'm going to do and
this is what I promised and then follow through on that.
I think it's good feedback.
Only you know what your temptations are.
I'll give you a little secret.
So I,
because of my childhood,
I loved to save because that's how I felt secure.
And as I grew more successful in my business,
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I would.
I was thrilled when I could take a chunk of money
and put it in savings.
But what I learned to do,
and believe me,
it was not easy at first,
but I learned to say,
okay, I am never going to save more than I give.
If I was going to put $1,000
just to use a round number away I forced myself at
(29:02):
first to say,
nope, I'm going to give 500 and save 500.
And as the numbers rose,
it wasn't as hard as it was in the beginning to
say. And then it became just an automatic thing.
I would never save more than I gave.
I think also people should start to give even while they're
(29:24):
working their way out of debt.
Yeah, my,
my wife and I did,
and it was,
again, like you said,
it's part of that working the muscles thing,
too. It's getting in the habit of it.
And it's from a.
For a Christian mindset thing.
Again, it is helping you put money in the right place,
which is,
money's not my security.
Money's a tool.
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It's a thing that God blesses us with,
but it's not the security.
My, my source of security needs to come from God.
And if that relationship gets messed up,
well, your heart's not right with money.
And I think that's one of the reasons we're challenged to
give no matter what our situation is.
It helps us say,
at the end of the day,
money's not what I'm worshiping.
God is where my heart is,
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and the money has to come second.
And the reason you want to do this also is,
believe me,
as one who for 25 years worked with successful clients,
is you will never have financial happiness unless you have your
relationship right with the Lord.
And the order,
the holy order of how you work with money is right.
(30:31):
So you're doing it not just to honor him and obey
him. You're also doing it so that you can have some
happiness along the way.
So I've got a few questions that I like to ask
all of my guests.
But before I go there,
is there anything else about what you do or your book,
Wealth Bless,
that you'd like to share with the listener?
(30:51):
Yes, we are in the midst of something that's called the
great wealth transfer.
It started about two years ago.
Over the next couple of decades,
this is a big number.
I'm going to tell you.
84 trillion that's with a T will be passed to baby
boomers and also by baby boomers.
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And on the surface,
this sounds like a really great thing.
Yay, money's coming.
But the great wealth transfer may be the worst thing,
because if those who inherit the funds are ill equipped,
this influx of money may distract,
confuse, or even ruin them.
When we're given something that we don't know how to handle,
(31:34):
even if it's a good something,
it can become dangerous and toxic.
Scott, even though it was never meant to be,
you would never give a lobster to a baby because they
just couldn't handle it.
So an ill equipped heir,
someone who received an inheritance,
may end up leaving the church or worse,
leaving the Lord.
(31:54):
So we all need to be inspired and financially invigorated.
And that time to do that is right.
It is now.
We're not too early,
but we're not too late.
So my brain is inspired.
Stewardship. And I run things through that lens of stewardship.
(32:15):
And you've mentioned that word several times today while we've been
talking. And yet I've also discovered that's one of those words
that even in the Christian circles it means different things to
different people.
So I like to ask,
what does the word stewardship mean to you?
I love to talk about this.
So stewardship to me is high level and high as the
(32:38):
heavens. High level management.
Now, we all want to be in management,
whether we realize it or not,
Whether it's the management of our own kids,
or the management of our homes,
or the management of a corporation,
or of our own business or of our finances.
We all secretly or not,
love to be in management.
(32:58):
And so stewardship is a very happy word because it's management
of God's wealth.
It's an opportunity to be coveted.
They talk about C suite managers and that C has to
do with corporate corporations,
because the chiefs in corporations,
whether it's cfo,
CEO, coo,
(33:20):
they are very high level management.
The C and C suite for us stands for Christ.
And so it is a wonderful thing to be a steward,
a high level manager worthy of being used to carry his
money for his purposes.
I like that.
I like that.
(33:40):
I'm gonna.
I'm probably going to steal some of that.
Just let you know that is good.
I'm a true artist.
I steal good ideas.
Well, share it away.
I will give.
I will try to give credit at least the first few
times I steal.
Okay, I appreciate that.
So this is my favorite question that I love to ask
(34:02):
everybody. Imagine for a moment,
Elizabeth, that I invented this magic machine.
And with this machine I was able to take you from
where you are today and transport you into the future,
maybe 150,
maybe 250 years.
But through the power of this machine,
you were able to look back and see your entire life
and see all of the ripples,
all of the connections,
(34:22):
all of the impacts you've left behind.
What impact do you hope you've left in the world?
I would like to see people healed financially from whatever is
keeping them from the fullness of God's provision.
And I really want to see the generations that follow these
(34:42):
people to be financially whole and well because their parents created
that model that will,
that will feel familiar to them to do it the right
way, to do it God's way.
And the other thing is,
I want Christians to believe in themselves,
(35:02):
in God's purposes for their lives,
so they will be courageous and invigorated and purpose driven and
intentional about money.
I want them to feel wonderful about their very important position
in this world.
What I don't want is to see children growing up with
parents who did not have benefit of this information and therefore
(35:26):
unwittingly pass along habits and patterns which will then seem familiar
to their children so that their children wouldn't get the benefit
of living high above the financial frustration that dogs most of
us. Wholeness in money.
A strong relationship with money and the Lord will open up
(35:50):
so many possibilities for financial significance.
Because, Scott,
when our finances are in order and our heads are aligned
with God's financial instruction,
we can do great things for the kingdom and we can
find significance.
We can do greater things than we ever imagined.
So what's on the roadmap?
(36:10):
What's coming next as you continue on this journey?
Oh, I have four books coming out by the end of
next year.
Well, yeah,
I know.
Who would have ever thought?
Wealth Blessed will be out next month.
Wealth Confident will be out August 19th.
And that covers seven different powerful attributes that will make you
(36:34):
rich from the inside out so that you do not repel
what you might attract.
And not prosperity gospel here,
but aligning yourself with the principles of the Lord.
And then right now I'm working on and trying to complete
the manuscript for wealth by Design.
And that's a beautiful book that will come out next year.
(36:54):
And then finally,
either late in 26 or early 27,
wealth in relationship will come out.
Plus, I'm busy with my own podcast,
the Caring Advisor,
which airs every other Wednesday.
It's not technical,
it's not coaching.
It's just emotional and spiritual and it's about money.
(37:16):
So it's just a 15 minute blurb sometimes with guests.
I hope you'll be on with me.
Scott, you have so much to say,
but just a delightful little while you're driving the kids to
soccer practice or on your way to a meeting,
a little uplift.
Absolutely. Wealth Blast just came out March 18th.
(37:53):
You can find out more about Elizabeth Brickman over at her
website, Elizabeth brickman.com.
of course,
I'll have a link to that in the show notes as
well. Elizabeth,
Anything else you'd like to share with the listener?
I want everyone to be encouraged that you can lift the
financial direction of your life and you can increase your capacity
(38:16):
to hold and manage God's wealth.
Your history is not your destiny unless you invite it to
be. So you really can close the gaps,
heal the hurts,
put God at the center,
and you,
at any financial level,
can learn to use money in a way that satisfies you
(38:39):
and glorifies God.
Absolutely. Thanks so much.
My pleasure.
Thanks for having me.
Thanks so much for listening to the Adventure Inspired Stewardship Podcast.
As a subscriber and listener,
(39:00):
we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen,
but act on what you've heard and find a way to
live your calling.
If you enjoyed this episode,
please do us a favor.
Go over to inspired stewardship.com
iTunes Rate all one word iTunes Rate.
(39:24):
It'll take you through how to leave a rating and review
and how to make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so
that you can get every episode as it comes out in
your feed.
Until next time,
invest your time,
your talent,
and your treasures.
Develop your influence and impact the world.
Thanks for joining us on episode 1527 of the Inspired Stewardship
Podcast. I'm Elizabeth Brickman.
I challenge you to invest in yourself,
invest in others,
develop your influence and impact the world by using your time,
talent and treasures to live out your calling.
(00:22):
Your life is no accident.
The Bible tells us in Ephesians 2:10 that he has tasks
planned for us to do.
Change the relationship with money and you'll change the trajectory of
your life.
One way to be inspired to do that is to listen
to this the Inspired Stewardship Podcast with my friend Scott Mater.
(00:53):
Wealth Blessed is not a statement of net worth.
It it's a statement of net trust.
It's a statement of net contentment.
In God's provision.
God owns all the wealth.
We own nothing.
So no matter how many homes we own,
we are all renters.
(01:13):
Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship
Podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God
wants you to be,
then you must learn to use your time,
your talent and your treasures for your true calling.
In the Inspired Stewardship Podcast you will learn to invest in
yourself, invest in others,
(01:33):
and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.
In this podcast episode,
I interview Elizabeth Brickman.
I asked Elizabeth to share how her faith reset her entire
(01:54):
relationship with money,
both personally and professionally.
Elizabeth also shares how her new book Wealth Blessed isn't about
net worth,
but rather net trust.
And I also ask Elizabeth to share some of the problems
and challenges Christians have when it comes to money.
I have a great book that's been out for a while
now called Inspired Living.
(02:15):
Assemble the puzzle of your calling by mastering your time,
your talent and your treasures.
You can find out more about that book over@inspiredlivingbook.com
it'll take you to a page where there's information and you
can sign up to get some mailings about it as well
as purchase a copy there.
I'd love to see you get a copy and share with
(02:36):
me how it impacted your world.
Elizabeth Brickman is a compassionate expert in the world of financial
advising and spiritual wellness.
Better known as the Caring Advisor,
Elizabeth is also a multi award winning Arthur whose new four
book series Starting with Wealth Blessed is available now.
Her book will change readers lives As a wealth confident woman
(02:59):
in a profession dominated by male voices,
Elizabeth adds a unique perspective that enriches hearts,
heals financial hurts and invigorates generosity.
Through her writing,
public speaking and the Caring Advisor Podcast,
Elizabeth offers a distinctive approach to wealth.
She helps her audience develop the inner resources of high achievers
(03:19):
by tapping into God's power to grow their financial and relational
lives with confidence and Christ centered happiness.
Her spiritual insights are rich,
loving and lighthearted.
A former nationally recognized,
award winning financial advisor and president of her registered investment advisory
firm, Elizabeth has a proven track record of success.
(03:40):
As a Certified Kingdom Advisor,
Elizabeth is credentialed to provide financial counsel from a Biblical perspective.
Elizabeth offers a much needed perspective connecting finance to emotional and
spiritual wellness.
Her style is engaging,
approachable and fun.
She motivates her readers to achieve victorious breakthroughs via innovative faith
(04:01):
based strategies.
Elizabeth loves her life in sunny South Florida with her beloved
husband of over 30 years and her pet orchid,
Ophelia. Elizabeth is happiest when tucked in her home library,
cappuccino in hand,
reading, writing,
thinking and praying.
Welcome to the show,
Elizabeth. Thank you Scott.
I'm so glad to be here.
(04:22):
Absolutely. I'm glad to have you on.
I talked a little bit in the intro about some of
your history,
some of the things you've done,
public speaking,
being an advisor,
doing all of these different things.
And now of course you've got a book coming out,
Wealth. Blast that.
We'll talk a little bit more,
but can you share a little bit deeper with folks?
(04:42):
I always think of intros as kind of like Instagram photos.
They show us in the best possible light and yet I
know that our journey is never really that straight of a
line that we connect those dots.
So share a little bit more about your journey and what
brought you to the point of wanting to put this message
out in the world.
I think the Lord had this in mind from when I
was very little.
(05:03):
I am a riches to rags story.
When I was raised early on,
that's not the direction that she didn't say that wrong folks.
She really meant that.
Keep going.
By the time I was 10 years old,
I knew what it was to be rich and to be
poor. I was raised initially in a family that had great
(05:26):
wealth and they lost everything when I was 9 years old
and it was like a slow tumbling first we lost the
housekeeper and then we lost the whole house.
And so we were left in a situation where I grew
up probably supposed to be poor,
bereft or forsaken.
I was on that track and the Lord took me on
(05:49):
a winding road and I became a financial advisor and I
also became a Christian.
And what I discovered after being a financial advisor was that
there are a whole lot of wonderful people walking around,
including wonderful Christian Scott,
who struggled with how they see themselves with their identity in
(06:14):
Christ as it relates to Money.
Some of them are trying to resist that prosperity gospel,
which is a false doctrine.
Others think it's holy to just hate money.
And they're just going to be poor and they're just going
to be miserable.
And many people use money in a way that expresses some
unhealed damage within them.
(06:36):
We use money to punish,
to please people.
We don't need to be pleasing,
to prove things that we don't need to be proving.
We use money in all sorts of ways to self medicate.
Yes. Because we are just unhealed with some things.
My book is a little bit like going to the chiropractor
financially, just a few tweaks,
(06:57):
turning to what the Lord says and also allowing him to
do his financial therapy within us,
because it needs to start from the inside out.
There's nothing outside you that can make things right within you.
So even if someone gives you a million dollars,
you inherit a billion dollars,
(07:18):
it cannot make things right within you.
And it might make things worse.
I actually talk to people about money being what I call
a magnifying glass.
Yeah. And what I mean is it tends to magnify the
character and the behavior that you already have.
So if you're disorganized and sloppy and you get money now,
you're disorganized and sloppy on a bigger scale.
(07:39):
If you,
if you're mean and hateful now,
you're hate.
Mean and hateful on a bigger scale.
If you're kind and giving now,
you're kind and giving on a bigger scale.
It takes the things that you are and just magnifies them.
So true.
So on you yourself,
did you go through a period where you were struggling with
that belief around money?
(08:00):
Did you know,
did you feel like you grew up and you always kind
of had it and I understood it from day one?
Or is it something that you had to go through your
own kind of transformation and how you understood money?
I think that the problem is that I may have expected
to be on the path of somebody who just didn't have
enough. Because from age nine until adulthood,
(08:25):
there was no safety net,
there were no funds.
I really had to figure out how to navigate my path.
And then the Lord stepped in.
When I was in my early 20s,
I was already working.
I was always working two jobs.
I was always doing a daytime job and then I was
always doing something at night to enhance my future.
(08:47):
Either going to school or teaching a class or doing a
second job.
Just always something to better myself.
And one of those night classes,
one of my students stepped in and Asked me a question,
a spiritual question.
And she was a stranger.
I had just met her,
it was really the first night of the class.
And she.
(09:08):
It just pierced my heart.
The Holy Spirit used her to pierce my heart.
And that's when all of a sudden all I could think
about was Jesus.
And I never said anything to anyone.
And weeks passed and,
and I finally got on the phone and called my student
who was quite a bit older than me.
(09:29):
I was in my early 20s and she was in her
40s. And I just said I could you just tell me
a little more about what you said last week?
And she said,
I've been praying for you.
I'm so glad you called.
And I was stunned.
I said,
you've been praying for me?
I was living in such a secular survival mindset that it
(09:51):
never had occurred to me that the Lord could be part
of my making my way.
And so I know you talk about faith intersecting with your
life. Intersection is a perfect word because I was at an
intersection. If the Lord hadn't stopped me cold and caused me
to surrender my life to him,
(10:13):
I would have been on a very different path and ended
up with a very different life.
And no matter how successful financially I might have become,
I would have been spiritually impoverished.
I would have lived a cold,
brutal life even if I had become a success.
But when I surrendered everything to the Lord,
(10:33):
which I did,
we, the student who talked to me had several phone calls
with me.
I went to visit her,
we had a lot of conversations about the Lord.
And maybe a month or two later,
I finally was willing to surrender every part of my being
to him.
And that's when I became a born again,
spirit filled Christian.
(10:54):
And what that did for me,
aside from what we know is the obvious,
is it allowed me to reboot my life and start fresh
right where I was.
So all of a sudden it was like putting on glasses
when you've been blind.
Everything was new,
the way I approached everything,
what I wanted from everything.
Now I still was very ambitious.
(11:16):
I want.
I was managing a business and I was doing a self
business on the side at night.
I still was driven to do that,
but in an entirely different way and for an entirely different
reason. Talk about freedom.
Yeah, one of the things too I want to draw out
or follow up on on that when a lot of times
(11:38):
I think people hear faith moment,
a moment where they see things differently,
they hear that about somebody and I just want to draw
this out to make it real obvious.
So instantly at that moment,
everything in your life got perfect.
And you were thriving and money just showed up.
And isn't that how that works?
(11:58):
Oh, yeah.
No, things got much worse.
Much, much worse.
Because now,
now was the time where I was technically a baby Christian.
I was a grown woman struggling,
but I was a baby Christian.
And so I just noticed things I didn't notice before.
The lack of integrity of my employers.
(12:20):
The. I looked at my future and my present in an
entirely different way.
And I was given an opportunity out of the blue to
take on a different job,
a much higher paying job.
And I was cautioned not to take that opportunity.
But something in me,
(12:41):
which I know was the Lord told me to go ahead
and do it anyway.
But I went into it with my eyes opened,
knowing it was not really going to be a perfectly good
thing. And I worked for one year on a project that
completely elevated me professionally.
But at the end of that year,
the owners of the company swindled me out of my one
(13:06):
year salary bonus and ran off to Saudi Arabia.
And I had been living in a company apartment,
driving a company car,
earning a cushy salary,
and now I had no job,
no car and no home.
It was the closest thing to total devastation that I have
ever experienced.
(13:26):
But through that experience,
within. Within a week,
someone who was going to be away for a month offered
me to use their car.
I was able to have a place to stay.
I was able to get not a good job,
but a temporary job.
And within a matter of weeks,
I was offered the chance to open my own business and
(13:48):
be funded.
So God used that.
And through that experience,
I met the man who would 20 years later,
become my husband.
So everything was used.
Whatever was intended against me worked for good.
But what happened was I ended up going into a very
different business.
And I did it kicking and screaming.
(14:09):
I did not want to become a financial advisor.
It had never even come on the radar.
But what happened was I was working in a business and
it was just ethically not a good fit.
I just didn't like what they were doing.
And so how do I support myself?
So I decided to go into the income tax business.
And I didn't want to,
(14:30):
but my whole family had been in that business.
I had been tutored and schooled and I knew what I
was doing.
So I opened this tax business and people started asking me
to help them with their financial planning and I was not
equipped. So I told them no.
And then finally,
one day,
like a lightning bolt,
the Lord hit me and I said,
(14:51):
why? Why not?
And so I went back to school at night.
Doing my business in the day and became a financial plan.
What's really ironic is that my brother,
who went through the same childhood experience as I,
also accidentally became a financial advisor.
So I think the Lord gave us both a passion to
(15:13):
make sure that what had happened to us will not happen
to any other person.
But we,
neither of us saw that at the time.
Absolutely. Yeah.
And I just wanted to call that out because it's.
I think it's funny that.
And I think it's back to.
You were talking earlier about the prosperity gospel and some of
the messages that are come to Christians about money and this
(15:34):
kind of false belief that we're promised a life of comfort
and ease and everything's rainbows and kittens and it's.
That's not actually the promise that's made now.
Again, all things will work towards good.
So it's not right.
It's not that the bad stuff is there to punish you
or to hurt you or to beat you up,
but there are things that you can learn from and live
(15:56):
into where you're blessed even in the.
You find joy in the bad times,
you find joy in the good times.
It's different joy,
but you find joy.
I needed to learn to walk with God financially.
I had compartmentalized my life even as an early Christian and
I thought the Lord is the spiritual part of my life
and finances are a separate part of my life.
(16:17):
And as I began to really read the Word of God,
looking at it financially,
which by the way,
the book of Proverbs alone was worth my entire certified financial
planning program.
But because it really will teach you,
it's better than an MBA too.
You learn more in Proverbs than you do in an mba.
(16:37):
I know,
and it's so easy to read too.
Bite sized pieces.
Read the same chapter as the day of the month and
you're done a couple of minutes a day.
And I read it again and again.
But I learned to walk with the Lord financially and be
a steward of whatever little or much he chose to allow
(17:00):
me to manage of his money.
So let's talk a little bit about the book.
So the title is Wealth Blessed and there's baggage that comes
along with that title,
I think.
So what does it mean when you say Wealth Blessed?
Okay, the full title is wealth why Good People Lose Everything
(17:20):
and why you don't have to.
Wealth Blessed is not a statement of net worth.
It's a statement of net trust.
It's a statement of net contentment.
In God's provision,
God owns all the wealth we own nothing.
So no matter how many homes we own,
we are all renters.
(17:41):
And so we want to allow the Lord to bless us
by not interfering with what he,
not only what he says to do about money,
but all the interferences that get in the way from childhood
on. For example,
as a child who lost everything and became poor,
(18:02):
but already knew what it was like to live in a
rich way without God's intervention and healing,
I might have,
who knows what way I might have responded to success.
Maybe I would have bought myself everything to prove that I
have money,
or maybe I would have only God knows what mixed up
(18:23):
thing I might do.
But as a financial advisor,
what I've discovered to my shock was that helping all these
clients who had worked hard to acquire a measure of wealth,
and most of my clients were Christians,
what I discovered was that those childhood wounds,
or even adult wounds,
(18:43):
they hound us,
they distract us,
in some cases they can derail us.
And so we need to expose all of those little things
to the Lord and ask for his healing.
Now there's another thing that I learned that was fascinating and
that is if you're the first person in your family to
(19:04):
have some money,
some wealth,
some affluence,
if there's no other person in your family who modeled what
a godly lifestyle is with money,
then you're just going to guess what and where will you
learn how people are with money?
What, from television commercials?
From television,
(19:24):
secular television shows that have a very different moral code.
How will you know how to live?
So one thing that Wealth Bless the book does is I
model, oh,
about 40 different elements of clients who lived in a wealth
blessed way.
How they thought about things,
(19:45):
how they emotionally responded,
even their different styles.
I use mind,
heart, spirit and style.
How they relate to money in these four ways.
And they're just fun little things.
For example,
you might think,
well, if I have a lot of money,
I'm just going to buy the best car and I'm going
to trade it every year.
But wealth blessed people will often buy a moderate car and
(20:09):
hold it for seven years or more.
But yet there are also very different styles that are all
acceptable. And so the book shows you how to prioritize and
how to understand what's right for you.
Some of that too,
backing up to what you said about where you're going to
learn from it.
I've also seen,
folks, let's face it,
(20:29):
you mentioned secular TV and those sorts of things.
But even a lot of the message we get within Christian
circles around money is not necessarily the most biblically based or
healthy of attitudes around it.
I see that as well,
and I can understand how that happened.
Those of us who truly want to be holy and live
(20:49):
for the Lord,
we don't want to love money because that is a sin.
And so some of us think the only alternative is to
hate money.
The problem is who is going to fund churches and ministries,
kingdom initiatives,
if we decline the opportunities God gives us to earn and
(21:11):
give? Isn't it better to earn and be a participant in
all that God wants to do financially rather than to just
disparage money?
Because if,
if all the wealth leaves the Christians and goes into the
hands of those who don't believe in the Lord,
who's going to do this?
So he has a appointed each of us to do certain
(21:34):
things. It's in Ephesians 2:10.
He's got tasks for us to do.
Those tasks may or may not include being a carrier of
his wealth and passing it on to his initiatives.
Now, we can never have more than he ordained,
but we can have a whole lot less if we don't
do it his way.
(21:55):
When you think about those challenges that come to us,
you mentioned the past traumas or the traumas that we have
now are going out and performing.
We call it Keeping up with the Joneses,
but really it's just performing for others.
It's part of.
It's often a sin of pride that's being shown when we
talk about this.
For people of faith,
(22:16):
what have you seen that is helping block or blocking their
understanding or their behavior around the way they relate to money?
That's a really good question.
And I think the single biggest issue that I've seen is
identity. Sometimes when we,
(22:36):
when we meet the Lord,
okay, the old is dead and we're a new person.
But if we don't embrace our new identity in Christ,
if we just because the old identity is dead,
we're left in that Neverland.
We're not confident,
we're not Christ confident.
And so a poor identity will affect how we use money.
(23:00):
So some of us are very successful and still see ourselves
through damaged eyes.
And part of what I do is help people see themselves
as God sees them.
A very worthy one of a kind,
much needed person in this world.
Another area that I talk a lot about with folks both
(23:23):
in my coaching business as well as on the podcast is
the mindset versus the math.
And I'll be transparent.
I have seen a lot of financial advisors,
not all by any means,
but a lot will focus on the math side and not
talk about the mindset or the goals or the behavior.
And that side,
what have you seen as that balance between kind of focusing
(23:43):
on the math and focusing on the mindset and the behavior
side? When it comes to finances,
God says it's appropriate for us to work and earn,
not to be looking for handouts,
but it is also even more appropriate that we give.
Now, you can't give if you have nothing to give.
(24:03):
So you do need to earn and be an active participant
in life.
But I think the issue is that if we have a
love of money,
we are headed in a very bad place.
So if our mindset is simply the Bible says Proverbs 21,
21 of the translations says the wise man saves for the
(24:26):
future. The foolish man spends whatever he gets.
So saving is appropriate.
We know working is God's will,
but the mother load of financial happiness comes through generosity.
That is God's heart.
If you want to merge your heart with God's heart,
(24:48):
give something and you will experience a feeling of intimacy with
God, a feeling of confidence,
a feeling of wellness and contentment like you've never experienced before.
And honestly,
I would challenge people too,
because I have heard people say I don't have enough to
(25:09):
give. And the truth is,
there's always a way to give.
Maybe it's time instead of money.
Okay. Maybe it's giving in a different way.
Okay. But there's still ways to get involved with generosity.
It's not an income problem.
It's a mindset and a heart problem.
We all love physical fitness and becoming physically fit.
(25:33):
And we know that we work a muscle,
we work our biceps and then it.
We work it to failure to the point where it.
And then we say,
yay, that's good,
because that means in a few days it's going to be
stronger. And then the next workout is better and we increase
our weights that we work out with.
Well, it's the same with generosity.
You start today,
you start where you are.
(25:54):
You write the biggest check you can or give the biggest
amount through whatever means you can.
That may be $10 this week,
that may be $100.
And then allow God to build that generosity muscle.
As he does that,
he seems to provide more for you to give.
(26:15):
Now, that doesn't mean that it's a straight line.
My husband and I went through a really bad 10 years
after we had learned this,
and we learned what it was to prune our disposable spending.
And so what we did during that time,
and I'm not taking credit for it,
I'm Thanking God that he gave us the mindset to do
(26:36):
it. But instead of taking back what we were giving,
we just cut back on frivolous things.
So instead of a European vacation,
it was a one night stay across town to get away.
We cut back on that and we kept to our giving
goals. And that's another good point.
Set a goal.
Set a giving goal.
(26:57):
No matter where you are,
you just barely getting by.
Set a goal that this year you will give a certain
amount. And I would even incorporate,
now I hope no criminal is listening,
I would incorporate that goal into your passwords to remind yourself
every time you're typing in a password of what that giving
(27:17):
goal is,
it needs to be before you every hour of the day.
And what we found is every time we set a goal,
instead of saying how much should we give?
It was,
wow, we're work,
look at this,
we're 60% of the way for the year and every year
increase that goal just a little bit.
(27:37):
It's amazing when we do the littlest thing,
God seems to do the biggest thing.
It's almost like the parent standing behind you when you're on
the bike and you go to a two wheeler and you're
trying, wow,
I'm going to do it.
And you don't realize your parent is right behind you making
sure that you don't fall.
And if you do fall,
he picks you up.
(27:58):
Yeah, I've even had folks,
so you see this a lot when people are quote getting
out of debt.
But I've had,
I've done it as well with generosity or giving where you
put a big thermometer or whatever on your refrigerator and you
color it in as you go.
This is my giving goal for the year.
And you fill it in,
making it something visual for a lot of folks.
Motivating, like you said,
where you see it,
(28:18):
and this is what I've said I'm going to do and
this is what I promised and then follow through on that.
I think it's good feedback.
Only you know what your temptations are.
I'll give you a little secret.
So I,
because of my childhood,
I loved to save because that's how I felt secure.
And as I grew more successful in my business,
(28:40):
I would.
I was thrilled when I could take a chunk of money
and put it in savings.
But what I learned to do,
and believe me,
it was not easy at first,
but I learned to say,
okay, I am never going to save more than I give.
If I was going to put $1,000
just to use a round number away I forced myself at
(29:02):
first to say,
nope, I'm going to give 500 and save 500.
And as the numbers rose,
it wasn't as hard as it was in the beginning to
say. And then it became just an automatic thing.
I would never save more than I gave.
I think also people should start to give even while they're
(29:24):
working their way out of debt.
Yeah, my,
my wife and I did,
and it was,
again, like you said,
it's part of that working the muscles thing,
too. It's getting in the habit of it.
And it's from a.
For a Christian mindset thing.
Again, it is helping you put money in the right place,
which is,
money's not my security.
Money's a tool.
(29:45):
It's a thing that God blesses us with,
but it's not the security.
My, my source of security needs to come from God.
And if that relationship gets messed up,
well, your heart's not right with money.
And I think that's one of the reasons we're challenged to
give no matter what our situation is.
It helps us say,
at the end of the day,
money's not what I'm worshiping.
God is where my heart is,
(30:06):
and the money has to come second.
And the reason you want to do this also is,
believe me,
as one who for 25 years worked with successful clients,
is you will never have financial happiness unless you have your
relationship right with the Lord.
And the order,
the holy order of how you work with money is right.
(30:31):
So you're doing it not just to honor him and obey
him. You're also doing it so that you can have some
happiness along the way.
So I've got a few questions that I like to ask
all of my guests.
But before I go there,
is there anything else about what you do or your book,
Wealth Bless,
that you'd like to share with the listener?
(30:51):
Yes, we are in the midst of something that's called the
great wealth transfer.
It started about two years ago.
Over the next couple of decades,
this is a big number.
I'm going to tell you.
84 trillion that's with a T will be passed to baby
boomers and also by baby boomers.
(31:12):
And on the surface,
this sounds like a really great thing.
Yay, money's coming.
But the great wealth transfer may be the worst thing,
because if those who inherit the funds are ill equipped,
this influx of money may distract,
confuse, or even ruin them.
When we're given something that we don't know how to handle,
(31:34):
even if it's a good something,
it can become dangerous and toxic.
Scott, even though it was never meant to be,
you would never give a lobster to a baby because they
just couldn't handle it.
So an ill equipped heir,
someone who received an inheritance,
may end up leaving the church or worse,
leaving the Lord.
(31:54):
So we all need to be inspired and financially invigorated.
And that time to do that is right.
It is now.
We're not too early,
but we're not too late.
So my brain is inspired.
Stewardship. And I run things through that lens of stewardship.
(32:15):
And you've mentioned that word several times today while we've been
talking. And yet I've also discovered that's one of those words
that even in the Christian circles it means different things to
different people.
So I like to ask,
what does the word stewardship mean to you?
I love to talk about this.
So stewardship to me is high level and high as the
(32:38):
heavens. High level management.
Now, we all want to be in management,
whether we realize it or not,
Whether it's the management of our own kids,
or the management of our homes,
or the management of a corporation,
or of our own business or of our finances.
We all secretly or not,
love to be in management.
(32:58):
And so stewardship is a very happy word because it's management
of God's wealth.
It's an opportunity to be coveted.
They talk about C suite managers and that C has to
do with corporate corporations,
because the chiefs in corporations,
whether it's cfo,
CEO, coo,
(33:20):
they are very high level management.
The C and C suite for us stands for Christ.
And so it is a wonderful thing to be a steward,
a high level manager worthy of being used to carry his
money for his purposes.
I like that.
I like that.
(33:40):
I'm gonna.
I'm probably going to steal some of that.
Just let you know that is good.
I'm a true artist.
I steal good ideas.
Well, share it away.
I will give.
I will try to give credit at least the first few
times I steal.
Okay, I appreciate that.
So this is my favorite question that I love to ask
(34:02):
everybody. Imagine for a moment,
Elizabeth, that I invented this magic machine.
And with this machine I was able to take you from
where you are today and transport you into the future,
maybe 150,
maybe 250 years.
But through the power of this machine,
you were able to look back and see your entire life
and see all of the ripples,
all of the connections,
(34:22):
all of the impacts you've left behind.
What impact do you hope you've left in the world?
I would like to see people healed financially from whatever is
keeping them from the fullness of God's provision.
And I really want to see the generations that follow these
(34:42):
people to be financially whole and well because their parents created
that model that will,
that will feel familiar to them to do it the right
way, to do it God's way.
And the other thing is,
I want Christians to believe in themselves,
(35:02):
in God's purposes for their lives,
so they will be courageous and invigorated and purpose driven and
intentional about money.
I want them to feel wonderful about their very important position
in this world.
What I don't want is to see children growing up with
parents who did not have benefit of this information and therefore
(35:26):
unwittingly pass along habits and patterns which will then seem familiar
to their children so that their children wouldn't get the benefit
of living high above the financial frustration that dogs most of
us. Wholeness in money.
A strong relationship with money and the Lord will open up
(35:50):
so many possibilities for financial significance.
Because, Scott,
when our finances are in order and our heads are aligned
with God's financial instruction,
we can do great things for the kingdom and we can
find significance.
We can do greater things than we ever imagined.
So what's on the roadmap?
(36:10):
What's coming next as you continue on this journey?
Oh, I have four books coming out by the end of
next year.
Well, yeah,
I know.
Who would have ever thought?
Wealth Blessed will be out next month.
Wealth Confident will be out August 19th.
And that covers seven different powerful attributes that will make you
(36:34):
rich from the inside out so that you do not repel
what you might attract.
And not prosperity gospel here,
but aligning yourself with the principles of the Lord.
And then right now I'm working on and trying to complete
the manuscript for wealth by Design.
And that's a beautiful book that will come out next year.
(36:54):
And then finally,
either late in 26 or early 27,
wealth in relationship will come out.
Plus, I'm busy with my own podcast,
the Caring Advisor,
which airs every other Wednesday.
It's not technical,
it's not coaching.
It's just emotional and spiritual and it's about money.
(37:16):
So it's just a 15 minute blurb sometimes with guests.
I hope you'll be on with me.
Scott, you have so much to say,
but just a delightful little while you're driving the kids to
soccer practice or on your way to a meeting,
a little uplift.
Absolutely. Wealth Blast just came out March 18th.
(37:53):
You can find out more about Elizabeth Brickman over at her
website, Elizabeth brickman.com.
of course,
I'll have a link to that in the show notes as
well. Elizabeth,
Anything else you'd like to share with the listener?
I want everyone to be encouraged that you can lift the
financial direction of your life and you can increase your capacity
(38:16):
to hold and manage God's wealth.
Your history is not your destiny unless you invite it to
be. So you really can close the gaps,
heal the hurts,
put God at the center,
and you,
at any financial level,
can learn to use money in a way that satisfies you
(38:39):
and glorifies God.
Absolutely. Thanks so much.
My pleasure.
Thanks for having me.
Thanks so much for listening to the Adventure Inspired Stewardship Podcast.
As a subscriber and listener,
(39:00):
we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen,
but act on what you've heard and find a way to
live your calling.
If you enjoyed this episode,
please do us a favor.
Go over to inspired stewardship.com
iTunes Rate all one word iTunes Rate.
(39:24):
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and how to make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so
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your feed.
Until next time,
invest your time,
your talent,
and your treasures.
Develop your influence and impact the world.
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