Spending and saving. Two sides of the same slippy coin.

Productivity is all about these seeming opposites.

Spending time, saving time.

Spending thought, attention, and energy, saving thought, attention, and energy.

Spending money, saving money.

The right time to spend and to save is an art and a science rolled into one.

An old proverb reads, “a penny saved is a penny earned”. The less we spend the more we earn.

It is very easy to accumulate, and unchecked accumulation leads to a big pile of disorganisation that bleeds in every direction…

https://davidleemartin.com/learn-the-art-of-lean-excellence/

---

00:00:02.920]
Well, happy Wednesday, here we are, the power in the Holy Ghost. It’s Wednesday. I don’t know why Wednesday should be so exciting, but I’m sure there’s something to be excited about today. I want to talk today about spending and saving, thinking about kind of learning the art of lean excellence. That’s that’s what I would call this, really. And again, you know, we’re talking about productivity. We’re talking about living a productive, fruitful life.

00:00:43.300]
And I think that spending and saving are parts to two sides of the same slippery coin. You know, it’s really productivity is all about balancing these two opposites, spending time saving time spending thought attention and energy saving thought attention and energy spending money. Saving money, you know, there’s a right time to spend and there is a right time to save, and really the the balance of these two in our personal and business lives is quite an art and science.

00:01:26.150]
I think there’s there’s an old proverb. It’s the kind of thing that I would have expected my grandma to say this once. I do forgive me, but there’s an old proverb that says a penny saved is a penny earned. The less we spend, the more we earn ultimately, you know, because really we don’t just want to be a thoroughfare for the things that come into our life, you know, just like some some huge pipe that just like things pour in and pour out just as quickly, if not quicker than that, the kind of the input.

00:02:05.900]
But, you know, it’s it’s very easy to accumulate. Expenses and that unchecked accumulation leads to a big pile of disorganisation that can bleed the profit from our lives and take take for example, and I may just be confessing my sins here, but take, for example, the inclination to buy all sorts of fancy software and over expensive services, thinking that somehow just having those services or those pieces of software is somehow going to magically transform the outputs from our lives.

00:02:54.440]
And, you know, let’s let’s be clear. Sometimes these things can be a great investment. You know, I do believe in investing in the right tools to get the job done. But truth be told, sometimes we can get we can actually get further on a pushbike if we ride it. Well, then if we have a motorcycle that simply sits on our driveway, you know, it’s not really the the power and the prowess of the tool that we have.

00:03:31.730]
The question is, are we using it to accomplish whatever end or whatever goal we’ve set in mind? And, you know, I think sometimes that the the tendency or the temptation can well, we can fall into the trap, that we can fall into a ditch on either side of this. We can be unwilling to spend where it’s necessary and where spending would be beneficial to move our business forward or our personal lives there. There are applications for this really across the board, our spiritual lives.

00:04:13.400]
And then on the other side, we can be kind of too willing to spend because we think that if we’ve got all of the, like, bells and whistles, somehow it’s going to transform into increase. It’s not always that’s not always the case. And, you know, I’ve I’ve been like rolling back and just giving consideration to because, as I say, sometimes things do tend to accumulate, you know, and unchecked and untested. And when we don’t kind of come and audit our lives and our businesses on a regular basis, we can find that we were actually spending out for all sorts of services that were not actually using any more, you know, and to ask ourselves, what services am I paying for that are not paying for themselves is a great question.

00:05:12.470]
What services and products that we dropping money on for no reason? What are the opportunities that we have within our business to that where we can save and still see the same results? I think, around these questions in terms of time as well. You know, when when we look and we can think where are we spending time, that where that time could be better saved and spent elsewhere, make an inventory of your outgoings and ask if they are wise, spend or save investments.

00:05:50.840]
And the answer to that question is going to be very dependent. Sometimes the best thing you can do is spend. Sometimes the best thing you can do is save. I spend money on some services because they save me time and the saving outweighs the spending. I spend time on some activities because they save me spending over the odds to have someone else do that work for me, spend or save and lean. Excellence, I think is where we work our system through the mental gym to shed the excess.

00:06:31.010]
It doesn’t mean that we live in it. Like living lean, I think is is a good idea. But living with a poverty mindset is something quite different. Living with a mindset that is kind of geared towards I don’t have enough, I can’t afford all of those kind of confessions that we make can really build up a mindset that kind of keeps us very much corralled into a small way of thinking and a small way of doing. But at the same time, you know, being over.

00:07:12.520]
Exerting ourselves for no good purpose is kind of equally as limiting, because we’re always the overexpenditure, either of time, energy or money that that kind of thinking takes means that we don’t grow and give ourselves room to breathe, room to experiment, room to explore, because we don’t have margin to work with. You know, I’ve made I’ve made mistakes on both sides of this spectrum, applying false economy of time and money. And on many occasions I once, like thought I once discovered this autoresponder service, you know, like Autoresponder Responder’s, where you can kind of set up your emails and blast out emails to kind of lists of people set up kind of automatic sequences of emails that go out, etc.

00:08:13.630]
It can be quite expensive to to have a decent autoresponder can be a quite a healthy and quite a substantial monthly outgoing. And I had the opportunity to kind of jump in with this cheap auto response, respond to services where quite honestly, the prices were too good to be true. And guess what? It turned out that the prices were too good to be true and that service fell over Newborough on numerous occasions for during the time that I worked with them, until it came to the point where I realised that this is a false economy.

00:08:54.490]
Not only was I losing subscribers, I was losing revenue. And quite honestly, saving money ended up being a huge expense to me. And then conversely, I’ve spent far too long at times trying to save a few extra dollars when I should have understood that. Why is a necessary expenditure? Is an investment not a cost? Save and spend, you know, as an example of spending, I have you know, there’s an example of saving it, looking to save money and actually ending up being an expense.

00:09:38.830]
But as an example, on the other side of things where I realised that the saving of time and the saving of headaches was very, very much worth an investment, I produce online products and courses as part of my business. And at one time I was bootstrapping this at every turn. And to be honest, in the early days that was necessary. You know, my online training arm, as I was learning the ropes, was serviced by websites that I built myself and they were all operating bolstered by plugins to handle the membership and the content delivery.

00:10:20.770]
And then I had other services that would take payments and handle the affiliate affiliate side of things and then another one to take care of secure a hosting. And I was always on the lookout for kind of llena, cheaper ways to keep the machine oiled and running. But, you know, the savings in dollars in that kind of bootstrapping mentality were offset by spending a lot more time and like a quite a number of headaches, Canadia fitting all the working pieces together and trying to keep everything up and running in a smooth manner, particularly because, you know, technology moves on and there’s just always a need to keep everything oiled and up to date or stuff, stuff just stops working or certainly working as smoothly as you might want it to.

00:11:13.570]
And said, after several years, I took the plunge and I chose a service called Podia. And, you know, it’s it’s important that we. I think it’s just important that we choose to recognise where the value lies, that in in any season that we’re working in, in our podia takes care of all of those working parts for me. And as God, you know, unlimited video hosting, it’s got unlimited courses that I can create there.

00:11:52.950]
It’s got unlimited products, digital products that I can service through, that I can take my payments through it, work with affiliates through it. There are elements of it like, say, for example, the affiliate side of things that is very weak. And there are other parts of that service that are very strong. So, you know, is it the best? You know, maybe not in some respects, but again, I needed to like thinking lean.

00:12:20.790]
And like, wanting to be excellent, wanting to serve my end use well, but at the same time save and not just spend, spend, spend to kind of service that and help that to happen. You know, is podia the best platform for that? Maybe not in some respects, but again, that it’s that balance of does the best job and does a good job. You know, the difference in price between those two can be huge.

00:12:55.380]
And you can you can choose maybe what’s considered to be the best, but ultimately it can be costing you a great deal more for incremental benefits you’re getting from it. I found podia to be a great balance between the features that it gave me and the leverage that it gave me and. What it actually costs me to to utilise and say it’s just looking for ways to spend, well, it’s looking for ways to save. Well, and, you know, and just knowing the relative value in whatever season you’re in to gauge the spend save equation.

00:13:46.430]
And it will change as seasons go as as the seasons go by, as you grow, as your priorities and the balance of time and money changes. It’s you know, your answer to some of these questions is going to shift and change. And and so it should, you know, we. And so, yeah, I would just encourage you to look in this kind of productivity conversation that we’re having right now on the areas where you spending unnecessarily and are there are there other areas where maybe you’re seeking to save?

00:14:30.350]
But it’s a false economy because it’s costing you a great deal in time where spending on a an appropriate service would relieve you of that and free up all of that mental and emotional space for you to actually begin to more effectively create and deliver content to your audience. And of course, as with everything, Jesus first everything else follows. Let the Holy Ghost lead you to creative solutions in your life and business that will both serve you, your family and the world.

00:15:12.680]
And he will he will guide you and direct you during this season to spend and save wisely. Well, thanks for listening, hopefully. It’s been an encouragement to you today, if you want to connect any further, you can do so through my website at Davidleemartin.com. Have a great day.