Financial Change, The Change Coach! Marceia Cork

How to deal with change: Build your bridge to change.

by Marceia Cork | Jan 5, 2022 | Building Confidence, Career Change, Financial Change, Lifestyle Change

You’re on the brink of involuntary change, and the anxiety that comes with the change. Navigate it with a bridge to change.

We’re all in transition. For the past 10 years and up until the COVID pandemic in 2020 I’d been providing strategic communication and change solutions mostly to large government agencies, colleges and universities. I helped employees navigate technological changes and changes to business processes. Their great concerns were things like, “How will I do my job after this change?” But with COVID those concerns became, “Will I still have a job with this change?” “If my small business doesn’t survive how do I start over? and “How do I make ends meet?”

The support I want to offer certainly should not replace the care and guidance prescribed and offered by your doctors and license professionals, but I am a certified change practitioner who will be both your coach and cheerleader, offering real change solutions and encouragement along your path to professional fulfillment and solid financial footing.

The baby boomer who fears he or she is aging out of the workforce is asking, “Will I be able to get a job?” as is the returning citizen recently released from prison, the person now battling depression or trauma of the hardships brought on by the pandemic, and the recent graduate who’s now up against stiff competition to stand out and be recognized. All the while, the parent of a young school-aged child is finding her or himself making the tough decision of declining a job offer because their child will be left home alone. If you have a similar hardship I am now compelled to support you in this transition.

Motivational speaker, Dr. Willie Jolley says, you should “turn your setback into a comeback.”

Owning your hardship and leaning into the change can be hard, but it will be your first step in walking confidently and courageous into change. Acknowledging your truth gives voice to the reality, trauma or even guilt that you would have ordinarily suppressed or omitted in the traditional hiring process. But within the tribe that will become your community and customer base it makes you relatable and shines light on authenticity–not flaws. People will flock to you because you are credible, you are relatable, and your personality shines through as you engage with your tribe.

Whether it’s a career change, financial challenges, or a change needed to improve your life or lifestyle–think of the change process as building a bridge–a strong and resilient bridge between the life you know and the life that will be. Build your bridge–your bridge to confidence, your bridge to change. Every bridge must have an anchor, the structure, and sustainability. Build your confidence bridge on a foundation of financial security.

Woman sitting under bridge — To navigate on your bridge to change you need a strong anchor, rooted in security and financial stability.

The Anchor

Just as it is seen in the social sciences as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and in the spiritual realm as the Root Chakra: one does not fully grow and progress until his or her root is stable. Your confidence in the changes to come must be anchored in security and stability. Identify what it is that will stabilize you and anchor yourself. How much (or how little) do you need to truly feel secure? Whether it’s a career change, financial challenges, or a change needed to improve your life or lifestyle, you are more likely to embrace the change when you see that there is security and stability on the other side. Once there is an anchor, there can be a structure.

The Structure

The structure is the bridge itself–the bridge as the solution to your challenges. See yourself in the solution, and structure your life and lifestyle around the the state of your life today. Let go of what was so that you can rebuild on what is. What some people see as having to downsize their life and lifestyle, I see as “right-sizing”.

Sustainability

Then there is the third and final component of your change bridge: the chains that sustain and firmly hold your change bridge in place, and guide your path from point A to point B. Let your bridge lead you; stay the course, maintaining your life and lifestyle around this change. If you’ve “right-sized” this might mean adjusting to a new budget and lifestyle. If change has taken you into a new environment this might mean creating an entirely new sense of community and a system that supports this new life. If you’re considering entrepreneurship that means creating viable products or services that generate enough of an income to sustain you.

So congratulations. (Yes, congratulations are in order.) You are about to take on a tremendous challenge and you’ve already decided you’re going to win. Anyone who has been the victorious underdog can tell you, it feels good to be the underdog once you realize you’re about to prove everyone wrong and win. You’re scared, sure, because you’ve sized up your opponent! Change is your opponent, and sometimes it’s big. But embrace being the underdog that’s about to win!

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I Saved $65K Without Feeling It! (And you can too!)

by Marceia Cork | Dec 23, 2021 | F.I.R.E., Financial Change, Lifestyle Change

I love money. I looove watching money grow. It gives me goosebumps.

I’m a natural-born saver, and watching money down to the penny throughout my life added immeasurable value to my professional skill set. And spending nearly two decades of my career in project management and account management estimating and managing large budgets transferred advantageously back to my personal life. Growing up, my ability to delay gratification was nearly as euphoric as the reward itself! That mindset has carried over into the life I live–firmly walking the line that lies between my means and beyond them! But otherwise my financial goals, I presume, were much like yours… I was in pursuit of happiness and financial independence (from my student loans!)

A few years ago while working on my vision board a magazine cut-out of the word “Happy” found its way to the center of the board. I continued to modge-podge my 2019, finding that in the end the visuals that represented my intentions and goals for the year all had money at the stem (surprise, surprise)–iterating things like, “Yes, you can travel on a dime!” and “Buy less, make more!” among others. The goals that encircled my “Happy” boiled down to purchasing a home I could retire in without being “house poor”, living comfortably through retirement, college savings, and a legacy of wealth for my children. That board became a roadmap to happiness. So, I started the financial journey to “Happy”. It was going to be calculated (no pun intended) and deliberate. Goosebumps.

Here’s how I saved $65K effortlessly:

Woman expressing amazement over money savings.

I identified what it costed me to live. I opened my mobile banking apps and looked at every purchase and payment I’d made with my debit and credit cards that month. And I do mean every transaction–for utilities, credit card payments, student loan payments, dinners out, shopping, gifts to loved ones, etc.–and I tallied that amount against what I earned each month.

I gave myself a “pay cut”. Now that I knew what it cost me to live, I played a mind game with myself. I told myself, if that’s all I really need to live, why don’t I pretend that’s all I need to earn! I set up direct deposits into other accounts for the remaining net pay–the difference between my pay and my expenses–so that it never touched my hands and I never saw it! I knew it wad there if I truly needed it (or wanted it!) But I committed to seeing how much I could save if I ignored it and just let it stack. I did that consistently. Two years later those untouched earnings alone totaled $14,200!

I negotiated a pay raise. Alongside that “pay cut” I also increased my earnings. Listen, I practice what I preach. As I change consultant and coach I talk about confidence quite a bit. One of the things I tell people is to build confidence by quieting the voice in their head and instead listen to the people around them who have good things to say. During this period of aggressive saving I was also experiencing a stroke of good luck on a contract. I was performing well and was given a greater, more visible responsibility which turned out to be worth a higher hourly rate. That year I took home an additional $21K in consulting fees to stack alongside that $14,200. If you’re performing well at work, trust your skills and talents enough to negotiate a pay raise.

I got creative. Impressed with what I’d saved, I was inspired to rent out my basement to generate about $1300 month. I had my tenant transfer that $1300 directly into my savings for a total of $15,600 each year and $31,200 in two years!

These tactics didn’t put a strain on me at all. The money was all out of sight and out of mind. I even allowed myself to play with a little of the excess. I recommend this when the money is truly excess–I find it takes the sting out of aggressive saving when you can still reward yourself without compromising what you’ve saved. After I rewarded myself, I had saved $65K.

Spend less. Earn more. Combined, these four words can amass a fortune. I saved $65K for no reason other than to see what I could accomplish without effort but it became a lump investment into my financial independence, and the process was the linchpin to my investment strategy. Today I look back at that vision board… Retirement target: Met. The new home I could retire in comfortably: Check. Custodial accounts for my kids: Check. And it didn’t hurt one bit–in fact, it felt pretty damn good.

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