I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Kelsey Banerjee and discuss cash flow tips for self-employed fitness entrepreneurs and millennials.

The full article originally appeared on the Pulse App blog.

Have you ever heard the phrase “automate your finances” but never truly understood what that meant? Are you supposed to use a robot? Is there a self-spending credit card created by Elon Musk that you’re unaware of?

Believe it or not, it’s neither (yet) ! Automating your finances is actually pretty simple, but will require some up front work on your part. The most important step to get started is to know what your financial goals are. Without establishing your goals, it’s very difficult to automate the process to reach them!

Have you ever found yourself sitting on way too much cash? Maybe you received an inheritance, a large bonus at work, cashed out employee stock, or maybe you’ve simply been saving for awhile and you aren’t really sure what to do with it. 

You know that it isn’t earning anything sitting in the bank, but what’s the alternative? Here are five areas to focus on improving your financial situation with the excess cash.

I recently reread one of my favorite books of all time: Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. Jocko and Leif are both former Navy SEALS who use their training to teach business leaders the lessons they learned on leadership. The concepts are incredibly simple and can apply to almost every aspect of your life. As I was reading, I couldn’t help but think about how it related back to tackling financial planning goals for millennials.

Many people, especially millennials, misunderstand the benefits of working with a financial planner. The first mistake is thinking that you need to be wealthy to work with a financial planner. That may have been true in the past, but not anymore. There’s a revolution in the financial planning profession being led by millennial advisors who are focused on helping their peers achieve wealth rather than wait until you’re wealthy.