Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - On Financial Independence
Episode Date: February 1, 2022Someone out there is having a money mindf*ck kind of a day and needs to hear this. To learn more about Miss Independent, click here: https://nicolelapin.com/ Learn more about your ad-choices at h...ttps://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Money rehabbers, you get it. When you're trying to have it all, you end up doing a lot of juggling.
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bfa.com slash newprosmedia. Hey guys, are you ready for some money rehab?
Wall Street has been completely upended by an unlikely player, GameStop.
And should I have a 401k? You don't do it?
No, I never do.
You think the whole world revolves around you and your money.
Well, it doesn't.
Charge for wasting our time.
I will take a check.
Like an old school check.
You recognize her from anchoring on CNN, CNBC, and Bloomberg.
The only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand.
Nicole Lappin.
Today is not just February 1st.
It is also the day that my fourth book, Miss Independent, is out.
In Miss Independent, I outline 12 steps to build your wealth,
cement your financial independence,
and secure the net worth you need to create the
life you want. So in honor of the big day, I wanted to give you a little excerpt from step
one. I wanted to share it with you because honestly, I'm damn proud. And I know that
someone out there is having a money mindfuck kind of day and needs to hear this. There is very little else so
emotionally charged as money. Not politics, unless it's about money. Not religion, not much. It's a
mindfuck when people have money because they feel guilty about it. It's a mindfuck for people who
don't have money because they feel ashamed about it. It is full force mind fuckery around money. The full force mind fuckery around
money happens no matter what. And the only way it stops is if you reclaim its power for yourself.
Of course, everyone has free will and the power to make their own choices. But as we've already
determined, money is what ignites that power. When you have it,
your choices become numerous and substantial. And when you don't, they become much more limited.
So what kind of choices are important to you? What kind of power do you want wealth to give you?
Maybe it's the choice to work because you want to and love it, not because you have to.
Maybe it's the choice of where you want to live or travel without limitations or to help people you love or groups in need. Maybe it's the
choice to leave a shitty relationship because you don't have to be stuck with someone who supports
you financially. Or, as is the case with Beyonce, maybe it's the choice to run the world. Hard stop.
The choices that money affords us are more valuable than the
money itself. Those choices buy you freedom. And the lack of that has likely been the basis of many
of your past moves and relationships, even if you haven't realized it, as mindfucks often go.
If you read my last book, Becoming Miss Independent, you know that I suffer from
post-traumatic stress disorder because of my abusive and chaotic childhood and my father's death from a drug overdose.
And if you didn't, well, now you know.
We tend to assume that trauma has to do with an earth-shattering event that happened in our lives. up with food insecurity, with narcissistic parents, abuse, or neglect can suffer in similar
ways to those who went through a traumatic event like a car accident, attack, or sexual assault.
Whether it's given a diagnosis or not, those events or chronic behaviors shape the way we
conduct our adult lives. I believe and am living evidence that we can heal from trauma, but only if we recognize
the traumatic event or events. It can even become a superpower like it did for me if you name and
reframe it. We all have traumas around money, whether in the macro sense or the micro sense.
Macro money traumas include working during the dot-com bubble,
living through the Great Recession, or dealing with the economic stress of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Micro money traumas could include being on food stamps as a kid, seeing your parents' home get
foreclosed, having your money stolen, or being laid off. Underlying any potential trauma is a layer of deeply ingrained financial mores
you grew up with or ones you've been exposed to culturally. Family customs around finances could
be seeing your parents hoard, spend frivolously, or clip coupons. Societal influences around
finances could be watching your friends go into debt, impulse buy, or avoid hard conversations
about money. Whatever you were exposed to as a child, a teenager, or a grown-ass adult doesn't
matter. You get to decide what impact finances have in your life from now on. You get to create
the culture. You get to set the tone. Maybe you want to do everything the exact same way as when
you grew up. Cool. Just as long as you also take a pause, question it, and then carry on
independently and intentionally. But when you question it, if you decide it doesn't work for
you now, then do something different. Just because it was always done a certain way doesn't mean that's the way it needs
to be done. You are capable of learning a better or different way. I taught myself everything about
money and life by rethinking and ultimately rejecting everything I saw my family do growing
up. Essentially, I reparented myself in the way I chose to be raised. So when I say you can break
the cycle, I speak from some hefty experience and therapy bills. You may be thinking, damn,
Alapin, your past is heavy. I've got my own shit, but nothing close to that. Well, I've taken the
I'll show you mine if you show me yours approach in all my books. And this one is no
different. Money talks are the ones even the most badass women are squeamish to have. So if someone
has to go first to make it less so, I got you. You're right. My past was heavy. So I put it down.
If yours is heavier, I feel for you. but you've got to let your arms rest too.
If it's lighter, I'm not mad at you, but take it from me.
Anything extra you need to carry on top of your own adult baggage is too much. What I've learned is that emotional regulation plus money equals independence.
Did I hear you say, yeah, yeah, but Lappin, I'm just not a numbers girl.
Well, I'll tell you straight up that any fifth grader can do the math that's required to set yourself up financially.
So no excuses.
I started out as a poetry major in college.
If I can figure this stuff out, so can you.
If I can figure this stuff out, so can you.
It's the humanities part of money, not the math part that's pretty much always the hardest part.
And as bad as you think you are at crunching the numbers,
you're probably worse with dealing with the emotions around them.
We all are.
We have been conditioned for so long to assume this stuff is complicated. Don't get me wrong,
I thought the same thing. It's like when I look at the cords and the wires behind my TV,
eek, I just want to throw my hands up in the air and say, I can't understand any of that.
I don't know how to do it. Let's just call someone else to set it up. Now, I'm a smart woman. I have figured out harder things in life than how to plug in an HDMI cord.
It is a complete lie to myself that I can't do it.
If there were a samurai sword at my throat ready to slice if I didn't plug in the HDMI cord,
then I would absolutely figure out a way to do it and fast.
But making sense of all of the acronyms and gizmos seems like something only an expert can do.
While I love my handyman more than is normal, I don't think he's actually smarter than I am.
I just haven't put in the time to learn what he knows.
And I likely get overcharged for
the work he does as a result. The same thing happens in a lot of industries. For example,
an iatrogenic disease is one that's caused inadvertently by the medical professionals
themselves. Well, shit. No wonder the medical industry has an unnecessary long word to explain that.
The finance world has all sorts of similar jargon and fancy words for super simple concepts,
like a mutual fund load really just means fees.
Even the phrase overdraft protection gives you the feeling that it's a good thing for you
when in reality it's charging you a crazy high fee when
you don't have enough money in your account to buy something. Using cryptic or overcomplicated
language, by the way, there's also a word for that, sesquipedalian, is yet another way that
bankers and financial services companies make us feel like outsiders, often for their own benefit,
make us feel like outsiders, often for their own benefit, knowing most of us won't ask about or question it out of embarrassment. By the end of this book, you'll know the language, and I promise
that you'll think, this is way easier than I thought, in the same way I did after I watched
a YouTube video telling me what a freaking HDMI cord looks like and how to plug it in. These things are more complicated in your imagination
than in reality. And tell the hater in your head who is about to say, but to shush,
she no longer holds the power you do. For today's tip, you can take straight to the bank.
You can learn more about my new book at MissIndependentBook.com. And shameless
plug, because that's how rich bitches do, you can buy it now at any of your favorite bookstores
online. Or you can even download the audiobook that is read by yours truly, as if you haven't
heard my lovely voice enough lately. And thank you in advance because I couldn't do any of this without you.
And frankly, I wouldn't want to.
Money Rehab is a production of iHeartRadio.
I'm your host, Nicole Lappin.
Our producers are Morgan Lavoie and Mike Coscarelli.
Executive producers are Nikki Etor and Will Pearson.
Our mascots are
Penny and Mimsy. Huge thanks to OG Money Rehab team Michelle Lanz for her development work,
Catherine Law for her production and writing magic, and Brandon Dickert for his editing,
engineering, and sound design. And as always, thanks to you for finally investing in yourself
so that you can get it together and get it all.