The Mel Robbins Podcast - The #1 Money Rule to Live By: Understand The Psychology of Money

Episode Date: November 14, 2024

Today, you’ll learn the #1 money rule to live by to achieve financial success. You’ll also get the secret to stopping fear and anxiety around money for good. In this episode, financial expert Farnoosh Torabi will uncover major money myths that leave you feeling trapped and the steps you need to take to get good with money and build wealth. Whether you want to start saving, make more, or get out of debt, this episode will lay the foundation for greater financial success. This is an open and honest episode that will help you transform your relationship with money, and Mel candidly shares about her experience with financial fear after she found herself $800,000 in debt. For more resources related to this episode, click here for the podcast episode page.If you want more content related to money and finances, listen to this episode next: 5 Rules of Money: How to Make It, Save It, & Be Smarter About ItConnect with Mel: Watch the episodes on YouTubeGet Mel’s new book, The Let Them TheoryFollow Mel on Instagram The Mel Robbins Podcast InstagramMel's TikTok Sign up for Mel’s personal letter Disclaimer

Hey, it's your friend Mel and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. Are you afraid you'll never have enough money? Or worried that you'll never be able to buy a house or send your kids to college? Or maybe deep down, you're afraid that no matter how hard you work, you'll never get ahead? Or just staring at your bank account make you panic? Well, I know that fear because I've lived with it for a large part of my life.

From maxing out credit cards in my 20s to spending my money on just the dumbest things, to worrying that I would never be able to afford a house. And then when I finally did, I almost lost it. For years, I had no idea how to get out of debt or how to get out of this spiral and fear around money, working myself to exhaustion, multiple jobs, feeling like I would never, ever, ever

climb out of the hole that I was in. If the fear of money is suffocating you, you're not alone. And if I can figure this out, so can you. I have changed my relationship with money and today, bestselling author and leading financial expert Farnoosh Tarabi is here to teach you how to face your fears and unlock the financial freedom that you deserve. This episode is your lifeline and guide to a completely different relationship with money. Whether you're struggling with debt, or starting

to build a little savings, or you're already on the path to financial freedom, this is a conversation about money that you and everyone that you love needs to hear. Hey, it's Mel. I am so excited that you're here. It is always such an honor to spend time with you and to be together. And if you're brand new, welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast family. And thank you for choosing to listen to this podcast episode about money. And you know what that tells me?

It tells me that you're the type of person that not only values money, but you value your time. And you're interested in learning about ways that you can improve your life. I just love that. And I'm so excited that you're here today because you and I are going to dive into something that so many of us struggle with, but we don't talk about. And that's financial fear. Now, I know firsthand what it feels like to be afraid when it comes to money. I know what it looks like to look at your bank account and not know how the heck you're going to make it to the next month.

I know that gut-wrenching anxiety when you go to check your bank balance and you just hope that it won't be in the red. You may not know this about me, but there were days when my husband Chris and I were so terrified that we wouldn't be able to pay the bills or worse, that we were gonna lose everything. Just over a decade ago, we were on the brink of complete financial ruin.

I was 41 years old. I still remember sitting at the kitchen table staring at the pile of bills that had been sitting there for weeks wondering how the heck are we going to pay these things when we don't have any money in the bank? I mean, at one point my husband and I were $800,000 in debt. Yep. You heard that right. $800,000. Now, I don't know about you, but when I thought about my life plan or I made a vision board, I never pasted up an image that said bankruptcy, $800,000 in debt. That's not exactly how I thought my life was going to turn out.

But what ended up happening is that my husband had gone into the restaurant business and the first location was pretty successful. So like complete idiots, we poured our entire life savings, home equity line, maxed out credit cards into it, and boom, the business started to fail. And we were drowning in debt with no way out of sight. It felt like no matter how hard we tried, we couldn't dig out of the hole that we had put ourselves in. And that fear, the fear of losing everything, became my constant companion.

Now, if you've ever had that fear, you know how crushing it is to not know how you're going to pay your bills. And I want you to know something. You're not alone. That fear has shaped how I approach money today. And if you're in that place, you can learn how to tap into that fear and change how you relate to money too. I mean, just talking about it, I can still feel the pit in my stomach.

There was a time where I felt completely powerless over our finances. I mean, the debt was so freaking big. It felt like it felt impossible to get in front of it. I felt like I had lost control of my choices, my future, my family's well-being. And even after we started slowly, holy cow, it was painstaking. I'm not going to lie to you. It wasn't glamorous. It was painstaking. I'm not going to lie to you. It wasn't glamorous. It was grueling to try to chip away at the debt. Even as we did that financial failure, it loomed over us for years. You know, I think as a parent, the biggest fear that you have is failing your kids,

especially when it comes to providing for them. I mean, there was a time when I couldn't even figure out, how are we going to get groceries on the table this week? How are we going to pay for you to stay in town soccer? I mean, let alone start putting money away, you know, into their college funds. I mean, that's kind of the funny thing about financial advice, right? When you can barely make the ends meet,

how the hell are you going to put things away for the future? The idea of not being able to give my kids what they needed, paralyzing. And the guilt and the shame give my kids what they needed, paralyzing. And the guilt and the shame that my husband and I felt, I mean, it was just consuming. It makes you question your worth as a mother, as a provider, as a human being, as a parent. And so let me be real with you. There is shame around money.

And for years, I was embarrassed to talk about our financial situation. I didn't want anyone to know how bad it was. But here's the truth. I have learned over the last 14 years, that financial fear is universal. And it doesn't have to control your life. It doesn't have to drive your decisions. In fact, if you learn how to face it head on, if you lean into that fear and you unpack where is this coming from, you can flip it from something that paralyzes you into this force that motivates you to do what you need to do to figure things out. And you are more than capable of that. And that's what we're going to do today. We're going to talk directly about where your fear around money is coming from. And that fear is there.

I don't care how successful or how in debt you are. Everybody has a fear around money. And in order to help us tackle this, I've called in Farnoosh Tarabi, who's one of the most trusted voices in personal finance, to help us dive even deeper into this topic. She spent over two decades guiding people through their financial fears,

helping them not only confront the anxiety around money, but use it, that's the cool part, we're gonna use it as fuel to create the financial future you deserve. Now, Farnoosh is gonna help you unpack why so many of us, especially women, feel guilty or afraid about being financial ambitious. And more importantly, she's going to show you how to start taking control of your money,

whether you have any or not, your mindset and your future. And by the end of this episode, I promise you, you'll see your financial fear in an entirely new light because you're gonna know how to leverage it. Farnoosh Tarabi, I'm so excited that you're here. I cannot wait to talk about fear of money with you. Thank you so much, Mel.

Well, this is an extremely timely and important topic because there's uncertainty all around us and there's also opportunity. But what I'm present to, at least with people in my life, is a lot of fear around money. Fear that I'm never gonna make enough. Fear that I'll never be able to afford the kind of neighborhood that I grew up in,

even though it wasn't the world's fanciest neighborhood. Fear that I'm never gonna be successful. Fear that I'm gonna run out of money. Fear that I'll never make enough. Fear that I'll never get out of debt. Fear that I'm going to run out of money. Fear that I'll never make enough. Fear that I'll never get out of debt. Fear that I won't have enough retirement savings. Fear that something bad is going to happen and I'm going to lose it all. Fear that I'm going to make the wrong investment in the stock market

and that's going to be a dumb pick. Fear that I missed out on buying Amazon way back when and now it's that Nvidia AI stock that I missed out on. Fear that I don't understand what's happening. Fear that I've spent too much, fear that I'm an idiot. Like it's just nothing but fear. And so I'm not only excited for you to unpack fear,

but to normalize that this is a very common experience and that there are specific things that you can do to take control and understand these fears and actually address them? Yeah, I've been a financial advisor for 20 years and people are like, what, you're writing a book about fear? Yes, because it is the emotional underpinning of so many of our financial questions when people come to me and they say, should I buy a house? Should I get married, divorce, have kids, take the job, quit the job, start the business, file

for bankruptcy. There is advice there to be given that is tactical, but to really get to the root of the solution, you have to go deeper and usually address the fear. I want to first start by saying that fear can be a tool in your life. Why? Why are we all wrapped up in this idea of being fearless? I am a daughter of immigrants. I am a daughter of the 1980s in Worcester, Massachusetts.

I grew up terrified. And I say, you know, things worked out. And it wasn't because I abandoned fear. It was because I got to a point in my 20s when I was trying to be fearless, and I would get into a lot of dead ends, and I would make a mess of things. But I said, you know what? This fear is not going away. I am just that person that has this fervor all the time.

And I thought, let me like look at it and try to understand what it's trying to tell me. Perhaps fear is here with a message. Can we start by having you just talk to the person listening and tell them what they could experience in their life that's different if they take everything to heart that you're about to teach us today? Imagine a world where you can make your own financial choices for yourself, by yourself.

You have autonomy, you have agency, you can choose for yourself, choose to stay in a job, not stay in a job, stay in a marriage, not stay in a marriage, start a business, not do it. And I'm not saying those things are easy, but with money and with financial independence comes so much confidence. You can sleep better at night and the world's a scary place sometimes, and with money helps. When you experience fear in your financial life, which for me sometimes is a lot of the time, I think that if you are able to apply some of these learnings,

you will not experience fear as paralysis. You will experience it as opportunity to know that when fear arrives in your financial life, it doesn't want to create stasis or keep you stuck. It wants you to find a solution to help you. To engage with your fear is to engage with your values, to engage with what's important to you and what you want to protect.

And you have to be clear on these things before you make any financial decision. So when you're good with fear, you have to be clear on these things before you make any financial decision. So when you're good with fear, you can be good with money. So I take it it's normal to be afraid of money? Yes. I mean, money is a limited resource. Okay. Money inherently creates scarcity in our minds. And that is terrifying, because you make a financial decision, you can't rewind and now you're with less money than when you started potentially.

There is risk inherent to making certain financial decisions. And money is personal. So, when we make a financial choice or decision, or we think about something financially related, we can't help but make it really personal and think about, well, what does it say about me? If I do this thing, how is it going to reflect on me? All the list of fears that you mentioned make 100% sense to me. Because as humans, we want to protect our resources, right? And money, I mean, talk about an important resource. Well, and a lot of times, I didn't have it. So I was also afraid of never having that resource. How do you

want someone to think about money? What is money? It's a tool. It is an important tool. It's a tool that's going to give you access. It's going to help you create a bridge in your life when you need it most. I got into this space as a financial author, as a journalist, not because I had all the credentials, but because when I was young, I saw my parents argue about money constantly. I saw how it was weaponized.

Listen, money can be a tool for good, and it can be a tool for evil, for bad. And in my parents' marriage, I saw, as a result of my father being the breadwinner and the fact that he was a man and he associated his manhood with financial dominance. My mother also had her own issues in terms of not speaking the language, so she wasn't able to work right away in America as immigrants.

They came from Iran. And I watched them fight around money. And on the one hand, I was grateful. I grew up in a household where we did talk about money freely as Middle Easterners, that culturally it's not as taboo, but often the topics around money were discussed with, I say with fists banging on kitchen tables. It was a lot of crying.

It was a lot of silent treatment. And I quickly saw, I mean, this was it. This is my origin story. I saw how, especially as a woman, if you don't have access to your own money and feel empowered around your finances, then someone will make the decisions for you. And they're not always decisions that you want. They're not always in your best interest. So money, you need it. It's not a nice to have. Everybody needs money, particularly women. We don't think that it's our domain because we've been told it's not. He'll take care of it. I've been to restaurants where they give me a menu and my menu doesn't have any prices on it. This is on America, by the way.

This was when my husband and I went on a trip to the Caribbean. And I go, what's going on? Is it a prefix? Like, did we miss the sign in the front? This is going to be like a, you know, and the waitress will say, no, no, madam, you should not have to worry about such things. And I said, it like, it can't escape me.

This follows me everywhere. And I make more in my relationship. So I had to have a good laugh about that. Because it's like, really, I don't have to worry about money? It's all I do. I think that this is important for women to believe that it is not just a nice to have, that being financially independent is your right.

I'm really glad that you're saying that. And here's why. I look at money like a tool, but I believe money is power. And I say that knowing it's a very loaded word. And the reason why I say it's power is because when you have your own money and you are able to make your own money, and you're able to choose what you do with your money without feeling a consequence or that you're going to get in trouble

or that you got to hide the packages, you have power. You have power over yourself. You have power over your decisions. And the other reason why I use the word power is because I think about the way in which society has glamorized success and glamorized money and certainly makes all of us believe that when you have more money, you have power. And in our lived experiences, we know

when we see people that have a lot of money that they do have access to things that maybe you don't have access to because they can afford it. But I think a lot about that moment when you're at a restaurant and the bill comes. And who's going to pay? And the person that reaches forward and grabs it, if that happens versus we're gonna split the bill,

but even the ability to split the bill is power. Yes, I agree with you. Money is power. The complexity arrives when you're in a relationship and you think that my power means I have power over you as opposed to I have power to heal, to support. There's a difference. There's a difference in how you wield that power. And I want every woman to have power and to difference in how you wield that power.

And I want every woman to have power and to use money as a tool for power. And men too. But when you're in the context of a relationship, it's about how to sort of dance with money and not be sizing each other up based on what you earn. This happens all the time. Imagine a world where you can roam freely and choose for yourself, by yourself. You can afford yourself options.

You can say, you know what? This doesn't suit me anymore and I can leave. And I know there are some risks and I know there's uncertainty down the road, but I have money. I have not just money, but I have financial autonomy. This is what being truly wealthy is. It's being able to understand that the world's a scary place.

Yes, money does not solve all of the problems, but money does give us a runway. It gives us resources. It gives us confidence sometimes to believe we can do something and arrive on the other side safe. And as women in this world, I know this personally, I've seen it, I've witnessed it, I've experienced it. Money helps.

Having your own money. Someone else's money is not your money. Your parents' money is not your money. Your partner's money, to an extent, you share in that, but do you have your own bank account? Do you have your own credit card? Do you have your own source of income, potentially? I think that if you are willing to prioritize

your financial wellbeing and say that not only do I need this, but I deserve this, it is my birthright, your world opens up. Who doesn't want options? Farnoosh, I just love the way that you talk about money. And I know that we're only just scratching the surface. There's so much more that we're gonna be covering, but I need to take a quick pause

so we can hear a word from our amazing sponsors. As you're listening to our sponsors, share this with someone in your life who needs to hear it, which is basically all the people that you love, and don't go anywhere because we're gonna be waiting for you after a short break, and you're gonna love where this conversation is going next.

Stay with us. And we'll be right back. Welcome back. It's your friend Mel Robbins, and today you and I are digging deep into the topic of money with financial expert Farnoosh. Farnoosh is a financial expert at the National Bank of America. Welcome back. It's your friend Mel Robbins. And today you and I are digging deep into the topic of money with financial expert Furnush Turabi. So Furnush, what are the top five

fears that people have about money? Just five. So I would say that the biggest fear is the fear of not having enough, which has real, there's a realness to that. I mean, you look outside, things are expensive. And so there could be a real, actual, legitimate reason for that fear. Then there's the fear of even if you have enough, losing it all, right? You're just one job loss away from losing your house. You're one bad investment away from not being able to retire. There is a fear of wanting too much, and this affects a lot of women. The admitting of, I want to be rich,

I want to be financially successful, that's a scary thing to come to terms with out loud in front of others because you're worried about what that might say about you and your priorities. The expectation is not that you're going to be that woman, right? The expectation is maybe that you're going to prioritize caregiving, you're going to prioritize your family, you're going to prioritize other things, not money.

So we fear that. We fear as parents sometimes and caregivers raising our kids in such a way where the cycles get repeated or maybe we grew up with a fear of scarcity and now we're bestowing that on our children or on the other end giving them too much and then they don't appreciate it. So again, it's sort of what we all have, which is that lack of financial literacy. I think it's like 60% of Americans didn't speak a word of money growing up. And as adults, that becomes a fear of its own that not only you're not going to have the sort of fluency

and confidence around money, but that your kids who are watching you are also not going to be able to be strong in that department. And then I think for those who are perhaps the boomers, my parents, this fear of dying without a real financial legacy, that's important culturally to Americans, is to be able to die with the will to pass on some assets to the next generation. And again, I think part of it is like this fear of thinking

about death and not doing the proper estate planning exacerbates that. So those are the five things. And I tried to pick the ones that kind of go through the generations. There was a recent study that actually found that millennials, Jen, why they're the ones who are most afraid of running out of money. Wow. What's interesting about hearing those five top fears is that if you put it in the context of the issues that money can create with couples and in your relationships,

that if you are not able to talk about money, if you don't feel equal in your relationship when it comes to money, and these fears are lingering underneath the surface, I can see how if you're fighting around, what are we buying the kids in terms of the sneakers? And we're gonna spend this

and it becomes these surface level arguments. One of you might be having a budget conversation. The other one might be having a concern or a fear about kids who grow up spoiled. And if you don't understand your own relationship to money and what you value, it's going to keep coming up in all of the conflict that you have with your partner as you argue around the things that you're buying

or what's happening. And I can see how this creates a big divide. Oh yeah, I mean, that's why I often say before you get into the nitty gritty of your finances, you have to talk about how you grew up with money. That is a, it's so foundational to really understanding your partner. And so when you see them, when you witness them

being tight with money or overspending or not wanting to talk about money and not wanting to have that confrontation, you don't go, what's wrong with you? You go, oh my God, I understand where this is coming from. So let's unpack that. Sometimes the exercise I often say is when you're experiencing a financial fear of any sort is to trace it to its root. Where did this fear come from? Is it even my fear? It may just be my parents fear from the 1960s, from the 1970s latched on to me. Because yeah, growing up there was scarcity and that was a scary time.

But that was also a time when I was nine and I didn't have agency and I didn't have control over what was happening with the money. And so my parents' fears became my fears. I inherited that and I never let go of it. And maybe even just maybe that helped me for a while as I got older. Having that fear of losing money made me a super saver. But now I still have this anxiety that I'm going to lose it all. But I have savings. I haven't a job, and yet.

So this is when the fear is no longer serving you. And you need to kind of go down memory lane, find its source and make the adult decision that this ends here. This ends with me right now. And I'm going to rest this fear. I'm going to thank it, maybe for how far it's taken me, but now it's not serving me. Looking at the facts of your life that you do have. I remember this woman wrote to me.

She said, Farnoosh, I'm in my 50s. I'm a single mom. I've helped my boys get through college. I grew up in scarcity and poverty. And it actually, that fear led me to be very financially in charge of my life. I started a business. I bought my house. I single-handedly raised my boys.

And I just fear like I'm going to lose it. I'm going to lose. I'm one bad decision away. I don't trust that this is going to endure. And so what I said to her was, first, let's like, let's trace this. Everything I just told you, this is your mother's fear. This isn't you. And this is real. I mean, not to say that this is a fabrication.

It happened. You were once this young girl experiencing lack. Now, is that true? You know, look at everything that you have. Take inventory of your life. You have done amazing things with your money. You have not exhibited a pattern of done amazing things with your money, you have not exhibited a pattern of making bad decisions with your money.

And so sometimes you need that wake up call. You need someone else to tell you, here are all the things that you've done, or you need to take a really honest look at all of your accomplishments. I say, it's taking inventory of all of your accomplishments and all of your assets that no one can take away from you. Like, yeah, maybe the market will tumble and you have no control over that and your investments do dip.

And that may mean that you don't be able to retire at 65 as you were planning. But does that mean you've lost it all and you'll never regain it? Because you are who you are at the end of the day. You've gotten to where you are for a reason. And that is not something that can be taken away from you. When people get laid off and they're afraid of never getting a job again, I say, okay,

that's scary. You don't have a title, you don't have an income, you source a lot of your sense of self-worth and identity from that job. It's gone now. You're worried about uncertainty. But here's the thing, when you fear financial uncertainty, which is what that is, what does your body want? You know, it wants certainty. Ice cream.

It wants ice cream. A new purse. Listen, as a woman who has been laid off twice, the first time it happened, a lot of Bridget Jones' diary, a lot of Chinese dumplings, and you should allow yourself a pity party. That is to be allowed. But I say, you lost the job, you lost the income, but what did you not lose? What are the things that you are still taking with you? And that is your experience, your network, your accomplishments, even the failures are assets. You learned a lot. And that is the stuff that you're gonna be able to take into your next move. So we lose sight, we think that our accomplishments,

our measure of value is just in these sort of tangible things, you know, our income, our title, our job, but it's also in the life that we have lived, all of these experiences and the people and the network and the health that we have. This is all, these are all assets. And so when you're in that terrifying moment of feeling lost and life is uncertain, the fear is telling you, hold on to what is certain.

What is certain? And I think you will find the courage and the motivation that you are lacking. You know, Furnish, there are so many people I want to share this conversation with. Top of my list, my daughters Sawyer and Kendall. And so I'm sure there's somebody that you want to share this with too. We're going to take a short pause so we can hear a word from our amazing sponsors. Share this with somebody who you know will benefit from this conversation. And since we all have a relationship with money, that means everybody.

And don't go anywhere because we got more to cover with the amazing Farnoosh Turabi and your relationship with money when we return. Stay with me. Welcome back. It's your friend Mel Robbins. And today you and I are learning from leading financial expert Farnoosh Tarabi. So Farnoosh, what about the person who's afraid they are never going to buy a house? This is a good one, because my gosh, what is more American pie? What is more American dream than buying a house? Right? And I would say to that person, let's first unpack why you're afraid you'll never be a

homeowner. What is it about? Are you worried that you're not going to... It's too expensive. Well, yes, but more than that, that if you don't buy the house, you won't be wealthy. You won't build wealth. You won't have security for your family, you won't be able to be considered a financial adult because we associate so many of those things with the act of a home purchase in our culture. So I think that also there is also a fear of like, if I don't do this grand thing with my money, if I don't buy a home, am I really financially mature? Am I really going to be doing the right things

with my money? Rent, oh, I've just heard that that's money down the drain. So I would look at that, I would examine that and go, why do you think this? Who told you this? We grew up a lot of us with that sentiment. You know, it's making me realize that underneath every financial fear, I'm afraid I won't be able to pay for my kid's college

is a deeper value. And I would imagine that it makes you feel like maybe I'm not a good parent, or maybe that's what I believe a parent should do. What about the fear I won't be able to retire? That's a real fear. That's a real fear because the cost of living, there's so many unknowns in retirement, the

cost of healthcare, and we're living longer. So we need more money to support us in retirement. So if that is your fear, then I want you to imagine, go to the dark place, you're 75 years old, you still have to work, you don't want to be working, and you're tired, and you don't get to see your grandkids, you don't get to see your friends. Well, this sounds sucky. I don't want to be working, and you're tired, and you don't get to see your grandkids, you don't get to see your friends. Well, this sounds sucky. It sounds sucky, but listen, are you motivated to do something after hearing this? I hope so.

This is what I'm trying to condition you to be inspired to do. Don't just sit in the what if. Go to the place where things have really fallen apart for you because you are scared now. But I'm gonna tell you, there's a lot scarier things for you waiting for you if you don't do something today. And that's what we have to sort of hold fear and balance. What you fear today versus the scary place you might be in

five years from now, 10 years from now, because you didn't act healthily with this fear. You didn't use this fear to motivate you to take some steps that could help you make some progress. I totally get it. You're basically flipping the fear from something that paralyzes you and keeps you feeling insecure

to using it to activate this motivation to do something now. Yes. And to look at it now and see that you can figure do something now. Yes. And to look at it now and see that you can figure it out now so it's not a fear at all. I mean, Mel, you just, that story you gave about the restaurant going out of business and you just, you were afraid, you, and what did you do?

You went out and made a ton of money and you worked and worked and worked and it wasn't sustainable, but. And it wasn't a ton of money in the worked and worked and worked. And it wasn't sustainable, but... And it wasn't a ton of money in the beginning, let's be honest. It was like, let's get some groceries on the table. Let's make sure the lights don't get turned off. How can you stop fearing money? So I don't really like to talk about how to stop fearing it. What I want to reframe is how to have a conversation with your fear.

So we tend to go through life reacting to fear, often in knee-jerk ways. We freeze, we fly, and we... What's the third one? Freeze, fight, fly, fight. I want to offer a fourth option, which is figure it out. That's my fourth F. And by figuring it out, I mean like realizing that maybe fear showed up for a reason. And I'm not talking about like fear of heights or fear of, you know, I'm talking about like

when you're at the crossroads of life and you have to make a financial decision and the stakes are high. If you're afraid, there's probably a reason because you're worried about risk. You're worried about losing money. This is not a small thing. And so in that moment, I offer queries in the book. Here are things that you can ask yourself that can help you create some sense of a roadmap

for where to go next. Fear does not want you to keep you stuck. Diane Fossey, she studied apes, she was a primatologist, and she essentially taught us all that fear has an evolutionary purpose. It's here to protect us. She wandered around with apes in one experiment and realized that inevitably there was always a subset

of apes that were always on the periphery. They were always like sleeping with one eye open. And she wondered, well, what if we remove them from the community? And when that happened, the community was obliterated. And she realized that in culture and society, there's always sort of like a border of people who are always like sort of on the fringe. We're the, I'm the Tarsu in Farsi, is like the fearful one. And I'm proud of that because for me, it's how I've protected myself. And as we've evolved as

humans, you know, maybe we're no longer in primitive era, but we have evolved and fear has evolved with us to be there for us when we're trying to make decisions that are more self-aligned, that we can feel protected doing something that is scary. So honor it. And how you honor it, we've talked about it already a little bit, is sort of trace it to its root, figure out how it got here. What's the story?

Fear of losing money. Could this have been sourced from when you were younger and you saw your parents go bankrupt? You saw your father lose his job or your mother lose her job. And now you have carried that fear into your adult life and you don't believe that you can have it any better. Sometimes that's important because it's a wake-up call. I would also say, if you're somebody who's afraid

of losing it all, imagine losing it all. Like go to the dark place. Because what we have found is that the fear of losing money, it takes place, that fear sort of bubbles up in the same place as like physical pain in the brain. And what do we want more than anything when we experience physical pain? We want a solution. We want to fix it. So I often say when people are like sort of just living in this cloud of

fear, like what if, what if, what if, it's like, no, let's actually make it really urgent. Like, what if tomorrow you did lose your job? What if tomorrow you did make a bad investment and it wiped out your savings? Go there. Imagine what you would do in that moment. Who would you call? What would you stop spending your money on? Where would you allocate the resources? And rather than making it a hypothetical, this is your roadmap. This is your plan of action. This is what you need to do today.

Oh, I see. So in the hypothetical, you force yourself to face it, and you ask yourself, while you're secure right now, what would I actually do? And that proves to you that you could figure it out. You could figure it out. We often live in this like cloud of fear. You know, I say people often worry about what if,

and that's normal. You know, what if this happens? What if that happens? But you're not serving yourself when you just are going, you're chasing your tail. So stop, and this may seem really mean to say, but going, you're chasing your tail. So stop. And this may seem really mean to say, but like, I want you to go to the edge. I want you to imagine like what would actually happen if you did, if that what if became

a what now? Like it's happening. It's happening today. Bring it to your doorstep. And how would it play out? You're not going to just sit there. You're going to do something. That's true. You're going to be mobilized. gonna just sit there, you're gonna do something. You're gonna be mobilized

and now you know what you have to do. So for the person who's afraid of losing their job, it's amazing what happened. So many chips fall into place. Like I'm gonna go figure out what my state's unemployment insurance is. I wanna go look at my budget actually because maybe I would have enough to cover me

for a couple of months while I'm getting back on my feet. What are your parting words on this topic of fear of money? It's normal. When you fear money, you're a human being. There is cause for this. But what if I told you that fear can be your friend, that when fear shows up, it's an opportunity to listen to it, to unpack it. When we are able to face our fears, I think we're only getting closer to who we really are,

what we value, what we want to protect, and what a way to walk through life. So if you can accept that and appreciate that, especially in the context of your financial life, fear in your financial life, it will make you more motivated and more excited to do the sort of nitty gritty with your money, which is the saving and the investing and all that. But now you really have this desire because what fear has taught you is that you have a lot to protect.

You have a lot to honor in your life. It's my offer, as so many people have come to me over the years asking me about how to do this, how to do that. And I go, wait a minute. Yes, we're going to get to how to, but let's talk about the fear that you're feeling and why it's there and what it might be educating you on. Amazing.

My biggest takeaway is fear is the biggest obstacle. All the stuff that you need to do, you're capable of. You address the fear and you'll actually do what you need to do. And address it. Don't be fearless. There's a great book out. Caroline Duhner wrote a book.

And in it, she said, if you protest, if you are proud of the fact that you are fearless, I'm sorry to tell you, but you're a psychopath. Because what does that mean? It means that you're not afraid of risk and consequence. You're not worried about things backfiring. You're just walking through life believing that you're invincible. I can't afford that. I can't personally, I can't afford that. I need to

be constantly thinking about how this is gonna impact my life, my kids' lives, and that's okay. I don't want to lose that fear. I want to be able to have a relationship with that kind of fear. Barnouche, thank you, thank you, thank you for being here in our Boston studios and helping us with this really important topic and honestly life-changing skill. Oh, thank you, Mal. It's my honor. Thanks for bringing me back to my roots.

This is kind of near where I'm from, so I feel like it's such a privilege to be here. What I've loved about everything that we've talked about today is the fact that money and your relationship to it is a critical part of your life. And you deserve to have a powerful relationship with money. And I don't want you to ever shy away from that. In fact, I want you to embrace it. And in case no one else tells you, I wanted to be sure to tell you that I love you and I believe in you and I believe in your ability to change your life. And what you learn today will 100% help you create a better financial life. Alrighty, I'll be waiting for you in the next episode. now or do you need different file? Oh, I understand now. Okay, I understand that now. Okay, gotcha,

gotcha, gotcha. Oh my gosh. Such a crowd. You know, when I first learned I was going to be on your podcast, I was like, I'm not a scientist. I'm not a doctor. Neither am I. I know. But I was very intimidated by just knowing the caliber of guests you bring on and I was hoping to, you know, arise to the occasion. I hope I did. Well, you did. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you, Kevin. Thank you, team who's listening. Thank you, everybody for hanging with us.

Thank you for showing up. Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes.

I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist, and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode. [♪