The Wealthy Barber Podcast - Jessica Moorhouse: How to Take Control of Your Relationship with Money | TWB Podcast #4

Episode Date: November 19, 2024

Our guest this episode is Jessica Moorhouse—a Canadian personal finance creator, host of the “More Money Podcast,” and soon-to-be-published author of the book “Everything but Money: The Hidden Barriers Between You and Financial Freedom.” In this episode Dave and Jessica discuss how our emotions and past experiences affect our relationship with money including bad financial habits people learn from their parents, biases that get in our way, why the financial industry benefits from making it seem more complicated than it is and much, much more. Don’t miss this engaging discussion with Jessica Moorhouse.   Show Notes 00:00 – Introduction 00:56 – Jessica's Background 03:21 – How Jessica's Podcast Started 05:51 – Jessica's Upcoming Book 11:43 – Bad Money Habits We Learn From Our Parents 15:34 – Money and Shame 17:18 – How to Take Control of Your Relationship with Money 19:07 – Status Quo Bias 22:15 – Anyone Can Learn to be Good With Money 24:33 – Overconfidence Bias in Young Men 27:02 – Women and Investing 29:02 – Emotions and Investing 31:51 – Index Investing & Fintech 33:51 – Focus on What You Can Control and Don't Give Up Hope 38:10 – Living in Toronto 40:37 – The Best Financial Educators Are Truly Trying to Help 43:55 – Happiness and Financial Planning 46:39 – COVID 49:18 – Where to Get Jessica’s Book

Hey, it's Dave Chilton, The Wealthy Barber and former Dragon on Dragon's Den. Welcome to The Wealthy Barber Podcast, where we'll be hosting some of the top minds in the world of personal finance. Yes, that's to balance me out. The podcast is about making the subject not just easy to understand, but dare I say, even fun, honest. Whether you're trying to fund your retirement, figure out how to build a down payment, save for your kid's education, manage debts, whatever, we'll be here to help you do it. Before we jump in, a quick but important note.

Nothing we discuss here should be taken as investment advice. We don't know you and your personal financial situation, so we're not here to tell you where specifically to put your investment dollars. We're here to educate, get you thinking, and we hope entertain. But please do your own research and or consult with your financial advisor before taking any action. Hi, everybody. It's Dave Chilton, The Wealthy Barber here with The Wealthy Barber podcast episode four. I have my guest Jessica Morehouse. Hello. Hello. Thank you so much for coming on. I'm very excited about this episode. And I do say that every episode, but I am excited every episode.

It's not hard to excite me, frankly, when it comes to talking about money. But Jessica's an unusual guest in a couple of ways. First off, it's fun for me because she represents the new guard of financial educators. She grew up in the digital era. She started with the blog. She's moved to podcasts. Of course, I hadn't heard of either of those things when I started out. They weren't invented. I was doing things like going to the center of the city and using a megaphone to just broadcast things out to people, almost going door to door. No, really, I started with things like books and a PBS TV show. Nobody's even heard of PBS anymore. So again, going at it very differently, but similar

delivery styles, very much believe in a lot of the same things. The two things that draw me to Jessica and why I wanted to have her on the podcast, number one, she's been on the front line a lot. One of the big advantages to a blog over, say, a book or an article in an old-fashioned newspaper is you get feedback underneath. You get comments. People are saying, I didn't understand this. I understood that. Here's where I've gone wrong. I tried this and it worked. She's on the front line in essence, drawing a lot of this information in, making her next article better, her next blog stronger, and so on and so forth. The second thing that drew me to her was her educational background. Doesn't have a finance background, went through for film studies.

I love that. I find a lot of the best financial educators in North America don't have finance backgrounds. They set out to learn a lot about finance and took their followers, their readers, their listeners on that journey with them. And they come at it from a more holistic perspective, not just looking at the technical aspects of the money, but thinking left mind, right mind, all of those types of things. I think that's wonderful.

Also, film in particular is ideal because you understand the art of storytelling. And so when you go to communicate and you go to help people, you're much better able to get these ideas across in a way that holds their interests, in a way that draws them further in. She understands beginning, middle, end,

character, conflict, all of that. So that's why she's here. Long intro, but I'm excited to have her. Good to see you. Thanks for having me. No, it's my pleasure. It really is. You've done a great job in building up a brand over the last years.

And it's not easy. There's a lot of people out there trying to do it. You have been blogging, I think, since 2011, if I'm not mistaken. And you have over 400 plus podcasts. Yeah. Like, that's crazy. Yeah. And that doesn't include, that's only the episodes I put numbers on. There's a bunch of solo episodes and short episodes.

Like, I've tried so many different things along the year. So I think in total, there's probably close to 430 or 440 or something like that. the year. So I think in total, there's probably close to 430 or 440 or something like that. But it was a lot of work in the beginning years because technology certainly wasn't what it is now. I remember asking you to be on my podcast and you're like, how do we do this? I'm like, Skype? And you're like, I don't have Skype. I'm like, then I don't know how to record you. I still have a BlackBerry. I still struggle with all this. Yeah, I'm the worst guest. No, it was just like, yeah, there just wasn't the technology to make it easy to record guests who were outside of the city. But, you know, I stuck with it.

And I did that for, I guess, two years while working a full-time job and also somehow trying to keep up the blog and doing all that kind of stuff. And in 2017, I made the decision I was unhappy with my job anyway, so I was going to leave anyway. But I'm like, you know what? Maybe this is a good point in life. I also turned 30 and had like a crisis of what am I doing with my life and decided to quit my job, which was in corporate marketing and thought, let's try to make this into a full-time gig. Let's give it a go. And it's been about eight years and I'm never going back. Does your husband remain your all-time favorite guest? Oh, bless his heart. No, he is not a great. Is he top 50? Is he top 100? No. He hates, like, I never share anything about my husband publicly. I did, you know, I've done it. Well, let's do it

now. Give us some dirt on your husband right now. Break your rules. He's the most introverted, does not want to be on camera, only was on the podcast because I'm like, I need somebody. He's like, fine, but I really don't want to. And so I'm surprised he hasn't asked me to take it down because he just does not like being visible. Like, you know, like his job, we're both self-employed. He's a recording engineer and mixing engineer. And it literally just means he's like in a room upstairs mixing music. And it's very like, you know, the perfect job for an introvert. You two are the truly modern couple in that you both work out of your home. I know.

It's honestly, it's been great. You know, some couples are like, I could never do that. I'm like, it's been great. But we're also really good at giving each other space. And, you know, luckily we have multiple rooms in this house. So we escape I prefer the two house approach oh yeah that's even better if you can that's good too yeah we can do that great all right I want to jump to the big subject and that is your book so give me the background to the book what was the passion that ignited your fire what inspired you how did you choose the specific topic it's a crowded field obviously run with it

yeah well I've got to say, and I don't know if I've ever mentioned this to you, but just like many other people, so you've probably heard this a million times, The Wealthy Barber was the first personal finance book I ever read. And it really was the gateway into me entering the personal finance world. That's nice. Thank you. Yeah. Really, I'm like, wow, I had no idea the possibilities. I always kind of thought I'd be a broke artist my entire life because that's kind of what I was told. You know, if you're going to film school, I'm going to be a filmmaker, you're going to be broke. And I'm like, okay, I guess that's it. Reading your book. And then that kind of opened me up to all these different

blogs. It, I mean, it changed my life, really. So thank you for that. But for me, being a blogger for so many years, of course, my dream was to always have a book one day. The problem was I just didn't know what to write about because like you said, and I've interviewed hundreds of authors on my show. It kind of seems like everyone said everything. And that's not a bad thing necessarily. I kind of tell people that there is some comfort in that, that if everyone is kind of saying the same thing when it comes to how to improve your financial situation, that means it's not that hard. You know, it's just do those steps and you'll see some success. But I didn't want to write a practical how-to money book because, again, there are so many great ones out there. I wanted to do something different.

Not to say that I didn't pitch one to my publisher initially and they're like, yeah, we don't want that because that's what I thought they wanted. one to my publisher initially. And they're like, yeah, we don't want that because that's what I thought they wanted. They looked at my proposal and I had this one line that I'm like, oh, I'm also going to touch on topics like how trauma and societal injustice and behavior also impact your spending habits and things like that. But that's just going to be a little section in the book. They're like, no, no, no, no. Actually, we want a full book on that. Can you rewrite your proposal and pitch it to us? I'm like, sure. No idea how to do that. I am not a psychologist. I am not an expert in that field at all. And so I was faking it till I made it, rewrote the proposal within a month, pitched it to them.

And they're like, yeah, let's go. I'm like, oh, shoot. Now I have to write the book. Like, oh, shoot, now I have to write the book. And so it was it was the imposter syndrome was so real that point. But I also felt like this was such an important book to read. And I had to write it because I've been talking to people for over a decade about what their problems with money really are. And what I always kept on discovering is most of the time, it's not a financial issue. It's not a financial literacy issue for most people. So many people I've talked to, they're like, I read all the books, I've done all the things, I'm still messing up, I don't know why. And so that's kind of how the title came about is, you know, most people's problems with money

have nothing to do with money. They're actually about everything but money. And so that's really what I wanted the focus of the book to be on was why do so many Canadians, Americans, people around the world struggle with money when they're earning enough and they're just keep on making kind of dumb mistakes. And it's not because they're dumb people or they don't know anything about how to manage money properly. They just keep on repeating patterns and where those patterns stem from. thing about how to manage money properly, they just keep on repeating patterns and where those patterns stem from. And so that kind of led me to doing a ton of research. I felt like I was doing a PhD. And part of it was also going to the most therapy I've ever done in a very short amount of time to learn more about myself, my own money story, my own relationship with money, because I always thought it was fairly healthy. I mean, I'm good with money. So what's the problem? And what I realized was

actually I had a very unhealthy relationship with money. Yeah. And most people do. Unfortunately, that's why, you know, we make certain choices. And for me, what I realized was a big reason why I was such a workaholic for so many years and put more importance on earning money and increasing my net worth and income and going to the next level in my career instead of maybe focusing on my relationships, how I can be a better community member, how I can make myself happy and do things just for fun instead of being productive. It really was this idea, this deep childhood trauma thing that I was carrying for my whole life of, I just want to be seen and heard. I'm a middle child that has a lot to do with it. A lot of other things had to do with it. And I thought that

if I could be successful financially and career wise, people would pay attention to me and that would fill a deep, dark void that I've been carrying around with me. And so that's my kind of story. And then I got to interview during the process of writing the book, a bunch of amazing people that followed me. And I just, you know, regular people from across the country and in the U.S. to find out their own money stories and what is their background and what were some of the lessons they learned about money growing up that they still carry with them that are really not helping them. And so that's really what it's about is helping people figure out what's going on, why, and how can we move forward

because we can't carry this baggage with us forever. Because you're just going to keep repeating the same mistakes. Now, it's unusual for an author to start an answer with, I'm not an expert in the area I'm writing on. I like that kind of honesty. However, I think that that often, again, can work to your advantage. Because you're forced to go out there and do a tremendous amount of research, connect with a lot of other experts, walk through with people. And you see how best to communicate at your learning. And so you're passing those learnings on and you're taking out what doesn't matter. You're putting in what does. You're highlighting it with different examples you've garnered. I think a lot of that makes sense. And at the end of the day, all that matters is,

does the book help? And I think one of the things you've done is you've chosen the subject area that's not gotten as much attention as it deserves. And so I think that's very interesting. And I like a lot of what you're saying. I think people do battle a lot of emotional issues around money. And I think things they've grown up with, the example their parents often set has set them on their course, etc. What kinds of things are you talking about in the book? So give us an example that we can sink our teeth into.

There's a big chapter specifically on what are some of these lessons or beliefs that we adopted kind of blindly from our parents. And it's funny because, you know, when you're a child, you kind of believe that your parents are geniuses and they know everything. My parents are geniuses. I want to go on record as saying that I did grow up with genius parents. So it's good. It's true. Well, look at you. I mean, you know, my parents did a really great job. But looking back, I'm like, oh, my gosh, they had kids really young in their 20s, for goodness sakes. And I'm like, they were babies when we were babies, you know. And so a lot of the things that they did, it was all they knew.

They were doing the best they could. But then I adopted a few things that, man, I really want to let go. And I'm still working through. And that's the other thing I should mention is even though I offer solutions in the book, there's no such thing as a cure. It's a process. You have to kind of recognize when things happen or flaring up and then like, okay, what are the tools that I can utilize? And are these types of things affecting people's savings approach more than anything else? They're spending? Spending for sure. Yeah. I mean, all of it, every, every decision you can make, whether it's like your risk tolerance, your spending behaviors, your value systems, your beliefs around money,

how some people, for example, there was one person I interviewed and he came from a very Christian background, whereas, but he had very conflicting feelings about money because he got really conflicting lessons from his parents that the people who have power and wealth, they did something bad to get there and they're greedy. And wealth is basically a negative thing. And yet they also came from poverty and would complain that things aren't fair and I wish we could win the lottery. And so his conflict was, is money good or bad? Because we want more money and we complain that things aren't fair and I wish we could win the lottery. And so his conflict was, is money good or bad? Because we want more money and we complain that we don't have enough, but then we judge people who have it. And so where am I to go? And so he just honestly repeated a bunch of patterns from his parents, getting into debt, spending beyond his means because he felt

like he deserved it until a really serious situation happened where he bought a truck he couldn't really afford and he couldn't afford to make those payments. And he was at work one day and the bank repossessed his truck in front of all of his co-workers. And that was a big aha moment being like, whoa, what am I doing? And also realizing, why didn't I contact the bank to see if we could work something out before they went to this extreme of repossessing my vehicle? And so that moment in his life made him recognize, I need to let go of a lot of the things that my parents have told me or things that I've seen from them because they're not in a good financial situation. So if I just repeat what they're doing, I'm going to be in the exact same situation. And that's the big thing too, is if you just repeat things from your parents that aren't helpful,

why would you expect to be in a different or better financial situation? You're not going to be. You know, it's interesting you talked about that conflict. I mean, you remember when you're young, you hear that expression. And again, I'm going to screw this up, but something on the lines of is, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a wealthy person to enter the gates of heaven. And I mean, that particular quote from scripture, again, I'm probably bloated a little bit, but the basic thrust behind it is one that would lead to conflict. Should I handle my money well? Should I seek out higher wealth at going over time? So I understand that. And it does lead to challenging behavior.

That story you shared about having your colleagues at work, watch your car being towed away, watch it being repossessed. Oh my gosh, I can't imagine what that would be like. Yeah. And there's another really poignant story of this follower of mine who we've talked online, you know, for years, he's been a follower for a long time. And I interviewed him and his story was really, I mean, shame is a big topic in the book too, because, you know, money and shame are so connected. And he didn't realize up until maybe his forties that he was carrying a lot of baggage and a lot of shame around money. And a lot of it had to do with how his father communicated about money to his kids. And usually it's just offhand comments, never direct. And that's usually how we learn things. It's not direct lessons. It's something we overheard and that we just stick to us for years to come. And his dad would always complain about how things were so expensive. And, oh, if I didn't

have all these kids, you know, I'd have a better life. Like he'd blame his children for the financial situation that he got himself. I do that all the time, too. I actually am a big believer in that. Yeah. I mean, well, I don't know about that. But what he realized as he got older is then he started becoming very burden to his dad, who really it was based off of his poor choices when it came to the family finances. He decided to get a degree in finance, work in finance, work really hard, be very frugal.

And then there is the side effects of being really judgmental of people with their money. And, oh, my God, I can't believe they're spending their money like that, all this kind of stuff. Until he realized, why am I living my life to try to prove something to my father? It's not serving me. And I'm actually burning out, working too hard, being too strict with my money, not enjoying my money as we actually should. He was just hoarding everything. Why am I living my life like this? So when you examine examples like that, do you give them tools and talk about ways to address those issues and improve over time? Yeah, specific solutions on how can we restructure our relationship with money so it's not the one

that's in the driver's seat. We should be in the driver's seat because I think what people forget often is money is simply a tool and we are the hand that wields it. I think lots of people kind of think it's the reverse, that money controls everything. Money is pushing me here and there. And I wish it didn't. And it doesn't have to. You need to make yourself in charge of it. It's not in charge of you. And so part of that is making that choice every single day and not letting those kind of lessons or those triggers creep back in, recognizing when they're happening.

A lot of it has to do with, you know, working with a therapist, which I did on many occasions in different forms of therapy to find out what's going on so we can figure out how to better regulate our emotions when things happen. And also, you know, coming up with a strategy and plan when there's kind of human behavior components of like, you know, we freak out when we see the stock market goes down and we feel like we need to pull out all our money. I mean, that's very common for so many people every time there's a market crash or correction. And we need tools on,

OK, what should I actually do? We shouldn't just let those emotions run the show, just like we can't let money run the show. We need to be in charge of our life and our financial life. So a lot of it is making sure you're in that position and you can advocate for yourself within yourself. Yeah, I agree. I think that's a lot of life is self-discipline and how do you advocate for yourself in your own mind? And any tools you can provide there can be very beneficial. Do you look into things like biases that we have that almost all of us have to battle from confirmation bias to risk tolerance levels, that kind of thing? Do you talk about that? I think that's pivotal to understanding how people can handle their money better. Yeah, that's a huge chapter on biases. I think I talk about eight or nine of them.

And I had to cut them back because there's so many biases. There's like hundreds out there. But there are some key ones that are holding a lot of people back because they don't recognize that they're even there. One that I see often, and especially with older generations, not to pick on them, but I do see this often, is status quo bias where no one likes change. I get it. And even for me, I don't like change. And I have struggled with that a lot. And we've seen so much change specifically with the financial industry, financial tools and systems in the past decade compared to decades past.

It's just been very rapid. And it's hard to keep up. And sometimes it's very uncomfortable. However, if you don't kind of move with the times, you're going to be left behind. And the reason you likely aren't doing, you know, the online banking or auto paying everything is because of fear. And a lot of people are very fearful of money and so and change. And so when you kind of combine both of those, you're going to be making poorer choices than you could if you didn't, you know, oh, maybe instead of buying these really expensive mutual funds that

are charging me 2.5% MER, I should look into a robo advisor that basically does the same thing, much cheaper, save more money, more money in my retirement portfolio, like hundreds of thousands of dollars extra in my retirement portfolio by the time I retire. We need to kind of recognize, what am I still doing that I probably shouldn't be doing? Or another example is, and I talk about this all the time, is when you're... I always ask people, where are you banking? And most people are banking with the same bank account that their parents set them up

with when they were a kid. And I always ask them, so why are you still there? And part of it is like, well, I don't know. It seems like a lot of work to change banks. I'm like, but you're paying all these monthly fees. Are you actually getting the value of the service that you want? There's other options out there that are cheaper, that are going to get you more. Why wouldn't you take advantage of all these opportunities that didn't exist at least 10 years ago?

And a lot of it is like, I'm fine where I am. But you could be saving hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's amazing what a powerful force inertia is. Yeah. I mean, it really is. This is a stat from 30 years ago. It's no longer true. But at one point in Canada, the average person had more spouses in their life than banks.

Oh. Yeah. I think it was 1.3 to 1.2 or something. So it was kind of crazy. And you're right. There was a huge reluctance to change. And there weren't a lot of other options, banks. Oh. Yeah, it was 1.3 to 1.2 or something. So it was kind of crazy. And you're right, there was a huge reluctance to change. And there weren't a lot of other options, frankly. Yeah. But now there are.

Now, a lot of people don't change because they don't feel comfortable doing the initial research. Yeah. And they don't know which institutions to trust. I mean, one thing you have to give the banks is that they've been around a long time. They're known and respected brands. And people feel comfortable with that. So they almost need somebody like you to point them in the right direction through the blogs,

through the podcasts and say, we've done the due diligence for you. Here's a good opportunity. Rob Carrick does a lot of that with the Globe and Mail, et cetera. And I think that a lot of people need that because, again, they're not necessarily going to feel comfortable digging in on their own. And I think that really stems from to not trusting yourself and your own knowledge. A common thing I hear from people is I'm bad with money. I'm not good at money. And you're like, well, you can be good at it if you want to, just like any skill in life.

I mean, sure, there's things like I'll probably never be good at the violin because I feel like there are some things where you need artistic talent. You need to have a good ear. I do not have a good ear. But for things like personal finance, anyone can learn this stuff. It is not that complicated. I think the issue is there are a lot of players out there that want to make it seem like it's more complicated than it is. And there are some complex areas, but you probably don't need to go in those areas. You probably don't need to learn about, you know, puts and calls. Like, you're good. You don't need to touch that. I agree. In fact, I think one of the most important teachings in all of personal finance is that this stuff is not that complicated. No. And there are all kinds of complicated instruments, but they don't work

particularly well, at least from the consumer's perspective. They do from the seller's perspective in many instances. But this stuff, again, is relatively straightforward. And that's a key message people have to get. I've often said that if you put together a high school course, you could teach a lot of this in 10 lessons. You don't need to have years and years and years of financial education to close the financial literacy gap. It's not that complicated. It is tricky, though, with kids. It's very tough with kids because a lot of times they don't have money yet. Or the motivation or they just don't care. Yeah, they don't care. You have to gamify it. Like when I go into a classroom, it's all about gamifying it. It's about turning it into trivia. It's about turning it into contests. Then their competitive instincts kick in and that tends to work very well. If you just stand there

and lecture, you're right. They often can't give you their attention. But I think that this is relatively straightforward. Mystery is margin. And so you have a lot of entities in this industry that benefit from people thinking it's complicated and are happy to push that narrative at all times because that's how they support pretty high cost products and high fees and so on and so forth. The good news is there are now more and more players every year who are doing the right thing, who are emphasizing education or trying to bring fees down, who are saying this isn't that difficult, who are taking a more holistic approach. The trends are good, but we're a long way from being where we need to be. When you look at all of the biases you see out there, I mean, overconfidence bias is what I'm doing a video about later today. I see that mostly, by the way, in males under 35 trading in their own accounts. Absolutely. You see it over and over again.

The data is fully supportive. In fact, the data is bizarre, is how poorly these people are managing their money. It's quite shocking. And you know, they're saying now it's because of testosterone, that testosterone makes people much more likely to embrace risk, including imprudent risk. And that's why it tends to be almost an exclusively male problem. Mo and I were talking once and saying of all the portfolios we see, it's an exclusively male problem. We don't see young women doing crazy stuff with their money inside their RSP and TFSA. It's a male issue. Do you see the same type of thing? Yeah, actually, there's a chapter on overconfidence bias. And I think I pulled some stats that shows the exact same thing. And there's also stats that prove that women are really good investors when they have the opportunity,

the means and the confidence to do so. I think speaking as a woman, especially when it comes to investing, the biggest barrier for me was feeling like I wasn't invited into the boardroom to actually start investing. I always thought investing seemed more complicated. I didn't understand it, but no one ever taught me. And the space is very male. And so it was a very scary space to enter to try to teach myself about investing. But then once I learned it, I feel like the curtain kind of shifted. And then you see, oh, this isn't that hard. Why did everyone make it seem like it was? And I can learn this and other women can absolutely learn this. And also,

we are less emotional and better investors and there's historical data to prove it. And so we need to get out of our own way and do it. But yeah, the stats do show that men in general, especially young males, are more overconfident, think they have better financial literacy than they actually do. We need to dial it back and realize, you know, it's OK to acknowledge that you don't know everything. But again, that's also a whole other issue. It's hard for a lot of men to admit that they don't know something because I think young boys, I think it's getting better now. But a lot of them were taught that that isn't okay. You have to pretend like you know everything because otherwise it looks like

it's weakness. That's been a huge advantage for me. I've been not sharp for so long. I've known so little my entire life that I've adjusted to it and I accept it extremely well. You know, going back to a couple of points you made about women and you not feeling like you're invited in, it's great that over the last 20 and 30 years, that's changing. We've got the Gail Vest Oxates out there and the Ellen Rosemans and you and the Kelly Keens and so many of the big voices in Canadian finance education have been female and have been excellent communicators and have connected very well. I think they've taken some of that intimidation out. A little bit, but what I recognized when I was in my 20s and looking at lots of those women, they mainly focused on budgeting and debt. They rarely talked about investing. So one lesson I

had to unlearn was that budgeting and debt and living frugally is a women's thing and investing is for men. Because now it's getting better. There's a lot more women talking about investing, thank goodness. But back in the day, none of them did. And so I thought it wasn't something for me. Yeah, that's very interesting. Very interesting insight. You know, going back again to the women being superior investors, I think the data is very,

very compelling that one of the reasons is that the stereotype of women being more patient has proven to be true when it comes to investing. Yeah, I mean, it's absolutely true. You look at their holding periods for index funds, et cetera. They're much longer than they are for the average male. I see it over and over again. As we institute plans with people, the woman is much more likely to stay the course and not panic. In fact, in a good news front, not even pay that much attention to the ups and downs of the marketplace because they are thinking 10 and 20 years out. I said jokingly in a podcast before, I think it was with Preet, we've got to get rid of men when it comes to money management. After doing this for 40 years, I think women tend to be better at it. So let's let them do it. I mean, we've got a lot

of good things going for us. I mean, we need to remind ourselves that, yeah, these are really good behaviors and skills that we can bring into investing. And everyone should be more patient and calm and unemotional. That's literally the only way you're going to be a successful investor is if you take emotion out of it. Yeah, absolutely right. In fact, interestingly, a colleague of mine who's done very well, when he gets ultra emotional, like when he feels every part of his body says he

should be selling, he buys. Good. And so he has been able to harness the power of his emotions by going against them. And he's done very, very well. The premier example was in March of 2009, when he said he literally wanted to hit the sell button on his entire portfolio. And because it was so strong an urge, he put the cash he had into the market. And of course, the markets went on a roaring rip. And I think so you can harness it that way. I don't recommend timing the market and trading to most people. But the point is, your emotions guide you to almost the exact wrong thing over and over again. What I've seen, and I've talked about at length with my father, is the people who are best at this don't manage their emotions. They don't let their emotions get involved because they're not paying that much attention. So most of the best investors

I know have kind of said it and forget it. And yeah, they'll look at it every so often just to make sure things are moving along and for comfort reasons, but they're not looking at it on a daily basis, even monthly. They're looking at it on an annual basis and that seems to be a good formula for success. Yeah, well, it sounds like your friend was able to do a big kind of solution,

big thing that everyone should be doing that I talk about in my book is understand how to emotionally regulate. And so when we see like the market drop, it is a very natural human behavior. And it makes a lot of sense why when we see basically everything go down that we want to save our baby, we're like, oh my gosh, we need to save our money. And so we need to get the heck out just as if, you know, hundreds, thousands of years ago, we were being chased by some animals. We get this fight or flight feeling that we need to do something. And we think because it's like

an instinct, we should follow that instinct. It's a natural thing. But when it comes to finances, you actually have to do everything opposite to your instinct. And you have to recognize, oh, why am I feeling really anxious or really, you know, intense emotions, this fight or flight emotion? How do I deal with that? And you've got to recognize that. Maybe you've got to think about where is that stemming from? Got to remember the age old advice is like, do nothing, just stand there and then do the opposite. Or, you know, sometimes that is too difficult because that is like, wow, you've got your emotions on lock when you're able to buy more instead of sell. Even just, okay, just don't touch it. Don't touch it. Don't sell. Don't buy. Just don't touch it until you can get back into that place of emotional

regulation and then more logically and long-term again. Yeah, that all makes perfect sense. Easier said than done. But I do think people are becoming better at that, by the way. Yeah. Like I really do. I'm seeing less panic now with big market pullbacks than I did years ago. People are tending to stay the course more effectively. In your field, when you're dealing with people in all the feedback sections, are you seeing more and more younger people go to platform investing? Are you seeing more of them use index funds than were five and 10 years ago? Oh, yeah. I mean, no one knew what an index fund was, you know, 10 years ago. I remember I was looking at like when the first maybe year of me reading blogs, I stumbled upon it. I think it was Rob Engine and his blog, Boomer and Echo, and he was talking about it. And then he was talking about how complicated it was to buy an

index fund in Canada. Really, it's like you have to do these steps and they have to do this paperwork. And I'm like, well, if it was easier, I would do that. And so I didn't. But now there's a lot more information about it, a lot more accessible information that really talks about it in language that we can understand. And now, I mean, there's platforms where you can download the app on your phone

and get started within minutes. Good and bad about that. I think it's great when you're doing something very simple like index funds, but can be dangerous if, oh, now you can buy stocks. I mean, I just saw Wealthsimple is now going to add margin accounts. And in general, lots of discount brokerages have that option. Wealthsimple, though. You know their demographic is young people, and they're basically just the Robin Hood of Canada. That's just going to

incentivize people to borrow money they don't have to buy stocks that are going to tank, and they don't know the risks they're taking. So there's good and bad about the evolution of fintech, which I'm conflicted about. But the good thing is I do see a lot of people doing better than they would have. I wish lots of this information was more accessible and openly available when I was in my 20s. I probably would have done a lot of different things with my investments specifically if it was more accessible. So I think in general, I'm happy with how things are going, but people always just need to be cautious. There's always something to be like, but don't do that.

But, you know, just be careful. Be careful out there. When people listen to all of this, they say, great, I get on top of the mental challenges, the emotional challenges. But the bottom line is I'm not making enough money relative to my costs. It's basic arithmetic right now. Even if I do everything that Jessica's teaching effectively, how do I build up my down payment fund? How do I handle this new high cost of living in this crazy housing market, et cetera? What do you say to those people? Yeah, I mean, that's a common story here often. I do think it's also specifically an issue with younger people because you're thrust into this,

you know, the real world, you have certain expectations and then you realize, wow, okay, it's a little, it's a little different than I thought. I mean, I felt like that in my twenties, I graduated in 2009. It was not what I expected. I thought I was going to get a degree like I should, get a job, move to this city and live my adult life and have a great time. And there was a lot of unemployment, underemployment, was broke for most of my 20s, worked multiple jobs, all this kind of stuff. Not what I expected. And I unfortunately see the same patterns with 20 year olds now. You know, lots of them have side hustles. That's a term now that wasn't even a term when I was in my 20s and you know working a job

that should be paying them an actual living wage and then you know mortgage it like to buy a home you need a million bucks you know and so but when you just start kind of going and spiraling and be like well everything's impossible then you get into this place of just despair like what's the point and we never want to get into that place. It's hard to get out. And it's a very strong emotion. And when you are living in despair, there's no space for hope. And that means if you don't have hope, then there's no motivation to take any kind of action. You've got to believe that even though things are maybe not where you want them to be now,

baby steps will allow you to improve your situation. And I'm proof of that. Again, I did not make a very good income up until age 30. And I was always ashamed of that. I talked to friends or other people in the personal finance space, and they were making double what I was, sometimes triple. And I was so ashamed that I was working two jobs and could barely keep up and put a couple hundred dollars into savings. And, you know, it does get better as you get older, as you become more valuable as an employee or you can start a business and you have some skills. And there are some and so many more opportunities to earn money than there was 10 years ago because of online. I mean, now, like when I worked multiple jobs, I'm talking, I worked a day job as a

sales assistant, a newspaper. And then at night, I would be a teleprompter operator for the news. And I had to go to these physical locations. It was exhausting. Now you can, you know, finish your nine to five, go home and, you know, do remote work and make some extra cash. And also it's easy to kind of hop in and hop out. So this is like a better time than it was when I was in my 20s. A lot of people who are younger may not think that, and I totally get it because I also felt the same thing when I was that age. But I will say that you have to focus on what can I control? What do I not have control over and I have to just let go of?

And sometimes you have to do head down, eyes on your own paper and just do the work and give it a few years to see the progress you've made. But if you just kind of throw your hands up and say, well, it's impossible. I'll never be a homeowner. Like nothing's worth it, blah, blah, blah. And then you just keep doing what you're doing, which maybe is overspending and you're not paying attention to paying off your debts and you're not putting anything into savings and investments. You're going to be in the exact same space, if not a worse place in a few years. We want to do better. And so you've got to recognize, OK, what can I do? And it's very slow at first. And that's the hardest part when you want to see instant results. It really isn't until you get to a certain tipping point.

And for me, I'd say maybe it was after five or six years that I'm like, oh, wow. Hello. That's kind of crazy. Look at these things compound. Look at the progress. And then you start believing things that people have been telling you for years. If you just do this, this, and this, you're going to see over time, it's going to be worth it. But you have to, again, going back to patience, you've got to be patient. Where do you live? Where geographically? Where do you live?

Toronto. You live in Toronto. So it's interesting that two people who work from their home live in Toronto. You could live anywhere. You could live in- I mean, yeah. And we considered it during COVID, you know, when everyone was moving to the country or Nova Scotia. Man, so many people moved to Nova Scotia from Toronto. We really considered it. And we were actually looking at properties in St. Catharines or near Niagara. I mean, that's a dream. I would always love to live in Niagara.

And part of the reason we decided to stay in Toronto, now we don't live quite downtown. We live on the east end, so very close to Scarborough, where it is a bit more affordable. We made the decision to stay because of our careers. I would love to say that I could do my job from anywhere. I am not in that position yet, even though all of my work is remote. And so when I'm working with a company who's based out of Toronto, we won't go out to do a physical meeting anymore. A lot of it is just online because it's more practical. But they like that I'm in Toronto.

And a lot of the things that I do is because I'm Toronto-based. And same with my husband. He works in the music industry. He's very dialed into the Toronto music scene. He has to be here. And so living a couple hours away just was not practical for our careers and our goals. Yeah. So even though you're remote when you actually execute the work, the connections and some of the relationships are

still local and it helps for you to be there. I'm not famous enough to be able to live wherever I want. One day that's the dream, but not yet. Well, you're still young. You're still young. We've all figured out how old you are because you've told us when you graduated. I mean, I decided a while ago, I'm not going to pretend to hide my age because I think that's so silly. And that's also, again, a thing that women are told, don't ever reveal your age. I'm like, I was so annoyed for so long in my 20s that people didn't take me seriously because I was younger. And so now I'm like, no, no, no, no. I may look not my age because I've got some good genes. I don't know. But no, I'm almost 40.

I'm 38. And so I'm proud of that because for me, that shows, look at how long I've been studying this and doing this. I know what I'm talking about. I do the opposite of a lot of people. I tell people I'm 85. You look great for 85. Yeah, exactly.

I like hearing that compliment and I'll take it every time. As you get to be my age, people don't take you seriously for that reason. So, Dave, you're too old. Even as a man, I feel like in general, a man in finance who's older is in general pretty respected, no? No, I'm kidding. I think where I'm lucky is that I've been around so long is that you just know so many people, and I think people respect you. You're trying to help. I mean, at the end of the day, that's what people are trying to figure out as they listen to your

material, read your books, listen to your podcasts. Are you truly trying to help? Are you trying to make a positive difference and push people along the right direction? Or are you trying to sell them something and do something for personal gain, et cetera? And that's, you know, tough for people to figure out many instances, but I've been around long enough. I think people have figured out that I truly have my heart in the right place. Absolutely. When I think about what do I want, what are my goals when it comes to my career? It's very hard. I'm always conflicted because I've been doing this 12 years and I am happy with where I'm at. And I look to people like you who have these amazing long careers and have proven time and time again, you know what you're doing. You've

helped so many people who've been able to really do a lot of good things. I want a career like that. I want to be in my 60s and still doing this and be even smarter and more knowledgeable and more helpful because of all of those years of experience. But then I also, you know, get into the trap like everyone does, the comparison trap of looking at lots of people who, you know, get into the trap like everyone does the comparison trap of looking at lots of people who, you know, are making way more money than me selling a bunch of stuff. And there's nothing wrong with selling. I sell stuff myself and that's fine. But sometimes I'm like, huh, did I? I wonder where I'd be if I 21, 22, a lot of people really leaned into social media. And a lot of people like new people, like I just discovered personal finance and now I'm creating

a brand and I'm selling stuff. And you're like, gosh, it took me years, like six years to offer my first paid product. Cause I was so afraid to charge anyone for anything because also in the back of my head was like, I'm a financial educator and a lot of people don't have money. I don't want to, you know, I want to help them. But also I'm like, I need to earn an income too. And so it's conflicting because, you know, I see that and then I'm like, could I be a million or a multimillionaire by now if I made some different choices? I don't know. But life is long. I want my career to be long. And I want to always make sure I have my integrity at the end of the day.

Absolutely. And you seem happy. I'm pretty happy when I'm not comparing myself to others. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, comparison really is the thief of joy. There's no doubt about it. It is.

And I think it's something that's harder to avoid now than ever because of Instagram and all the other social media platforms. That's why I live a quiet life out in the country in my house. Where are you based out of, by the way? I live just near Waterloo, out by the St. Jacob's Farmer's Market. And then I also have a cottage down in Sarnia. And I kind of go back and forth to my original hometown. And I love both communities. I'm very lucky.

I mean, I have a lot of friends in both. And they're both great places. You know, Kitchener has the entrepreneurship with Waterloo and the strong educational institutions. And Sarnia is one of the best sense of community of any place I've been. Everybody seems to be involved in charities down there. So no, I'm very lucky. I'm lucky in life. You know, I've really had things kind of fall my way. I'm not that sharp. I had one good idea, but I had it when I was young. And that was actually a very, very lucky stroke. And I think for you, you took action. And that's, again, a really big

barrier for people is doing the thing, hitting go. It's very difficult to do because you're afraid of failure. You're afraid of looking like a fool. It's hard. I agree. Yeah, no, totally agree. All right, let's wrap up. But I want to go with the big topic, Tan. How do people get more happiness in their life as it ties in to financial planning? If they're going to spend, for example, do they spend more on experiences than on stuff? All of those types of things. Any guidance there? Yeah. I mean, it's funny. So the last chapter where we really talk about money and happiness, because a lot of, you know, there's a saying, you know, money can't buy happiness. And then

people are like, yes, it can. I'm like, well, money can buy things that do provide happiness. Let's not lie. And money's very important, but when you think about the things that actually help you have sustainable happiness, not just like a glimmer of happiness for a second, because you hit buy on something and then, then it goes away really quickly. What are those things that I can always go back to, to remind myself what makes me happy. And a lot of those things are very basic and sometimes free, if not very cheap. Totally agree. Yeah. Right. And a lot of it's just like staying healthy, being social, doing things that help you get into a flow state, like little things like playing a video game, doing a puzzle, reading a book where you were so immersed in that activity, you forget

about all of your worries. And you're like, oh, actually, life is totally fine. Because look at me, I'm in my house, and I'm very cozy, and I'm reading a book, life is good. And I think too often, we are focused on what we don't have, what other people have, what we think other people's expectations of us are, we need to focus again on us. Like, what do we actually want? I feel like we don't ask ourselves that enough. And sometimes the answer is very simple. It's like, you know, I actually just want to be able to hang out with my friends a little bit more. And the other component, because you mentioned experience versus material, because I think lots of us have seen the stats experiences

always give us more happiness more joy not even close not even experience I mean we talk about vacation you get the anticipation you get the memories of bonding there etc I'm lucky I wasn't born with the stuff gene I didn't have to read about this or convince myself I hate stuff I don't have a garage at either one of the two places. I don't have any stuff to put in the garage. Like I literally don't like stuff. I don't ever want a gift. I don't want anything. I just like kind of reading and being low key. And I'm fortunate. A lot of my hobbies are very inexpensive. My hockey pool is my big passion and you know, it costs almost nothing. In fact, I'm net positive on it. I want to go on record saying I've won a lot of money in the podcast. So no, I, everything you're saying is absolutely true.

And for a lot of people, that social connection is such a key part of happiness and looking for ways to enjoy other people's company. And we're really disconnected these days. We are, no question. And that's why it's so important. Well, look at you. You're working out of your home. You don't get to connect with people during the course of the day.

Yeah. And in the old days, of course, we all did. And so you have to make sure that in the non-working hours, you seek that out to some extent. Otherwise, your husband will get very tired of you. I know, you guys definitely need to have some other people. We saw a lot of each other during COVID, let me tell you. And you're like, we need a, and that's, I think a part of me, I'm like, I need to branch out. I need some new people in my life because we've seen a lot of each other. You've done well to persevere. Right when your career was taking a turn up, you got hit by COVID and you came out of college slash university in 2009 during the credit crisis. I know.

You've had a little bit of bad luck on the timing front. Remind me not to hang around you. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I don't have the best of luck. But you know what? Because COVID happened and it was so similar in certain instances of the 2008, 2009. It was. And that was such a big part of my, like, you know,

adult and my becoming an adult. I was actually a lot more calm than I probably would have been compared to lots of people. I'm like, oh, pandemic. I've been through some stuff. I'm not afraid of this little market, you know, dip. I'm just going to stay the course. And thank goodness I've also been spending all these years

learning on what to do when this happens again. And it's always going to happen again, pretty much every 10 years. You can expect something like that to happen and you need to figure that out. But yeah, I don't have the best of luck. The one good thing that came out of COVID though, whereas I always go back, like, should I have just like doubled down on TikTok and could be a multimillionaire? Maybe. But what I did instead was I made the decision to, you know, I got my accredited financial counselor designation in 2018. And I thought I was kind of good with that. But I love learning myself and I want to become a better educator. And so I made the decision, I'm going to try my best and do all the work to become a CFP.

And that's during COVID, I did the Canadian Securities course. It was the most stressful thing because I also bought the course a year prior and it's like, oh, it's going to expire soon, so you have to take it. So I studied for both exams and took them within, I think, two months. Would not recommend.

And also I had to do the test because they didn't have virtual tests. I had to go to a location with my mask on with all these people, no vaccines yet. I'm like, is this how I die? Taking an exam? Do you want to know what a financial geek I am? I took the insecure course, of course, starting out. I didn't even open the books. I just drove down and wrote the exam. Okay. So you are a genius. You are smart. I had to study like hell. On finance. I don't know if it's intelligence or just reading so much.

I've read so much on finance that I was able to just kind of drive down and write it. And of course, we all had to write it together in a room with a proctor. And you don't hear the word proctor as much now as you once did. So, well, you've overcome a lot and you're helping people. And that's what, at the end of the day, matters. I've enjoyed the interview immensely. Good luck with the book. It comes out December 31st.

And the title again for everybody? It's Everything But Money, The Hidden Barriers Between You and Financial Freedom. And you can pre-order now. And if you go to jessicamorehouse.com slash books, so just the book page on my website, it has information on where you can pre-order. And also if you do, you get a bunch of amazing extras and freebies, worksheets, things that are connected to the book

that i make available to you for free but you don't get a wealthy barber hat i mean i wish you do but i do yeah you do for sure oh my gosh i'm so excited and is the book available at chapters and amazon once it's out it's available in canada us all major retailers indigo chapters barnes and noble everywhere but also i'm always telling people support your local bookstore and it should It's out. It's available in Canada, U.S., all major retailers, Indigo Chapters, Barnes & Noble, everywhere. But also, I'm always telling people, support your local bookstore, and it should be at lots of those local bookstores as well. That's great. Okay, well, listen, really enjoyed having you on. Continued success to you. Thank you so much.