Knowledge is Power

Happy rainy Wednesday. Got a rainy day out there, but it's dry in here, Sarah, so we can at least podcast and have another show and stay dry.

Yes. If for some reason... our power always seems to flicker here. We have the hardest time with power. If it does that, we apologize. We probably won't be able to get back on air because it will cut us off, so...

Oh man.

Just be aware, it's heavy rain, so we might lose power.

Did you just jinx us or what?

No, Blake and I were talking about before. He's like, "Oh my gosh, y'all could lose power," thanks to the way this place, this building just hates any type of inclement weather.

I love it. You and Blake, you all find the one negative. So now, y'all, if the power goes off, I'm holding you two responsible. Y'all jinxed us here. Hopefully.

Yeah, we do get a lot of those. I'm hoping, it's weird, hoping that doesn't affect us today. But this hurricane, I've had so many people say to me, didn't know there was a hurricane going on in Florida.

No, I had no idea.

It's not big, I think, thank the good Lord. It was a tropical storm for a while there, and it just turned to a cat one, fortunately, for those in Florida. I always think about people that are going through them. We've been through plenty here, and these things can be really devastating. And gosh, the Gulf Coast, Louisiana, Mississippi, those areas, they have been hit so hard this year.

They have, and last year. They have taken a beating.

It's been back-to-back, and gosh, you think about those folks. And we've been quite blessed this year. In spite of COVID, we didn't have to deal with a whole lot of major weather, so no hurricanes. And none yet. We're close, we're close to the end of season here, and really right now things should be so calm, no big risk. But coming off of the African coast there, man, it has been so active. It's like every time you turn around there's a new... there's a new development over there, and a lot of them have been making it to our side of the world. So it's something to be aware of.

Remember earlier in the summer they said that this was going to be the most active hurricane season for the U.S.? I don't know if that's accurate. Is it?

Well, maybe for Florida. We have not experienced it, right? But just in general, it's been a very active season. We've been through the alphabet.

Yeah.

And we restarted. So, and I don't, I think the name of this storm, I don't even recall, but like I or something, it's something weird. But yeah, we've had a lot of storms, a lot of named storms, and so yeah, that's a little bit concerning. But thank goodness we're almost out of the woods, I think, and it's a good thing.

But with a little rain talk and a little hurricane talk, let's talk some money. And let me welcome everybody to our show. And anyone listening, they know we're dedicated to illuminating blind spots in financial planning, wealth management. We're covering literally any and all things that have to do with money, and we even take suggestions. If folks want to hear a particular topic, all you have to do is let us know and we'll build a show around that. So as you also know, I'm your host, Phil Clark, and my co-host, Sarah Haynes. We are ready to rock and roll. We got a pretty interesting discussion today.

Absolutely. So obviously we're going to talk about finance, and we're going to talk about wine. We're still going through the noble grapes. I think after today we have two more... we have four more after today. But we'll stick to that. Also, just to keep in mind, we have some changes coming at the beginning of 2021, so prepare yourself. You'll see something. We might look a little different. Not we, maybe the setup, what we talk about might seem a little different. So just prepare yourself and start putting on your calendar for 2021.

Yeah, that's a good point. We do have some changes on the way, and I'm looking forward to those. I don't think that we are... I'll just go ahead and break the news, I'm not shaving my head or anything like that. That's not what Sarah means.

No, no.

But, and she's not shaving her head.

No.

But we are going to mix things up a little bit. We've got some new ideas for the show, and we've been talking about those internally for a little bit, and I think we got some pretty cool stuff to bring out at the beginning of the new year. So I'm excited about that.

Yes. A happy new year.

Yeah. Oh wait, did you just say happy new year?

I said hey, happy new year. We're so close to the end of the year.

It's, yeah, it's looming. I can't believe that this weekend we're probably gonna be doing some Christmas decorations. I'll let the cat out of the bag. I can't blame this one on my wife. Natalie is the most amazing decorator, and it's her favorite time of year, no doubt. She loves it. And I probably shouldn't say this because she might be listening, but some years I just think, man, how much more can she do? Really, because my patience would run out days before hers. Weeks, even.

And I still love to tell the story of the first Christmas that she... that we were a couple, and she came to my house, and I had my Christmas tree in the corner. You've heard this story, I'm pretty sure.

I don't know.

Well, I'll let you know at the end. You know me, I'm a pretty particular person, and I tend to think that I do things pretty well. But boy, she let me know really, really quick, and she tried to do it so diplomatically. She walks in the house, and I was so proud. I had my Christmas tree in the corner over by the fireplace, and I was pretty excited, and I thought she's gonna be really impressed with this guy that she's dating now. He's put up a Christmas tree and it's decorated. Wow. She walked in and she looked, and she commented, "Oh no." And as I awaited the comment, here comes: "When are you going to finish your tree?"

Ouch.

And I just thought to myself, wow, how do you respond to that? I said, "Well, it is finished." And she just laughed.

Oh my God. Well, roll the bus over.

You know Natalie. She totally... she parked it on me. She put the bus on top of me, put it in park and said, "Hey, you're staying right here." And she said, "I'll be back," and she left. She comes back with bags of Christmas tree ornaments, and she literally could open a Christmas store because she has so much decoration in our attic. She comes in, and the rest of that evening, we had dinner, but she just went to work on that tree, Sarah. She pulls it away from the wall so she has to decorate, as you've seen, 360.

You see how she decorates? Well, she had to do this thing 360 degrees, and I'm looking at the back, it's empty, and I said to her, "Well, no one sees that part." Mistake. Oh, huge, huge mistake. This thing had more ornaments on it, literally, than I could count.

But didn't it make you full of Christmas joy? Didn't it get you excited?

You know what, it really did. It blew me away. Yeah, yeah, I was totally excited, but I was marveling at how this person... so for me, the reason I never decorated one with a lot of ornaments is I can't really see where they go. I put a few of them there once, there's... once there's enough, in my opinion, then I don't really see a place, and she'll say, "Oh, there's plenty of room on that tree," and here comes another one.

So, there's a hole right there.

Oh yeah, exactly. So now I watch her, and usually our trees are pretty tall, and I watch her decorate these things, and so my job now is once she gets to the end, she'll send me around the tree and she'll point to the areas that she can spot. And just when I think it's full, she'll, "Oh, wait a minute, hang this one right there." And it is truly amazing to me how beautiful she can make a tree. So I don't know what we're doing for this celebration or this Christmas, but I'm sure she's going to have a trick or two up her sleeve. It's time to start decorating. Everyone I know has already started decorating. How about you? Have you?

I have not. I have actually... Natalie gave me a present recently, and that is already out on my bed, so it looks like Christmas in my bedroom somewhat, but I haven't gotten the tree out. I think it's time.

Yeah, I think you're right. And I'm sure I'll get instructions this weekend as to what we're doing. And I gotta ask your opinion on something before we dig into our topic. Holly, or the green stuff?

Yeah, garland.

On a banister, on your stairway, yeah. Yes or no?

Yes. Oh gosh, yes. Yes, yes.

You've talked to Natalie.

No, I have not.

Okay, never mind.

Garland on a banister is gorgeous. It adds so much.

Oh boy. All right, well, Natalie, if you happen to be listening, go buy a bunch of garland if we don't already have it.

And probably have some garland.

No, I bet we do. We probably have boxes. Well, I've been outvoted. I really thought you'd say no, because you seem to be that minimalist.

Well, not Christmas. I've gotten into the Christmas spirit, so no, I'm all for it. You need lights on it too.

Forget asking you anything again. Okay. Yeah, exactly, I've just made a big mistake. All right, well, anyway, I'm sure it'll be beautiful.

But now you know: knowledge is power, Phil. Knowledge is power. That's our topic for today.

I love that. No, you just totally rolled with it. That was a great segue. And you also reminded me that once again I'm wrong about how decorations work at Christmas, just like I was however many years ago that was when she finished my tree. And actually some people say to her, "That was a plot by Phil. That was all by design. He didn't want to finish it, and he knew you would." And I'm thinking to myself, I wish... that takes a worse effort, but I wish that was true. At least then I could have said, "Yeah, man, I got her to do it, I didn't have to deal with it." But I truly thought it was done, and boy, did I get a... I was awakened that Christmas.

So, all right, let's talk about knowledge is power. And today's subject is definitely a knowledge-is-power kind of subject, but deals with money in a way that we probably haven't talked about much. We've talked about emotional biases, right? But this could be considered sort of a byproduct of that, or maybe something in the same category. But we're truly digging into money scripts, things that you inherit from your family, and these money scripts, as they're called, they can go back generations, multiple generations.

Absolutely, and it ties into our conversation about teaching your children about money. This episode shows how that's reflected into their lives.

Oh yeah, for sure, because, in fact, I'll mention this somewhere along the way in our script today, but usually throughout these surveys, these surveys indicate that the younger people tend to have the highest scores as it relates particularly to money avoidance. So you're exactly right, it perfectly ties to the conversations we've had about how to talk to your kids or your young people about money. It truly affects them in a much different way. But with that, let's talk about what drives money decisions.

Absolutely. And Phil just brought the first one: money avoidance. So it can be a few different things that cause money avoidance. Either you have a fear, or you see it, you're disgusted by money, you think money is bad. There's all kinds of emotions that play into money avoidance, so you self-sabotage, pretty much, if you have this type of money script.

Yes. Interesting. Most people say, "Give me more." Rarely do you run into people that are true avoiders of money. But this script can come from a number, or can be created from a number of reasons. But these people literally don't feel that they deserve money. They think, as you said, it's bad. But either way, it creates anxiety, it creates fear, and these emotions can really take you down a bad trail, and you make bad decisions. So they tend to fight to sabotage their financial success, as you said.

And one of the things that's really interesting: young adults are the ones that scored the highest in the more current analysis that was being done here, and this kind of belief, or money script as we call it... the most interesting finding is that it can prevent the person from attaining higher levels of income, or even higher levels of success in general. This is a big problem. But a lot of people truly believe that it is such a horrible subject, they don't want to talk about it. And a lot of times that comes from... it's been that way through the generations, and they've picked up on that, and that gets galvanized as you go through the generations, and so it's hard for them to think differently.

The other problem with that is they tend to think more narrow-minded. They don't see other things or hear other thoughts about money. They only live by the script that's been played over and over and over in their mind.

So it's more of a... we talk about social inadequacies, or rather the social things that we have going on right now. And we talk about cycles being repeated, particularly in folks in the lower socioeconomic classes, and I think this is the same thing. It's part of a cycle that repeats. So you hear it once you're born, and as you grow up you keep hearing these same things, and they become your truth. And if you don't know to compare it to something else, you never get out of that truth.

Absolutely. And especially for parents, going back to the episodes where we talked about how to teach your kids about money, this is very important, because you have to have a good mindset before you start teaching them. So it's good to have an awareness of what you know and also what you don't know, or what you might... your vision might be skewed on these things.

Yeah, and a hundred percent right. If you're going to teach, that means somewhere along the way... and we'll say right now, if you're a listener and you're a parent, you have to be sure that you understand which one of these money scripts is ingrained with you, if any.

Yeah, most people have some.

Most people have one, or maybe more. So if you're going to teach, to Sarah's point, if you're going to teach your children about these things, or anyone for that matter, you have to know which one affects you, and then you have to know how to think beyond that one, so you can compare versus simply believing it, or, as you hear me say a lot, just taking it at face value. Because I don't think anything is truly face value or should be taken at face value. There should always be a little bit of question. Not a cynicism necessarily, but a question: is that right, and does it affect me in the way that I believe it does, and is there another way, or should I be considering other ways? And I just don't think enough of that's done.

I'm reading a great book right now called Think for Yourself, and Dr. Darab sent it to me.

Nice.

I gotta tell you, that guy finds some of the best books, and he shares them with me. I can't thank him enough. And I'm moving through that book rapidly because it is such an interesting read. And as I read it, you can literally see everything that's coming off those pages, you see it in your everyday life, for sure. And it really bothers me a lot, because I really believe that people have stopped thinking outside of what we call the experts. And so people seek that expert advice because there's so much noise around us, therefore we just expect an absolute answer. And if something's been put in front of you so many times, then you fail to look for anything that might oppose it. You just take that at face value. And it's a great book. Definitely will be a recommended read, I think, unless something really gets off the rails as I go through the rest of the book. So far, it started with a real bang.

I'm excited. Nice. Dr. Dared for the win.

Yeah, he's... you know what, he definitely gets the win. That guy, like I said, he's always, always, always researching things and looking, and definitely thinks for himself. When I got that book, I had no idea what to think, but boy, I cracked the spine on it and started reading. Good stuff. I thought, okay, this is truly a dare of read, for sure. So thank you, David, if you're listening.

Do you worship it? I'm just kidding. Our second money script, the factors that we're talking about, is going to be money worship. So this is the mindset that money solves all problems, that achieving the success, though, is always going to be that dangling carrot. So you're always wanting more and more and more, and it doesn't feel like you're ever going to get... there's always a higher tier in terms of money and how much you worship it and what you see as success.

I can think of so many people. I don't know them, and I have no idea if they are afflicted with this script of money worshipping, but I think about famous people like the boxer Mike Tyson and the professional golfer John Daly. These are people that had millions. Let me scratch that, not millions of dollars, Mike Tyson had hundreds of millions.

Yeah, the guy was worth a half of a billion dollars at one point.

And today he lives a pretty modest lifestyle. I think he's on the climb again, he's got some TV stuff going, and he's okay, but this guy spent through more money than any of us can really fathom. The professional golfer John Daly, he was... in his book he admits that worshiping money... it was not... you wouldn't see him as a guy that worshipped it, because he was just this average, somewhat uneducated, just a basic old, as some people call him, just a good old redness...

Such a redneck.

Well, but the guy walks on as an alternate to a PGA Championship and wins. The most unusual thing. No one would have guessed it. He was an alternate. He got the call. The tournament starts on a Thursday. He doesn't fly, scared to death to fly, drives an RV, but he drives from his home to the tournament site, gets there in time to tee off on that Thursday morning. He doesn't even play a practice round.

He's ready. He's a golfer.

But you know what, this is the PGA Championship, one of the most recognized tournaments in the world. This is high pressure. You can say he's ready.

Yeah.

He shoots a good score, but no practice, doesn't have a clue who's in the field, hasn't had a chance to really get acclimated to the scene. He goes out there in full mullet and blows away the field. I mean, this was uncanny.

Yeah.

No one had seen anything like this. And so Daly commanded... he really commanded the stage. He owned it for a minute. But here's a guy that blew... in his book he says, "I blew 50 million dollars gambling."

Yeah.

Buying expensive things, toys, whatever. And it was all about letting this success and the worship of the money... it allowed him to do things that became very compulsive, and he became very destructive. His financial behaviors were so destructive that he was literally broke. And unfortunately, here's a guy in his 50s now, he's playing on the senior tour, or what they call a Champions Tour now, but this guy recently was diagnosed with cancer. He's got a pr... I think his prostate or something. Probably going to be okay. But here's a guy that had it made, and he doesn't have an option now. He has to play. He's got to compete. He's got to do whatever he

can to earn and try to get himself back to a better place. He's not going to starve, the guy still has a great fan base, but that is a perfect example of money worship, where it can really create some destructive behavior. So yeah, and I'm sure you can think of a few that have been through that same thing.

Oh, absolutely. And it is just, it kind of plays into our next one, which is going to be money status. But worship is going to be more about buying and showing and accumulating all of these things, and compulsive, so compulsive spending when we're talking about money worship and money.

Totally. Yeah, compulsive is a great word for it. And some people could probably say that I'm this compulsive hoarding. Some people call me a wine hoarder because I love wine.

That's hilarious.

But I did hear someone recently, they told...

They had a better... collector.

Yeah, I like collector, but this person had a better phrase than anyone. And they were looking in the wine room and they said, "It's like a wall of art."

Oh, yeah.

And I thought, you're welcome back anytime, because I like your way of thinking. I don't view it as a hoarder or as compulsive. I just view it as one of the things that I truly love. But anyway, I digress. So what's next?

Money status.

Money status, yes.

So these people view others, you don't have any status, you don't have success unless you have money. A lot of times these people will try to appear more successful than they actually are because they want that status. It's just directly correlated.

That's a great point, the idea about money conferring status. A lot of people, I think, get stuck in that, and I don't think it's limited to those with money or that are on a successful path. I think, in fact, the results of this study actually indicate that the ones who view money as more of a status symbol, they tended to be younger, they tended to be single, less educated, and they had very low levels of net worth. In fact, a lot of them didn't even know their net worth. So when you look at these studies, you begin to see this, there's definitely a trend there, or rather a pattern.

But the money status thing, I think about a lot of people right here in Wilmington, but really any city you'd see this. There are people that I know, and they're nice people, easy to get along with, you don't have a problem being around them, but some of the things that they do with their money, for example, some of the things that they drive, cars that are several hundred thousand dollars, and not just one, but having multiple of those cars. And then you wonder, what one was the point? But a lot of people truly view those things as their way present status, to present status, right?

So here you are. I can't imagine, heck, I still drive a Toyota, and I can't imagine driving something like a Lamborghini or Ferrari, because I think I'd be embarrassed by it. But they're awesome cars. But it's amazing to me when I see people buying multiples of those things, and it truly makes you wonder if that is a status thing or if it's truly a passion. Because let's think about it, someone buys a Ferrari or a Lamborghini around here, where in the world does that car get to perform? Those cars aren't made to be driven in a 35 mile an hour speed zone.

They bear me going to Charlotte.

But I mean, but where? I mean, those cars, if you read about those cars, Sarah, those cars are designed to be driven above 80 and 90 miles an hour, not 55 or so. Where do you drive with that car? 130, 150?

You don't... don't ask me. I'm not driving your car. So I'm right here in 330.

I mean, but the point is that's what it's designed to do, and you don't get to watch that car perform or feel it perform unless you do it illegally. So it sort of makes you begin to believe that it's definitely a status thing. So, but I think money status is a huge, huge part of this dynamic that we're talking about. But again, young people, they're less wealthy, less educated and they tend to be single.

And I can think back on a number of friends, even when I was single. There was definitely a time in my life where I thought that I needed to be noticed more as a single person in order to properly assimilate into society and to be accepted. But I see that a lot, and that one is definitely a big problem.

Absolutely. So money worship, money status, money avoidance. Now let's talk about money vigilance.

Man, we have gone from this is... oh yeah, this is the other: don't have it, yeah, get rid of it, I don't want it, to it does everything, and then, hey, look at me, I got all this stuff. And now we've gone to the other end of the spectrum again.

So now it's the savers. Yes. Work and save, work and save, there's never going to be enough, you have to keep... These are frugal people most often, but the downside to this... yes, they'll work and save and probably spend less than they make, but the downside is there's a lot of anxiety associated with that.

We see that with a lot of clients who grew up not wealthy and have accumulated lots of wealth. They are at their retirement phase and they don't believe us when we say, yeah, you can, you have enough. It's not in their DNA to believe that. They came through some tough times.

I can think of one client in particular that they're worth lots and lots of money and they just can't see themselves as what we call a wealthy person, right? They came from nothing, created everything that they have, they built everything. They are very faith-driven people, simple, don't spend a lot. They have a lot, and a lot of folks will say, well, that's why they have a lot. Well, the reason they have a lot is because they chose a good path. They went to school, they got their education, and they worked and they worked and they worked and they worked hard, but they enjoyed their life. But now they've become wealthy, yet they still have the money script of there won't be enough, and so that vigilance just seems to prevail, and they're well into retirement, and that's usually...

And part of the problem too, if you don't fight these battles early on, it's so ingrained in you that it's hard to accept or to understand that that money script may be inaccurate, even if you're listening to your financial planner or anyone in your life, maybe even their spouse. Yeah, it's hard for them to accept that.

Yeah, it's a great point. What was interesting, though, in the study when all of this was done, one of the things that stood out to me was the people that tend to suffer from money vigilance the most were non-whites, lower income and non-credit revolvers. In other words, they just don't use a credit card, they don't like credit, and they have a huge, just incredible fear of credit.

The non-whites, I thought about that, and I remember some of the first non-profit organizations that I was a part of, whether being just a supporter or being on the board. One of the things that I heard a black gentleman say to me one day was, "Phil, black people don't trust people with their money. They keep it very close to the vest. They don't use banks." No, they won't use banks in a lot of cases, and they would rather hang on to it and know it, and they keep it very private, very, very private.

And I never really thought much about that. That was probably 20 years ago, maybe 25, and I didn't really think about what he said. But as I continued through life in my career in wealth management, what he said began to make a lot of sense. And as I read this, what we're talking about today, and I go through the studies that led us to these points that we're talking about, what he said long before these studies were done was true. He knew it. He knew that culture, and he said it was all culturally driven, and they don't like credit, they don't trust. And what happens with that, the more they don't trust, he said, it just creates more and more distrust.

And so whether you're white, black or any other color, money vigilance is real. It is a script that a lot of people have and it's etched in their mind. And I think the worst part of it is you don't enjoy the benefits or the security that money can buy. Not that you want to become a worshiper, but being so vigilant, there's a time and place for that, but then you've got to be able to enjoy it a little bit.

Yeah, kind of let go and get to a place where you do understand what position you're in, obviously keeping budgets in place, but really enjoying what you've worked hard for.

Yeah, just knowing what your limits are. You don't have to go crazy, you don't have to just spend everything, which is more about the person that has the script who ends up making bad financial decisions, so that's more the worshiper. But in this case, you can be vigilant, but that's really where good planning comes into play, and you talk about this every week. Everything is built on a plan. So if you know what you need, when you're going to need it and why, then you can fill the proper buckets of money so that what you're going to need is there, and the rest of it you can actually relax for a minute and decide, I want to enjoy a little bit of this, I want to do something, I want to take a trip, I want to buy something. But you're doing it based on good preparation, good planning, and that frees you from this bondage, if you will, this anxiety of thinking that you have to work, work, work and save everything.

And one of the other mistakes, not a mistake, just a way of life, it's always wanting to leave something to the kids. We hear that every time. Yes. Well, not every time, but about 95. Yeah, we want to make sure they're in a better position than we were. Yeah, hear it all the time.

And I don't know, I've never agreed with that. I think it's great if they can leave something, but I think you take care of self first, and if something's left, great. But parents probably did their job along the way if they got their kids educated, if they put them through school, did the right things, raised them the right way. Then let the kids do their thing. I don't necessarily think that shortchanging or sacrificing during your retirement is the right way to do things simply because you want to leave something to your kids.

Buy a life insurance policy, leave them that. There you go. Right, right. Spend your money, enjoy. That's an easy way to go about it.

All right, so all of those are factors. In the top 10 stress, top 10 money scripts are going to create chronic stress. We're going to go through those, and all of these, whether it is status or vigilance, all of them create a stress. They're all a stressor, whether you're overspending or there's a dangling carrot or you need to save more. Stress and anxiety are elevated the more that script is ingrained in you.

So true. Yeah, the more... to anything. This is not just about money, but literally anything. We're people of habit, or as the old saying goes, we're creatures of habit, and the more times you hear it, the more times you do it, it becomes habit. And as that habit is formed, another old saying, it's hard to break old habits, and hard to teach an old dog new tricks. And all of those little axioms, all of those little colloquial sayings, they absolutely fit in the context of what we're talking about here, because these scripts, these money scripts, they absolutely shape who you are and how you do things, and they will affect your success, certainly your financial success, and to the point that you may not have any financial success because you sabotage the variability that you have to be financially successful because of these scripts.

So you said there's 10 of these money scripts. So what are they, and what are we going to learn from them?

All right. More money will make things better. There's that chasing the dangling carrot. I just need more, and then this will get better. I just need more so I can accumulate this, or I can get, just like you said, the car, or I can be in this position. So more money will make things better is definitely going to cause stress and anxiety, because you're never going to be satisfied.

Interestingly enough, part of the study, well, at least a subset of this study, indicated that every time that a person had more, there was no correlation to greater happiness. Reminds me of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Recently he said, it was either a video that I watched or he was in a press conference, and he was talking about money and happiness, and he said, "When my net worth was 48 million, I was happy. Now that it's 50 million, nothing changed. I'm no happier." And that's a lot of money, but it really tells you, it puts everything into context. Just because you get a little more money or you get a lot more money, it doesn't equal happiness. Chances are things might not change, but they could create that worshipping thing, and that's when things really get bad. So just because you get wealthier, though, more money does not make things better.

Gosh, I got to tell you, I've probably seen more people with broken families because of money. So much of it, I'm talking about very wealthy families. There was not a happy bone in their bodies, and it's sad, because I can remember one family worth hundreds of millions of dollars that I used to spend a lot of time with, and I don't know anyone in the family that was happy. It was the most disjointed, unhappy, literally anything that you could think about. They could have anything they wanted, but no matter what it was, nothing really made them happy.

I think what Phil's trying to say is more money, more problems. Could be, could be, unless you truly get your script right or understand which scripts are affecting you.

So, all right, the second one is money is bad. I mean, everyone's heard the saying money's the root of all evil, so this one can... Wait a minute, the love... Oh, I'm sorry, the love of money is the root of all evil. But a lot of times people get this, and this one's very similar to some of the later ones that we'll talk about. But if your family's quiet about money or they're not very open, you kind of get this mindset of money's bad. Ooh, money's gross, I don't want to talk about that, I want to kind of keep that in the dark. And also, if they are in a lower economic class, maybe they see people in power with money and they relate that to money is bad, money makes people evil.

Yeah, and the love of money, it is the root to all evil. But when used properly, I don't know that money creates the happiness, but money allows you to do things that can do a lot of good, that creates a lot of good, and I think if you're creating good, then you absolutely get happier, without a doubt. So thinking that money is bad, that goes back to that self-sabotaging thing that we keep talking about. If you really think it's that bad, your mind, and I guess mind over matter comes into play here, but if you really think it's that bad, you will never have a lot of it. You're going to sabotage your ability to have a good or decent or even really a powerful net worth.

And that's sad, because when you have good net worth, when you can get your mind wrapped around this the right way, your net worth can change the lives of a lot of people, whether it's your family, whether it's your favorite charity, your communities. Being able to take your best and put it forward in an effort to create wealth and then properly use that wealth, very powerful.

Absolutely. So our third, the third and fourth one is gonna be I don't deserve money, and the fourth is I deserve to spend money. The first one's gonna be more especially if you get an inheritance. I don't deserve the money, so they may have that feeling associated with it, especially if it's already ingrained, and then here comes the inheritance, so they don't really know what to do with it. And then on the flip side, I deserve to spend money. They get inheritance and it's gone. They blow it. I'm owed this, I deserve this. Those are gonna be your overspenders, the people definitely not vigilant and saving.

You are exactly right. And it made me chuckle a little bit when you touched on that point, because I was going to say, I don't know many people who say I don't deserve it. Most people think they deserve more than they have, and they want more and more

and more of it. And it's very interesting because I think there's serious confusion going on there, but rarely do I see people who say I don't deserve it. But when people get a windfall, or when people have this big inheritance, or they just somehow fall into a bunch of money, I'll hear people say, gosh, I just don't deserve this, or this shouldn't have happened to me, it should have happened to someone else.

But I think that people today are getting more and more comfortable with this notion of wanting more, and that's probably a sign of the times, because you hear so much about equality and people should have more than they have. So people are getting more and more comfortable with needing or wanting more, or feeling like they deserve more. We have some people who will tell you they deserve more just because, regardless. So this one I think is going to get more and more conflicted as time goes on, especially during the generation that's kind of driving a lot of that. So it'll be interesting to circle back to this one.

I deserve to spend money. It's sort of the antithesis of this thing. So I don't deserve it, but now I deserve to spend it. Leads to overspending, though, in a lot of cases. You get tons of credit card debt, which has always been, that's been a tremendous problem in this country for years, probably around the world. But deserving to spend it is a money script that I think is extremely dangerous.

Oh yeah, absolutely. A lot of these are extremely dangerous. Even thinking money is bad is extremely dangerous.

And true, over saving, being too frugal.

So there's a balance to all of this. Obviously you want to save, and some of these scripts you can use to your benefit, and then some of them are going to be very detrimental.

That's true. So five and six, those two go together as well. There never be enough money, or there will always be enough money. The there will never be enough money can be a good driver to more success and to work hard. However, if you don't have that thought process kind of under control, then it's the dangling carrot. There's never enough, never enough, I have to gain more, and that's becomes the focus of their life.

Oh yeah. Well, it creates workaholics in a lot of play, a lot of cases. You don't always enjoy the benefits of your labor. I've always been called a workaholic, and I'm learning to sort of get that under control. Now, I don't work as much today as I did, but there was a time in my life when a 60-hour week, I thought that was just normal. 70 hours, I thought that was normal. Seven days a week, I thought that was what you did to get ahead. And I certainly don't, I have no regrets about it, the way I did it.

But today I definitely think there has to be some time away to not just recharge your batteries, but there's other things in life that you can be very effective at doing, and you can affect other people's lives not just through your work. I think we affect lives here in a way that few industries can, but it's not the only one, right? There's other ways to give and to help. And so I think you definitely have to pull away from that a little bit.

So that fear of not thinking there will ever be enough goes right back to planning, Sarah. If you plan, then all of a sudden you know what is enough. You know what you need, when you need it, and why. And if you get those three things worked out, then you can begin to change that money script and say, you know what, I do have enough, and there will be enough, and I'm going to be okay. I can reach my goals, be successful, and I can do some of these other things that truly create joy in my life.

Right, absolutely. So the next two that are going to be conflicting—

Wait a minute, you skip this one. There will always be enough money.

Not really.

The belief that the universe will always provide, whether a person takes action or not. I don't know, I take a little bit of a, I have a different opinion about that one, because I don't think if you just simply believe that the universe will provide it, I don't think that just doing that is going to make you successful and there's going to be enough money. Now, I think there's empirical evidence that says there are people like that, whether you're faith-based or anything else, it just says, hey, there'll always be enough, it'll just be there.

That is a bad, bad way to think about money, and you probably are never going to have enough if you think there will always be enough, because you begin to make mistakes, you miss opportunities, and you avoid doing the things that you need to do to be successful. So not because you want to avoid it, but you do it because that's how you're programmed. So that money script I think can be very dangerous.

And I remember seeing a sign in the gym one day that said, it's something along the lines, if you believe it enough, the universe will serve it up, kind of thing. And I just thought, wow. But that is truly what some people believe today.

Oh yeah, absolutely. What a, there's a huge fallacy in that way of thinking.

So seven and eight. Money is unimportant, and money will give my life meaning. Those are two countering, or two opposites there, if you will. But money is unimportant, what are your thoughts on that one?

That one's just not logical. If you think money is unimportant, then how are you going to pay your light bill? That one, yeah, self-explanatory. Money has to have some importance, and it has to be a driver, but that script can really derail you as well, thinking that it's unimportant, just like money will give my life meaning.

Yeah, they're both really bad scripts. Money is unimportant leads to poor financial decisions, or at least it allows you to rationalize those bad decisions. You can somehow rationalize it, they were okay, well, I won't do that again, and you do. But you'll just figure out somewhere or some way in your mind, you'll figure out that, or you'll believe that those bad decisions, well, they're excusable, they're okay. So money is unimportant, very dangerous. It's very important.

Yes, it drives everything, and without it you have nothing. And we're talking about down to the very basics. Security, so safety and security, food, just your core.

Yeah, the very basics.

So, and then money gives my life meaning. That script, just, yeah, that one is, it goes back to the money worshipping. You worship is what's going to give you status. The status one as well. It gives your whole life meaning. There's so many other things in life that give, make you who you are and give life meaning. Money should not be top of that list.

I think money allows you to do a lot of things. It does not give meaning to your life necessarily. I think who you are in your heart, your integrity, those are the things that truly give you meaning. Now, money allows you to spread that and take who you are to other people, and to enjoy life as that person that has integrity, that person that believes in living by strong morals. But money itself doesn't give your life its meaning. And I, but a lot of people live by that way of thinking.

So, and then number nine. It's nice, but, or maybe necessary to talk, it's not nice to talk about money, right?

And this is definitely the script that I would think is built from whatever generation ratio they ingrained in you, that it's not nice to talk about money. It's kind of like religions and politics. Keep it hush-hush, don't say anything about money to people, it's all private. And that's just not the case.

It's not the case, and if you don't talk about it, you can't understand it, and you can't learn and grow from it. And just like for planning, if we had a client that said, you know, I don't want to talk about the money part of my planning, we would say, all right, well, you're not a client for us, sorry.

Yeah, it's going to be hard for us to recommend anything that, it's going to be hard for us to help you make your life better. It's going to be hard for us to give you the right advice if we don't know about your money situation. So, but I definitely think this is one of those that got beaten into people over many, many generations, that you don't talk about money, politics or religion.

Well, I love to talk about religion. I'm very proud of that. I enjoy it. I don't mind talking about politics. I think we all have an opinion. We can all vote who we, for who we want to vote for, and we all have an opinion. And I think when it comes to money, I think here's where the misunderstanding is. This is not to say that talking about money freely with anybody or everybody is a good idea. That's not what it's saying. But you have to be open to the subject of money, and you have to be able to talk about your situation with someone that can help you make good decisions, or be sure that the decisions you were making are good and appropriate for your situation.

But to simply not talk about it does a lot of things. Number one, it prevents you from being your best and being a good steward of your money. But here's something else that rarely gets talked about, and I see this a lot in our planning, I know you do, and particularly with younger people that are not willing to talk about it, and that is in a marriage.

Oh yeah.

You get a husband with their money, it's not really a marriage if you can't talk about money, and you got the wife with their money. You got separate accounts, and, well, I spend my money. That promotes bad decisions. That promotes lying, because you might spend money on something, and if your wife or your husband can't see your account, you might fudge on telling them what it really cost, because you don't want them to know. And I think that promotes bad behavior.

So not talking about money at a lot, on a lot of levels, is bad. And I would encourage people, particularly with your spouse, to talk about it. With your wealth advisor or your financial planner, you absolutely have to be wide open with it if you want the best advice.

And I think just in general, being open to asking questions about money, hearing other people's opinions, reading and listening. Knowledge is power.

Knowledge is power. We wrap it up.

I like it.

Wait a minute, we didn't hit number 10.

you already did. If you're good, the universe is going to supply it.

Oh, I didn't know we already hit that.

Yeah, remember your sign at your gym?

Oh, yeah, that's right. I remember that, but I thought there was more here.

If you're good.

Yeah, right, right. This is a lot with the faith base, just thinking if you're good, then the Lord will provide. I think they missed some context in there, but that's more that mentality.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, well, good. Wrapping it up, then. I'll let you take over