The Mel Robbins PodcastThe #1 Money Rule to Live By: Understand The Psychology of Money
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
70 min read · 14,231 words- 0:00 – 0:53
Introduction
- MRMel Robbins
This is an extremely timely and important topic. What I'm present to, at least with people in my life, is a lot of fear around money. Fear that I'm never gonna be successful, fear that I'm gonna run out of money, fear that I'll never make enough, fear that I'll never get out of debt, fear that I won't have enough retirement savings, fear that something bad's gonna happen and I'm gonna lose it all. Like, it's just nothing but fear.
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
Why, why are we all wrapped up in this idea of being fearless? Perhaps fear is here with a message. Imagine a world where you can make your own financial choices for yourself, by yourself. You have autonomy, you have agency. You can choose for yourself, choose to stay in a job, not stay in a job, stay in a marriage, not stay in a marriage, start a business, not do it. This is your roadmap. This is your plan of action. This is what you need to do today.
- 0:53 – 5:51
Mel shares a financial lesson she had to learn after facing bankruptcy
- MRMel Robbins
Hey, it's Mel. I am so excited that you're here. It is always such an honor to spend time with you and to be together. And if you're brand new, welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast family. And thank you for choosing to listen to this podcast episode about money. And you know what that tells me? It tells me that you're the type of person that not only values money, but you value your time, and you're interested in learning about ways that you can improve your life. I just love that. And I'm so excited that you're here today because you and I are gonna dive into something that so many of us struggle with, but we don't talk about, and that's financial fear. Now, I know firsthand what it feels like to be afraid when it comes to money. I know what it looks like to look at your bank account and not know how the heck you're gonna make it to the next month. I know that gut-wrenching anxiety when you go to check your bank balance and you just hope that it won't be in the red. You may not know this about me, but there were days when my husband Chris and I were so terrified that we wouldn't be able to pay the bills, or worse, that we were gonna lose everything. Just over a decade ago, we were on the brink of complete financial ruin. I was 41 years old. I still remember sitting at the kitchen table, staring at the pile of bills that have been sitting there for weeks, wondering, "How the heck are we gonna pay these things when we don't have any money in the bank?" I mean, at one point, my husband and I were $800,000 in debt. Yup, you heard that right, $800,000. Now, I don't know about you, but when I thought about my life plan or I made a vision board, I never pasted up an image that said, "Bankruptcy, $800,000 in debt." That's not exactly how I thought my life was gonna turn out. But what ended up happening is that my husband had gone into the restaurant business, and the first location was pretty successful. So like complete idiots, we poured our entire life savings, home equity line, maxed out credit cards into it, and boom, the business started to fail, and we were drowning in debt with no way out of sight. It felt like no matter how hard we tried, we couldn't dig out of the hole that we had put ourselves in. And that fear, the fear of losing everything, became my constant companion. Now, if you've ever had that fear, you know how crushing it is to not know how you're gonna pay your bills. And I want you to know something, you're not alone. That fear has shaped how I approach money today, and if you're in that place, you can learn how to tap into that fear and change how you relate to money too. I mean, just talking about it, I can still feel the pit in my stomach. There was a time where I felt completely powerless over our finances. I mean, the- the debt was so fricking big, it felt like, i- it felt impossible to get in front of it. I felt like I had lost control of my choices, my future, my family's well-being, and even after we started slowly, holy cow, it was painstaking. I'm not gonna lie to you. It wasn't glamorous. It was grueling to try to chip away at the debt. Even as we did, that financial failure, it loomed over us for years. You know, I think as a parent, the biggest fear that you have is failing your kids, especially when it comes to providing for them. I mean, there was a time when I couldn't even figure out, "How are we gonna get groceries on the table this week? How are we gonna pay for you to stay in town soccer?" I mean, let alone start putting money away, you know, into their college funds. I mean, that's kind of the funny thing about financial advice, right? When you can barely make the ends meet, how the hell are you gonna put things away for the future? The idea of not being able to give my kids what they needed, paralyzing. And the guilt and the shame that my husband and I felt, I mean, it was just consuming. It makes you question your worth as a mother, as a provider, as a human being, as a parent. And so let me be real with you. There is shame around money, and for years I was embarrassed to talk about our financial situation. I didn't want anyone to know how bad it was. But here's the truth, I have learned over the last 14 years that financial fear is universal, and it doesn't have to control your life. It doesn't have to drive your decisions. In fact, if you learn how to face it head-on, if you lean into that fear and you unpack, "Where is this coming from?" you can flip it from something that paralyzes you into this force that motivates you to do what you need to do to figure things out, and you are more than capable of that, and that's what we're gonna
- 5:51 – 11:50
Why does money intimidate so many of us?
- MRMel Robbins
do today.We're gonna talk directly about where your fear around money is coming from. And that fear is there. I don't care how successful or how in debt you are. Everybody has a fear around money. And in order to help us tackle this, I've called in Farnoosh Torabi, who's one of the most trusted voices in personal finance, to help us dive even deeper into this topic. She spent over two decades guiding people through their financial fears, helping them not only confront the anxiety around money, but use it, that's the cool part, we're gonna use it as fuel to create the financial future you deserve. Now Farnoosh is gonna help you unpack why so many of us, especially women, feel guilty or afraid about being financially ambitious, and more importantly, she's gonna show you how to start taking control of your money, whether you have any or not, your mindset, and your future. And by the end of this episode, I promise you, you'll see your financial fear in an entirely new light, because you're gonna know how to leverage it. Farnoosh Torabi, I'm so excited that you're here. I cannot wait to talk about fear and money with you.
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
Thank you so much, Mel.
- MRMel Robbins
Well, this is an extremely timely and important topic.
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
Mm-hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
Because there's uncertainty all around us, and there's also opportunity, but what I'm present to, at least with people in my life, is a lot of fear around money. Fear that I'm never gonna make enough, fear that I'll never be able to afford the kind of neighborhood that I grew up in, even though it wasn't the world's fanciest neighborhood. Fear that I'm never gonna be successful. Fear that I'm gonna run out of money. Fear that I'll never make enough. Fear that I'll never get out of debt. Fear that I won't have enough retirement savings. Fear that something bad's gonna happen and I'm gonna lose it all. Fear that I'm gonna make the wrong investment in the stock market and that's gonna be a dumb pick. Fear that I missed out on buying Amazon way back when and now it's that NVIDIA AI stock that I missed out on.
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
(laughs) Oh, gosh.
- MRMel Robbins
Fear that I don't understand what's happening. Fear that I've spent too much. Fear that I'm an i- Like, it's just nothing but fear, and so I'm not only excited for you to unpack fear, but to normalize that this is a very common experience, and that there are specific things that you can do to take control and understand these fears and actually address them.
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
Um, yeah, I've been a financial advisor for 20 years, and people are like, "What? You're writing a book about fear?" Yes, because it is the emotional underpinning of so many of our financial questions. When people come to me and they say, "Should I buy a house? Should I get married? Divorce? Have kids? G- take the job, quit the job, start the business, file for bankruptcy?" There is advice there to be given that is tactical, but to really get to the root of the solution, you have to go deeper and usually address the fear. I wanna first start by saying that fear can be a tool in your life. Why- why are we all wrapped up in this idea of being fearless? I am a daughter of immigrants. I am a daughter of the 1980s in Worcester, Massachusetts. I grew up terrified. And I say, you know, things worked out. And it wasn't because I abandoned fear. It was because I got to a point in my 20s when I was trying to be fearless, and I would get into a lot of dead ends, and I would make a mess of things, but I said, "You know what? This fear is not going away." I am just- I am just that person that has this fervor all the time, and I thought, "Let me, like, look at it, and try to understand what it's trying to tell me." Perhaps fear is here with a message.
- MRMel Robbins
Can we start by having you just talk to the person listening and tell them what they could experience in their life that's different if they take everything to heart that you're about to teach us today?
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
Imagine a world where you can make your own financial choices for yourself, by yourself. You have autonomy. You have agency. You can choose for yourself, choose to stay in a job, not stay in a job, stay in a marriage, not stay in a marriage, start a business, not do it. And I'm not saying those things are easy, but with money and with financial independence comes so much confidence. You can sleep better at night, and, you know, the world's a scary place sometimes, and with- money helps. When you experience fear in your financial life, which for me, sometimes is a lot of the time, I think that if you are able to apply some of these learnings, you will not experience fear as paralysis. You will experience it as opportunity to know that when fear arrives in your financial life, it doesn't want to create stasis or keep you stuck. It wants you to find a solution to help you. To engage with your fear is to engage with your values, to engage with what's important to you and what you wanna protect, and you have to be clear on these things before you make any financial decision. So when you're good with fear, you can be good with money.
- MRMel Robbins
So I take it it's normal to be afraid of money?
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
Oh. Um, yes. I mean, money's a limited resource, okay? Money inherently creates scarcity in our minds, and that is terrifying, 'cause you make a financial decision, you can't rewind, and now you're with less money than when you started potentially. There is risk inherent to making certain financial decisions. And money is personal, so when we make a financial choice or decision, or we think about something financially related, we can't help but make it really personal and think about, "Well, what does this say about me? If I do this thing, how is it gonna reflect on me?" All of the list of fears that you mentioned make a hundred percent sense to me, because as humans, we wanna protect our resources, right? And money, I mean, talk about an important resource.
- MRMel Robbins
Well, and a lot of times, I didn't have it.
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
Mm-hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
So I- I was also afraid of never having that
- 11:50 – 14:25
What every woman needs to know about being financially independent
- MRMel Robbins
resource. How do you want someone to think about money?What is money?
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
Hmm. It's a tool, it is an important tool. It's a tool that's going to give you access, it's going to help you create a bridge in your life when you need it most. I got into this space as a financial author, as a journalist, not because I had all the credentials but because when I was young, I saw my parents argue about money constantly. I saw how it was weaponized. Listen, money can be a tool for good and it can be a tool for evil, for bad. And in my parents' marriage, I saw as a result of my father being the breadwinner and the fact that he was a man and he associated his manhood with financial dominance, my mother also had her own issues in terms of not speaking the language, so she wasn't able to work right away in, in America as immigrants, they came from Iran. And I watched them fight around money and on the one hand, I was grateful I grew up in a household where we did talk about money freely. As Middle Easterners, that culturally it's not as taboo. But often, the topics around money were, were discussed with, I say with fists banging on kitchen tables. It was a lot of crying, it was a lot of silent treatment, it was...And I quickly saw, I mean, this was it, this is my origin story. I saw how as, especially as a woman, if you don't have access to your own money and feel empowered around your finances, then someone will make the decisions for you and they're not always decisions that you want. They're not always in your best interest. So money, you need it, it's not a nice to have. Everybody needs money, particularly women. We don't think that it's our domain because we've been told it's not. It's, "He'll take care of it." You know, I've been to restaurants where they give me a menu and my menu doesn't have any prices on it. This is not in America by the way, this was, uh, when my husband and I went on a, a trip to, uh, the Caribbean. And I, and I go, "What's going on? Is this a prefix? Like, did we miss the sign in the front?" This is gonna be like a, you know... And the waitress will say, "No, no, madame. You should not have to worry about such things." And I said it- it like, "It can't escape me. This follows me everywhere." And I make more in my relationship so I had to have a good laugh about that 'cause it's like, really? I don't have to worry about money? It's all I do. (laughs)
- MRMel Robbins
(laughs)
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
This is important for women to believe that it is not just a nice to have, that being financially independent is
- 14:25 – 17:49
How do financial dynamics shape your relationships?
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
your right.
- MRMel Robbins
I'm really glad that you're saying that. And here's why. I look at money like a tool, but I believe money is power.
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
Mm-hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
And I say that knowing it's a very loaded word. And the reason why I say it's power is because when you have your own money and you are able to make your own money and you are able to choose what you do with your money without feeling a consequence or that you're gonna get in trouble or that you gotta hide the packages, you have power.
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
Yeah.
- MRMel Robbins
You have power over yourself. You have power over your decisions. And the other reason why I use the word power is because I think about... the way in which society has glamorized success and glamorized money, and certainly makes all of us believe that when you have more money, you have power, and in our lived experiences, we know when we see people that have a lot of money that they do have access to things that maybe you don't have access to because they can afford it. But I think a lot about that moment when you're at a restaurant-
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
Mm-hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
... and the bill comes.
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
Mm-hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
And who's going to pay?
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
Mm-hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
And the person that reaches forward and grabs it, if that happens versus we're gonna split the bill, but even the ability to split the bill is power.
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
Yes, I agree with you. Money is power. The complexity arrives when you're in a relationship and you think that my power means I have power over you-
- MRMel Robbins
Hmm.
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
... as a pow- as opposed to I have power to heal, to support. You know, there's a difference. There's a difference in how you wield that power. And I want every woman to have power and to use money as a tool for power. And men too. But when you're in the context of a relationship, it's about how to sort of dance with money, you know, and not be sizing each other up based on what you earn. This happens all the time.
- MRMel Robbins
Mm-hmm.
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
Imagine a world where you can roam freely and choose for yourself, by yourself. You can afford yourself options. You can say, "You know what? This doesn't suit me anymore and I can leave. And I know there are some risks and I know there's uncertainty down the road, but I have money. I have not just money, but I have financial autonomy." This is what being truly wealthy is. It's being able to understand that the world's a scary place. Yes, money does not solve all of the problems, but money does give us a runway. It gives us resources, it gives us confidence sometimes to believe we can do something and arrive on the other side safe. And as women in this world, I know this personally, I've seen it, I've witnessed it, I've experienced it, money helps. Having your own money. Someone else's money is not your money. Your parents' money is not your money. Your partner's money, to an extent you share in that, but do you have your own bank account? Do you have your own credit card? Do you have your own source of income potentially? I think that if you are willing to prioritize your financial wellbeing and say that not only do I need this, but I deserve this, it is my birthright, your world opens up. Who doesn't want options?
- 17:49 – 20:20
The top 5 financial fears that keep most people up at night
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
- MRMel Robbins
What are the top five fears that people have about money?
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
Just five? (laughs) So I would say that the biggest fear is the fear of not having enough.There's a realness to that. I mean, you look outside, things are expensive, um, and so there could be a real actual legitimate reason for that fear. Then there's the fear of even if you have enough, losing it all. Right? You're just one job loss away from losing your house. You're one bad investment away from not being able to retire. There is a fear of wanting too much, and this affects a lot of women. The admitting of, "I want to be rich. I want to be financially successful," that's a scary thing to come to terms with out loud in front of others, because you're worried about what that might say about you and your priorities. The expectation is not that you're gonna be that woman, right? The expectation is maybe that you're gonna prioritize caregiving, you're gonna prioritize your family, you're gonna prioritize other things, not money. So we fear, we fear that. We fear, as parents sometimes and caregivers, raising our kids in such a way where the cycles get repeated-
- MRMel Robbins
Mm.
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
... where maybe we grew up with a fear of scarcity and now we're bestowing that on our children, or on the other end, giving them too much and then they don't appreciate it. So again, it's- it's sort of what we all have, which is that lack of financial literacy. I think it's, like, 60% of Americans didn't speak a word of money growing up. And as adults, that becomes a fear of its own, that not only you're not gonna have the sort of fluency and confidence around money, but that your kids who are watching you are also not going to be able to be strong in that department. And then I think for those who are perhaps the boomers, my parents, this fear of dying without a real financial legacy. You know, it's- that's important culturally to Americans, is to be able to die with the will to pass on some assets to the next generation. And again, I think part of it is, like, um, this fear of thinking about death and not doing the proper estate planning exacerbates that. So, those are the five things, and I tried to pick the ones that kinda go through the- the generations. There was a recent study that actually found that gen millennials, Gen Y, they're the ones who are most afraid of running out of money.
- 20:20 – 26:20
Farnoosh’s go-to advice for overcoming financial fear and taking control of your money
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
- MRMel Robbins
Wow. What's interesting about hearing those five top fears is that if you put it in the context of the issues that money can create with couples and in your relationships, that if you are not able to talk about money, I- if you don't feel equal in your relationship when it comes to money, and these fears are lingering underneath the surface, I can see how, if you're fighting around, "What are we buying the kids in terms of the sneakers?" and, "We're gonna spend this," and it becomes these surface-level arguments-
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
Yeah.
- MRMel Robbins
... one of you might be having a budget conversation. The other one might be having a concern or a fear about kids-
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
Mm-hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
... who grew up spoiled. And if you don't understand your own relationship to money and what you value, it's gonna keep coming up in all of the conflict that you have with your partner as you argue around the things that you're buying or what's happening, and I can see how this creates a big divide.
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
Oh, yeah. I mean, that's why I often say before you get into the nitty-gritty of your finances, you have to talk about how you grew up with money. That is a- it's so foundational to really understanding your partner. And so when you ex- when you see them, when you witness them being tight with money, or overspending, or not wanting to talk about money and not wanting to have that confrontation, you don't go, "What's wrong with you?" You go, "Oh, my God. I understand where this is coming from, so let's unpack that." You know, sometimes, um, the exercise I often say is when you're experiencing a financial fear of any sort is to trace it to its root.
- MRMel Robbins
Hmm.
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
Where did this fear come from? Is it even my fear? It may just be my parents' fear from the 1960s, from the 1970s latched onto me. Because, yeah, growing up, uh, there was scarcity and that was a scary time, but that was also a time when I was nine and I didn't have agency and I didn't have control over what was happening with the money. And so my parents' fears became my fears. I inherited that, and I never let go of it. And maybe, even just maybe that helped me for a while as I got older. Having that fear of losing money, uh, made me a super saver, but now I still have this anxiety that I'm gonna lose it all, but I have savings, I have an- a job, I, um, and yet... So, this is when the fear is no longer serving you and you need to kinda go down memory lane, find its source, and make the adult decision that this ends here. This ends with me right now, um, and I'm gonna rest this fear. I'm gonna thank it maybe for how far it's taken me, but now it's not serving me. Looking at the facts of your life that you do have. I mean, I remember this woman wr- uh, this woman wrote to me and she said, "Farnoosh, I'm in my 50s. I'm a single mom. I've helped my boys get through college. I grew up in scarcity and poverty, and, uh, it- it- it actually, that fear led me to be very financially in charge of my life. I started a business, I bought my house, I single-handedly raised my boys, and I just fear, like, I'm gonna lose it. I'm gonna loo- I'm one bad decision away. I don't trust that this is going to endure." And so what I said to her was, "First, let's, like, let's trace this. Wav- everything I just told you, this is your mother's fear. This isn't you. And this is- this is real. I mean, not to say that this is a fabrication. It happened. You were once this young girl experiencing lack. Now, is that true? You know, look at- look at everything that you have. Take inventory of your life. You have done amazing things with your money."You have not exhibited a pattern of making bad decisions with your money, and so sometimes you need that wake-up call. You need someone else to tell you, "Here are all the things that you've done," or, "You need to take a really honest look at all of your accomplishments." I say it's taking inventory of all of your accomplishments and all of your assets that no one can take away from you. Like, yeah, maybe the market will tumble, and you have no control over that, and your investments do dip, and that may mean that you don't be able to retire, you know, at 65 as you were planning. But does that mean you've lost it all and you'll never regain it? Because you are who you are at the end of the day. You've gotten to where you are for a reason, and that is not something that can be taken away from you. When people get laid off and they're afraid of never getting a job again, I say, "Okay, that, that's scary. You don't have a title. You don't have an income. You source a lot of your sense of self-worth and identity from that job. It's gone now. You're worried about uncertainty." But here's the thing. When you fear financial uncertainty, which is what that is, what does your body want? You know, it wants certainty.
- MRMel Robbins
Ice cream.
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
It wants ice cream, yes.
- MRMel Robbins
A new purse.
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
I, look, listen, as-
- MRMel Robbins
Sneakers.
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
As a woman who has been laid off twice, the first time it happened, a lot of Bridget Jones' Diary, a lot of Chinese dumplings. And you should allow yourself a pity party. Like, that is to be allowed. But I say, you know, you lost the job, you lost the income, but what did you not lose? What are the things that you are still taking with you? And that is your experience, your network, your accomplishments, even the failures are assets. You know, you learned a lot. And that is the stuff that you're gonna be able to take into your next, into your next move. Um, so we lose sight. We think that our accomplishments, our measure of value is just in these sort of tangible things, you know, our income, our title, our job, but it's also in the life that we have lived. All of these experiences and the people and the network and the health that we have, this is all, these are all assets. And so when you're in that terrifying moment of feeling lost and life is uncertain, the fear is telling you, "Hold on to what is certain, what is certain," and I think you will find the courage and the motivation
- 26:20 – 29:40
How to harness your financial fear as a tool to transform your life
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
that you are lacking.
- MRMel Robbins
What about the person who's afraid they are never gonna buy a house?
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
This is a good one because, my gosh, what is more American pie, what is more American dream than buying a house, right? And I would say to that person, "Let's first unpack why you're afraid you'll never be a homeowner." What is it about... Are you worried that you're not going to-
- MRMel Robbins
It's too expensive.
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
But more than that, that if you don't buy the house, you won't be wealthy, you won't build wealth, you won't have security for your family, you won't be able to be considered a financial adult 'cause we associate so many of those things with the act of a home purchase in our culture. So I think that also the, there is also a fear of like, "If I don't do this grand thing with my money, if I don't buy a home, am I really financially mature? Am I really going to be doing the right things with my money? Rent? Oh, I've just heard that that's money down the drain." So I would look at that, I would examine that and go, "Why, why do you think this? Who told you this?" We grew up, a lot of us, with that sentiment.
- MRMel Robbins
You know, it's making me realize that underneath every financial fear, "I'm afraid I won't be able to pay for my kid's college," is a deeper value, and I would imagine that it makes you feel like, "Maybe I'm not a good parent or maybe that's what I believe a parent should do."
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
Oh, sure.
- MRMel Robbins
What about the fear, "I won't be able to retire"?
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
That's a real fear. That's a real fear because the cost of living, there are so many unknowns in retirement, the cost of healthcare, and we're living longer, so we need more money to-
- MRMel Robbins
Mm-hmm.
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
... support us in retirement. So if that is your fear, then I want you to imagine, go to the dark place. You're 75 years old. You still have to work. You don't wanna be working, and you're tired, and you don't get to see your grandkids. You don't get to see your friends.
- MRMel Robbins
Well, this sounds sucky.
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
It sounds sucky, but-
- MRMel Robbins
I don't wanna imagine this.
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
... listen, are you motivated to do something after hearing this? I hope so. I would... This is what I'm trying to condition you to be inspired to do. Don't just sit in the what if. Go to the place where things have really fallen apart for you because you are scared now, but I'm gonna tell you, there's a lot scarier things for you waiting for you if you don't do something today. And that's why we have to sort of hold fear in balance, you know, what you fear today versus the scary place you might be in 5 years from now, 10 years from now because you didn't act healthily, um, with this fear. You didn't use this fear to motivate you to take some steps that could help you make some progress.
- MRMel Robbins
I totally get it. You're basically flipping the fear from something that paralyzes you and keeps you feeling insecure to using it to activate this motivation to do something now-
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
Yes.
- MRMel Robbins
... and to look at it now and see that you can figure it out now so it's not a fear at all.
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
I mean, Mel, you just ex- that story you gave about the restaurant going out of business and you just, you were afraid. You... And what did you do? You went out and made a ton of money, and you worked and worked and worked. And it wasn't sustainable, but...
- MRMel Robbins
And it wasn't a ton of money in the beginning, let's be honest.
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
Well, you know, but-
- MRMel Robbins
It was like, "Let's get some groceries on the table."
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
(laughs) Well, you gotta start somewhere, yeah.
- MRMel Robbins
"Let's, let's make sure the lights don't get turned
- 29:40 – 34:30
How to let your financial fear fuel your growth
- MRMel Robbins
off." How can you stop fearing money?
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
So I don't really like to talk about how to stop fearing it.
- MRMel Robbins
Okay.
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
What I wanna reframe is how to have a conversation with your fear. So we tend to go through life reacting to fear, often in knee-jerk ways. We freeze. We fly. And we, what's the third one? Freeze-
- MRMel Robbins
Fight.
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
... fly, fight. I wanna offer a fourth option, which is figure it out.
- MRMel Robbins
(laughs)
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
That's my fourth F. And by figuring it out, I mean, like, realizing that maybe fear showed up for a reason. And I'm not talking about, like, fear of heights or fear of, you know. I'm talking about, like, when you're at the crossroads of life and you have to make a financial decision and the stakes are high.
- MRMel Robbins
Mm-hmm.
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
If you're afraid, there's probably a reason because you're worried about risk, you're worried about losing money. This is not a small thing. And so in that moment, I offer queries in the book, here are things that you can ask yourself that can help you create some sense of a roadmap for where to go next. Like, fear does not want you to keep you stuck. Dian Fossey, she studied apes, she was a primatologist, and she essentially taught us all that fear has an evolutionary purpose, it's here to protect us. You know, she wandered around with apes in one experiment and realized that inevitably, there was always a subset of apes that were always on the periphery, they were always, like, sleeping with one eye open. And she wondered, well, what if we remove them from the community? And when that happened, the community was obliterated. And she realized that in culture, in society, there's always, there's always sort of, like, a border of people who are always, like, sort of on the fringe. We're, we're the, we're the... I'm, I'm the ɑtarsu in Farsi, is like the fearful one. And I'm proud of that because for me, it's how I've protected myself. And as we've evolved as humans, you know, maybe, um, we're no longer in primitive era, but we have evolved and fear has evolved with us to be there for us when we're trying to make decisions that are more self-aligned that can, we can, uh, feel, like, protected doing something that is scary. So honor it. And how you honor it, we've talked about it already so, a little bit, is, like, sort of trace it to its root, figure out how it got here. What's the story? Fear of losing money, could this have been sourced from when you were younger and you saw your parents go bankrupt, you saw your father lose his job or your mother lose her job, and now you have carried that fear into your adult life and you don't believe that you can have it any better? Sometimes that's important because it's a wake-up call. I would also say if you're somebody who's afraid of losing it all, imagine losing it all. Like, go to the dark place. Because what we have found is that the fear of losing money, it takes place, that fear sort of bubbles up in the same place as, like, physical pain in the brain.
- MRMel Robbins
Mm.
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
And what do we want more than anything when we experience physical pain? We want a solution-
- MRMel Robbins
Mm-hmm.
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
... we wanna qu- we wanna fix it. So I often say when people are, like, sort of just living in this cloud of fear, like, "What if, what if, what if?" It's like, no, let's actually make it really urgent. Like, what if tomorrow you did lose your job? What if tomorrow you did make a bad investment and it wiped out your savings? Go there. Imagine what you would do in that moment. Who would you call? What would you stop spending your money on? Where would you allocate the resources? And rather than making it a hypothetical, this is your roadmap, this is your plan of action, this is what you need to do today.
- MRMel Robbins
Oh, I see. So in the hypothetical, you force yourself to face it and you ask yourself, "While you're secure right now-"
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
Exactly.
- MRMel Robbins
"... what would I actually do?" And that proves to you that you could figure it out.
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
You could figure it out. We often live in this, like, cloud of fear. You know, I say people often worry about what if, and that's normal. You know, what if this happens, what if that happens? But you're not serving yourself when you just are going, you're chasing your tail. So stop, and this may seem really mean to say, but, like, I want you to go to the edge, I want you to imagine, like, what would actually happen if you did... if that what if became a what now? Like, it's happening, it's happening today, bring it to your doorstep. And how would it play out? You're not gonna just sit there. You're gonna do something. You're gonna be-
- MRMel Robbins
That's true.
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
... you're gonna be mobilized, and now you know what you have to do. So for the person who's afraid of losing their job, it's amazing what happens, so many chips fall into place. Like, "I'm gonna go figure out what my state's unemployment insurance is. I wanna go look at my budget actually, because maybe I would have enough to cover me for a couple of months while I'm getting back on
- 34:30 – 38:16
The one question to ask yourself if you have fear and anxiety around money
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
my feet."
- MRMel Robbins
What are your parting words on this topic of fear of money?
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
It's normal when you fear money. You're a human being. There is cause for this. But what if I told you that fear can be your friend? That when fear shows up, it's an opportunity to listen to it, to unpack it? When we are able to face our fears, I think we're only getting closer to who we really are, what we value, what we wanna protect, and what a way to walk through life. So if you can accept that and appreciate that, especially in the context of your financial life, fear in your financial life, um, it will make you more motivated and more excited to do the sort of nitty-gritty with your money, which is, you know, the saving and the investing and all that. But now you really have this, this desire, um, because what fear has taught you is that you have a lot to protect, you have a lot to honor in your life. It's my offer, as so many people have come to me over the years asking me about how to do this, how to do that, and I go, "Wait a minute. Yes, we're gonna get to how-to, but let's talk about the fear that you're feeling and why it's there and what it might be educating you on."
- MRMel Robbins
Amazing. My biggest takeaway is fear is the biggest obstacle. All the stuff that you need to do, you're capable of.
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
Mm-hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
You address the fear, and you'll actually do what you need to do.
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
And address it. Don't be fearless. There's a great book out, Caroline Dooner wrote a book, and in it she said, "If you..."If you protest, if you are proud of the fact that you are fearless, I'm sorry to tell you, but you're a psychopath. (laughs) Because what does that mean? It means that you're not, you're not afraid of risk and consequence. You're not worried about things backfiring. You're just walking through life believing that you're invincible. I can't afford that. I can't. Personally, I can't afford that. I need to be constantly thinking about how this is gonna impact my life, my kids' lives. And that's, that's okay. I don't wanna lose that fear. I wanna be able to have a relationship with that kind of fear.
- MRMel Robbins
Farnoosh, thank you, thank you, thank you for being here in our Boston studios and helping us with this really important topic, and honestly, life-changing skill.
- FTFarnoosh Torabi
Oh, thank you, Mel. It's my honor. Thanks for bringing me back to my roots. This is kind of near where I'm from, so I feel like it's such a privilege to be here.
- MRMel Robbins
What I've loved about everything that we've talked about today is the fact that money and your relationship to it is a critical part of your life, and you deserve to have a powerful relationship with money. And I don't want you to ever shy away from that. In fact, I want you to embrace it. And in case no one else tells you, I wanted to be sure to tell you that I love you and I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to change your life. And what you learned today will 100% help you create a better financial life. All righty, I'll be waiting for you in the next episode. And to you on YouTube, thank you, thank you, thank you for being here. Thank you for watching all the way to the end. I love being here with you, and I know you're the kinda person that loves supporting people that support you, so hit subscribe, because it's the best way that you can tell me that you really love these videos. And I have a goal that 50% of the people that watch this channel are subscribers, and we are just within, like, 8% of reaching that goal. So thank you for doing that. And I know you're thinking, "Well, I want more videos, Mel." You got it. I want you to check out this one next.
Episode duration: 38:16
Install uListen for AI-powered chat & search across the full episode — Get Full Transcript
Transcript of episode eMuS6u7k3Lk
Get more out of YouTube videos.
High quality summaries for YouTube videos. Accurate transcripts to search & find moments. Powered by ChatGPT & Claude AI.
Add to Chrome