The #1 Money Rule to Live By: Understand The Psychology of Money

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.

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.

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 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.