Episode 2: Transcript

Hello and welcome to The Thinking Bigger Than Money podcast. I’m your host, Jim Marrocco, and today we’re talking about how we make decisions about money and how often we let money make decisions about us. Many of us operate from a quiet place of fear that we won’t have enough, and that fear often disguises itself as prudence or caution. That voice always says, “Be responsible, play it safe, save what you can, buy the thing on sale.” That voice is coming from a scarcity mindset, and when we listen to it, we end up letting money drive our decisions instead of our values.

When working with new clients, we make sure to ask them two questions: what decision brough you the most joy, and what decision do you regret the most? A client told me that the worst decision they had ever made concerning money was leaving a job they enjoyed for a job where they made significantly more money. The new work looked great on paper because of the higher income, but it turned out that they didn’t actually like the work. Eventually, the client got laid off from the job and took a pay cut at their next job. Looking back, they realized that the decision was driven by money and not by meaning or what was important to them.

Read More: What are the money stories we’re telling ourselves?

An example from my own life is when I walked into a clothing store that I liked even though I had no need or desire to buy any clothes that day. I ended up buying three shirts for 20% off because it was a great deal. But I spent more money than I planned to and, even more so, I didn’t need clothes! Just like my client, I let money make a decision for me rather than actually thinking about what I really wanted or perhaps even needed. And so it just makes me wonder, how often does this happen to all of us? How often do we make choices based on dollars and cents instead of pausing and asking if our choices align with what we need or what’s important to us?

I think this shows up in a lot of different ways. In my work, I often help people with financial planning around job loss. Whether it’s unintentional because of a round of layoffs or intentional because they’re taking a break or just don’t like the work. Whatever the reason, job loss can be really unsettling. And I think it brings up all these natural instincts around fear and scarcity and the need to fix it fast, generally speaking, right? I need to get a job and hurry up and get income because I have no income. I can’t touch my savings. I need to make at least what I was making before, or it’ll be a step back.

And what I’ve seen time and time again is that financial planning can help folks slow down and have more space to feel confident and secure and have time to reflect on what they want to do next. Is it time for you to pivot careers? Or do you like the type of role you’re in? With this kind of time and space, you’ll be able to make better and more sustainable financial decisions. Your decision may not earn you more money, but it will be more aligned with what’s really important to you and enable you to live with your decisions much longer. So again, just challenging this belief that the best move and the best decision is always the one that means more money is not something that makes a lot of sense when we really think about it.

And I think the reverse happens too. Oftentimes, people come into money, which should be great, but panic sets in. I’ve seen that happen time and time again when folks inherit or are gifted money or just have a large windfall for some reason. The general advice is that folks should be smart: take the money and invest it, be mindful of your taxes, and then later on you can use it and have a good life. And yes, while technically that’s all good advice, it skips the same important part of asking yourself how this money could be in service to the life that you want live now and in the future, rather than it running your life?

In one scenario, I could take that windfall of money and invest it, grow it, and use it in 20 or 30 years. And maybe that feels right to you, but what if that money could help you to buy a home or give you time to take a career break or start a family, whatever the case may be, right? Traditional financial planning might still advise you to defer, save the money, and use it later on. But when we consider how money could be in service to us, we can have real, honest conversations about what we want to do with the money. Then when we have those answers, financial planning can become a valuable tool for using money to create the life we want to live.

So the question I’ll leave you with is this: how is money controlling your choices, and what would it look like if you let your values speak first? Is there a decision you’ve made recently that was based on money rather than on its actual merits? To me, this is the heart of financial planning. Not spreadsheets restriction, but storytelling and alignment.

Thanks for being here with me, and I’ll see you next time.

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