It’s the holiday season and Chris looks at how money can affect your mental health during this time. The key discussion is what is money’s meaning to people. While it’s just an object, the type of emotions that it can draw out of people can range from happiness to shame. How events earlier in your life can dictate your reaction and behaviors now. Then he provides some quick ideas to help you through this time of the year.
Tune in to see How Money Affects Your Mental Health Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
Listen for the following takeaways from the show:
- To start you must look at what money means to you. Psych Central as an article that Chris discusses.
- Do you avoid the topic of money with your children or spouse?
- How are you emotionally triggered by the thought of discussing money?
- You should not avoid talking about money.
- When people get windfalls, research points that their happiness is not changed.
- Some feelings that money causes are Shame, Guilt, Envy and Fear.
- Is gratitude the anecdote to money stress?
- What can money do for you emotionally?
- What is enough money for you?
- Removing the emotional connection to money can help you take control.
- What are ways to handle the emotional concerns tied to money?
- Some tips or resources that you can use to help with your money stress.
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Episode #167 Transcription
[00:00:00] Chris Gazdik: Hello. I am Chris Gazdik a mental health and substance abuse therapist. You are back Mr. Adam Cloninger. Actually, what are you? What am I? Yeah, I have a substance abuse and mental health therapists.
[00:00:22] Adam Cloninger: New job title is industrial engineer and industrial
[00:00:25] Chris Gazdik: is in June. Yes. All right. Congratulations on your new gig publicly there.
Had that book out, rediscovering the emotions and becoming your best self. And we welcome you to, through a therapist eyes where you like to say you get personal insights from a therapist in your own home or personal time in your car. See the world through the lens of therapists, but they need to be aware it’s not delivery of therapy services in any way.
Right, right. And a five stars on apple. Leave a review on apple, follow us on Spotify. These things are huge. They really do make us grow. They help us a lot. If you’ve already done some of those, get a friend to do it. You know, the five-star reviews, anything that you type on apple iTunes, it’s a huge help.
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This is the human experience, the human emotional experience. Do you remember what we endeavor to do? Test time? He’s an old pro NAS is the third round of Adam. Cloninger what we endeavored to do. Take your, this thing out.
Okay. We’ll come
[00:01:41] Adam Cloninger: on, man. I remember that, but I didn’t know what the question was. I’m like, yeah, yes. I remember you saying that. Sorry man.
[00:01:50] Chris Gazdik: he’s gonna Kill the, after the show
didn’t know you were getting at, sorry. My bad. I had to put you on the spot. I got a current event that I want to cover before we jump into the topic is going to be, how does money affect our mental health?
And I thought that was a cool topic really though, because there’s a lot going on in the holiday season. People get really stressed out about it. There’s a lot of things that people are trying to do.
[00:02:11] Adam Cloninger: You don’t have enough money or how much should I spend
[00:02:14] Chris Gazdik: money is emotional and, and there’s so many experiences that people have, you know guilt shame envy and the fear or the big, the big ones that we’re gonna kind of touch base on.
But I’ve got a current event The current event is I play the other industries, the illustrious, the loser Neal in fantasy football this week, baby.
[00:02:39] Adam Cloninger: So next week, one of y’all is going to have bragging rights. He’s he’s going
[00:02:43] Chris Gazdik: for the mic. He might no, he’s not even going for the mic. He has nothing to say, yes, we have a competition.
That’s not really the current event, but I do play Neil Robinson in the fantasy football league. He joined us this year and I must say, Neil, you’re doing really good, but you got to go down this week. No, the current event is football related as well. I thought it was really pretty cool. There’s a, actually a player on my team.
I’m going to pull them up in live so I can tell you exactly who it is. So, you know, I’m not lying. I was confused about this for awhile. This player that’s on my team. He is been on injured reserve. For those of you that don’t know what IR is he’s. He you’re allowed to be on IRR for a few weeks in the NFL now, but he’s been on our like forever, but this is an N F I, I R non-football NFR, sorry.
And F R I R nonfootball related, injured, reserved. And I didn’t know what the heck that was for the longest time. It’s so new. Like he
[00:03:40] Adam Cloninger: fell down the stairs and going to my airplane or something, or, I
[00:03:43] Chris Gazdik: mean, it could have been anything, right. Yeah. But I think what’s happening is as we know, with the Olympic star, what was her name?
Anyway, I forget the gymnast who, you know, did not compete because of mental health reasons. And so my Pittsburgh Steelers have Stefan Tuit and I got the article on steer curtain to prove the point that he he’s been out forever as well. And I think he’s unfortunately not going to come back now as a Steeler fan, that’s killing us.
Cause our defense is really struggling and we need that guy back on the defensive line. But the therapist, part of me is kind of like, you know, there’s some things way more important than of course the mental health of players is more important than the game, but that is so hard as a fan to recognize to honor and to justify he lost his brother.
So his brother died in a tragic car accident and he just can’t play football. He’s just not on his mind. He’s not, he can’t function with it. Right. And so he’s, he’s a very big member of our team that I think is not going to be with us this year. All of these things. And the major point is I didn’t even know what non football related injuries meant.
Mental health is becoming real. It’s a real factor and it’s being prioritized and I’m, I’m in support of that. I mean, that’s a big deal and I, I just, I’m always in tune to the current events. So I think that’s kind of neat. They’re holding their mental health a priority and literally, you know, holding that over a priority, something like, you know, the glorious experience of sports, professional level and whatnot.
I think that’s just neat thing. It speaks to a lot of what we were starting to really value mental health. Right. Sounds cool. Yeah. I think it is. So let’s get to it. And we’re going to talk about money today. Money. How, when I told you that on the phone, what’d you think, I’m curious if you, if you did, if you had
[00:05:35] Adam Cloninger: any kinds of stuff, comes to mind.
[00:05:36] Chris Gazdik: Okay. So that’s what you responded with on the phone. But I wonder, like it’s such an emotional issue, isn’t it? Money is incredibly emotional. And so I, you know, I like to do definitions and stuff, but we don’t need a definition of money, but you know, what I really wanted to focus on in that regard is what money means to people like, to me, how can we define what money means?
Because that dictates the entire conversation when you’re having about money. Right? Which is something that people don’t even want to talk about. Like, this is a topic, you know, you’re supposed to keep it private. Right? You don’t want to talk about, oh, you know, you tell people, oh, don’t
[00:06:17] Adam Cloninger: freak out on that stuff.
[00:06:18] Chris Gazdik: Bizarre. Bad freakouts because it’s so emotional. So if we look at that, what does money mean? Think I’m going to hit you cold with that, you know, like what does money mean to you? If you’d be willing to go there
[00:06:31] Adam Cloninger: where you can be used it for all, all kinds of survival stuff. I mean, you’ve got to have your house payment, your car payment and insurance payment, you know, for water, your power, everything.
[00:06:43] Chris Gazdik: Right. So it means emotionally what to you
[00:06:48] Adam Cloninger: emotionally? I don’t really, I don’t really get it as far as emotional, other than I can understand how some people get stressed out about it. I mean, you know, obviously there’s things that I think a majority of people would look, could relate to. Like, there’s things you’d like to buy.
You’re like, ah, I can’t buy
[00:07:03] Chris Gazdik: that. I think you’re experiencing what I experienced when I was asked something. I think you show her two or three ago. I talked about, like I was asked, what does this particular topic mean to you? And I’m kind of. I don’t know. I never really thought about the emotions that I feel and what that evokes in me when that topic was brought to me.
I mean, I can see
[00:07:23] Adam Cloninger: stressed out about it. I mean, there’ve been times before in my past that you know, trying to pay a bill and you don’t have the money for it.
Yes. That’s gonna be stressful. It’s terrifying to use a word at some point I’ve been there.
[00:07:33] Chris Gazdik: And I think a lot of people have I think we all have.
I think that’s a thing that this show might be tuned into a lot, like our shame show, because we all experienced these things. I mean, it is a pretty universal reality that we experience varied emotions and intense emotions. When we talk about money. Is that something that I think I could say, I think I could make that statement.
This cool psych central article played out. I thought it was interesting. They, they just said power, love, joy, and much more. You know that that’s what people like your definition of the in short, they say, that’s what people, you know, might take as the meaning of money. Okay. But I, I observed that and I thought, you know, okay, power, love money, and much more enjoy, you know, those are the positive aspects.
You know, you could feel powerful. You could feel joyful when you have it. You know, it’s love, love the, the, the, the love of money. Money can mean love, meaning I can, I I’m secure. And I can express my love to you and appreciation. I mean, you know, buying flowers and being able to buy you gifts, and particularly those people that have his love, language of gift giving, but those are all positive.
And I feel like that there are actually, there’s an avoidance of the real stressful realities of what?
[00:08:56] Adam Cloninger: Why would you stress? I’d be one I would put in there. Why would you stress? I mean, I would use that for another word.
[00:09:02] Chris Gazdik: As far as what money could mean love, joy, stress, right. I think so. I think there are, I mean, various, you know, points of, well, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll get to the primary things that I think that, you know, money can equate to, but they pointed out a connection that we have that money starts when we’re really small.
And they actually had some really cool questions that I want to go ahead and cite that. Get theirs, just to get us to thinking about what money means to us. Cause it’s probably my guess is people haven’t really thought about it. People don’t really ponder, you know, what it means to you. And these are, these are provocative kind of questions to get your brain moving.
So do thoughts of money, bring up feelings of worry, guilt, anger, sadness, power, love, or joy. Just thoughts of money, what emotions kind of rise to the surface. I didn’t go that far with you, but we could have right. Did your parents fight about money? I see. Okay. Use money to control you or one another. It’s about a level of control that comes into that, or you use money to show love.
Like we were just talking about, you know, showering you with gifts, divorced families, go to the parent. That’s not the primary caretaking parent. We used to have this, this phrase, Disney dad. Right? You remember that expression
[00:10:22] Adam Cloninger: is that like the I’m gonna take you to Disney world. Right.
[00:10:24] Chris Gazdik: But in Bettman none of the regular day-to-day life dads didn’t get to do in the eighties when you’re divorced or nineties, I think that was more along those lines.
Then do you feel grateful for the money that you’ve earned or acquired? So sense of gratitude? You know, how do you decide how or when to spend it that has a lot of emotions inside of that? Do you give a portion of your earnings back to your church or your community? What about giving? You’re going to give money away.
What emotions. Does that evoke what brings, what comes up with that? Right. So there’s a lot of things that move around. There’s a lot of positive things, but I think honestly, you know, a lot of negative things that people end up getting leaned towards focusing on when they try to do budgeting or talk about money, even what’s your resource allocation, you know, those are private conversations, right?
There’s emotion that comes up. That’s why people sort of suppress and compartmentalize this area of their life and make it mysterious. We don’t want to let our kids know what the house budget is. Don’t, don’t tell them how much we spent on Christmas. Why, why give them the, the, the tag, you know, when you give a gift, you can scratch the money part out.
Right? There’s all these things it’s is so profound. I feel like I’ve had other life experiences. Then just the stuff that we get when we’re children. So if you think about money, the article said, yeah, you look a lot at your early childhood experiences and that drives a lot of your beliefs. I would disagree with that.
If you understand the way a whole life course progresses, the experiences that you have all throughout your life and when you’re getting married, what’s the budget. How do you experience that? When you have a kid I’ve told the story of doing calculations of formula and diapers and how much this was going to cost in real terms, when I was an expecting dad,
[00:12:27] Adam Cloninger: you know, I mean, you needed a additional stress,
[00:12:31] Chris Gazdik: absolutely bankruptcies that you might go through, or how actually having something repoed.
Those are big experiences in life that I’m going to maintain. Just as much as your childhood drive, the way that you experienced money. Right. There’s a layering effect. And when you get big adult experiences, like any of those can totally change it. So it changes on a dime misses, just such a loaded kind of concept.
I feel like. So I think it’s really important that we understand the meaning of money. What is your brain doing? As I kicked around those questions, their article had comments about how we develop the meaning. Have you ever been
[00:13:13] Adam Cloninger: well, I mean, you went through a couple of these, these little question, things we mentioned, like worry, guilt, anger, sadness.
I’m thinking about different examples of where somebody could feel any of those. Right. That’s kind of things I was thinking about. You know, I, I can relate to somebody being angry, you know,
not getting paid enough, absolute or mad that your wife spent too much money on something.
Marital conflicts. You spent how much on that. The pocket
book was $600 unit, something like that.
[00:13:45] Chris Gazdik: What were we talking about? Actually, Adam, you used that as an example,
[00:13:49] Adam Cloninger: I was thinking about that earlier it was the example about people freaking out over depending on what people’s paradigm was to what matters to them and what doesn’t an example.
I think I was giving them was,
[00:14:01] Chris Gazdik: Why did you spend that much money on shoes?
[00:14:04] Adam Cloninger: Yeah, it was something like it, you know, people had something to do with somebody freaking out where, you know, didn’t want anybody to know how much a car payment was. You know, don’t tell the kids how much the car payment was.
How are you going? How are they gonna know how money works? And you got to kind of give them a clue. Maybe not have to tell them exactly how much something is, but you know, you got to give them a clue about, they need to know more than money comes out ATM. Right. There’s a lot more than that.
[00:14:33] Chris Gazdik: You know, it’s an interesting point that you just bring up there.
You know, I do work with teenagers in, in counseling experiences and the naive T that they have is really profound. Like they really don’t understand the basics of what all these things costs with toothpaste and dish detergent. And it’s, it’s like magical to them. Like I literally remember toothpaste was one that I was a kid, like we just always had toothpaste.
And I remember as an adult, I have to buy this becoming independent. Yeah. Like it was like, wow, that I just bought toothpaste. Like, where did this come from? How did, how did this happen? And, but as a kid that naivete, and we just had a conversation in our household about rent and you know, kids older now, and he’s got to contribute and different things.
And we literally went through our whole budget and he’s like, oh, I guess I need to make more money. You know, and I actually consider him to be pretty aware. He’s, he’s pretty down to earth and aware of the cost of things and, and does really, really,
really well
[00:15:34] Adam Cloninger: people don’t think about certain things. I mean, they don’t, they don’t think about taxes and social security and home
insurance, medical, and you know that nice car that you want to get planning for the future and retirement.
[00:15:48] Chris Gazdik: Good Lord. You know it, how many people have long-term nursing care insurance? Do you ever hear that? Even that’s a thing and people don’t, a lot of people don’t even know it’s a thing. So because we avoid the topic, here’s a little bit of a takeaway that occurs to me in our conversation. Do we not need to avoid avoidance when it comes to money,
[00:16:15] Adam Cloninger: avoid avoidance when come to mind, avoid. Avoidance double negative.
[00:16:20] Chris Gazdik: I can Say it better than that. Negative is going to write something down. He’s going to re he’s going to edit it. Yeah. Be careful about the avoidance with money, but very, very wary because that creates all kinds of trouble. Marital couples. Won’t talk about it. Parenting relationships.
Don’t talk about it. Business partners. Oh, I actually raised the money issue in a business relationship. Years back, the person was offended. I’m like, I was just asking a question. I really didn’t mean anything about it. We were just learning the company. Now we’re going to work in is a business. It’s a business.
Yeah. And, and he, it definitely took him quite a bit back. And, buddy if you ever listened to this, I apologize, man. I, I didn’t mean anything by that question. You know, you may listen to this at some point and be like, I remember that. And still, even to this day might hold a resentment about it. That’s crazy.
[00:17:17] Adam Cloninger: It’s just, you just, you mentioned it makes me know that it bothered you because you were, you weren’t expecting that response. It surprised me. It surprised you.
[00:17:26] Chris Gazdik: So it surprised me greatly. Yeah. Cause it was actually similar to you asking how much did you spend on those shoes or whatever that example was that you use?
Because I just wasn’t there and here’s a really interesting and important point on the same emotional meaning level with evidently him at that time. And we’re going in totally different directions with what we took from that conversation. Boy, how many times does that happen in a marriage all the time.
God, how much pain is brought on by? And we’re going to talk about that with Dave Ramsey. I got to stop rambling because we need to get there. Yeah. You know, but. The emotional pain, anguish that occurs when married couples are trying to have financial conversations, they just simply oftentimes don’t and one person just takes over the bills.
That’s kind of, unfortunately, a lot of times what happens. So be very wary about the avoidance tendencies that you might have as it relates to money. That’s a statement I’m going to make or a warning actually that I might make. Right. Where are we at? Okay.
You’re on.
We’ll see. See, yeah. The point of the negatives.
Well, okay. The next thing, what is this interesting things happen when people get windfalls? Okay. It’s that? That’s just another part I did. Cause I did want to spend a little bit of time on you know, the meaning here because it sets up everything. Ask yourself the question. Here’s a survey thing we could put out.
Neil, maybe how many people have thought about. what Money means to you, you know, maybe we’ll get a post about that because I, I think that gets people to really begin thinking, what does it mean to me? And another example of that is when people get windfalls, you know, I actually carried this myth in this show, prep.
I blew up a myth in a stereotype about lotteries and, and winners of big money. W have you ever heard this before? Like what happens to people that win the lottery financially? Well, I mean,
[00:19:36] Adam Cloninger: just based on the show, right? They lose it all, but I don’t, I’m sure that’s not always the case.
[00:19:41] Chris Gazdik: It isn’t The case. Yeah. I was, I was very surprised about that.
What do you mean the show? I don’t know what you mean by there’s
[00:19:47] Adam Cloninger: a lottery winner. I don’t know what it’s called. There’s like a thing. It shows these people, they, you know, they win $150 million, five years later. They’re bankrupt. They’re light working at parties or something.
[00:20:03] Chris Gazdik: Evidently with smaller amounts.
That is the case about, you know, a hundred, 200, 400,000, maybe $500,000. It just gets blown. I mean, people just absolutely hands down generally will just blow that. But at the
[00:20:18] Adam Cloninger: end, who are we to say how they spend it? Well, I mean,
[00:20:22] Chris Gazdik: I get that, well, there’s a personal choice. I get that. There’s a value
[00:20:26] Adam Cloninger: there.
The very beginning they might’ve said, you know, I can either save this or I can just blow it.
I’ll blow it. Yeah. They might do that.
[00:20:33] Chris Gazdik: And do we have to judge that or have a value in that? I think I just fall into the trap of like, well, yeah, you know, why would you just blow it all? You know? But, but again, the people that get like, you know, millions, you know, those $50 million winners or even five or 10, generally, they begin to invest and they don’t lose their money.
They actually have investments and get things together. However, they get wickedly stressed because people are coming to them and asking them the relationship turmoil that occurred. I see this in therapy in way of inheritances. When you get your inheritance, B families go crazy. When somebody dies and pick out grandma’s jewelry, you know, I wanted that jewelry while I wanted the family gun that that’s been in the family.
They, no, I want the cow. I mean it’s oh my God. Oh, people degenerate into bizarre states emotionally when that’s going on. But here’s the thing about that at all. I’m not either, I haven’t experienced a lot of that yet, but an overwhelming across the line. When people come into windfalls studies have very much found very recent studies and I have them quoted on here.
Happiness stays the same. Generally. Doesn’t go up. Doesn’t go down. There’s seems to be very, and maybe it’s an average, there’s very minimal effect on. Jeez. If I win the lottery, I’m just going to be, everything’s going to be wonderful. I have no stress and everything will be paid for it. It’ll be just a dream.
No, it doesn’t work out that way. Your happiness does not
get this. I’m willing to try it.
Do you doubt this? This notion, go ahead. I’m
[00:22:21] Adam Cloninger: I’m willing to try it, man. I can see you always have some tiny stress is always, I mean, think about it. Let’s say you won $500 million, right? First thing, how do I protect my family?
Yep.
[00:22:34] Chris Gazdik: Okay. I mean, there’s
going
[00:22:36] Adam Cloninger: to be people coming out and trying to take advantage of them or kidnap them or anything could
[00:22:40] Chris Gazdik: happen. Good. That’s
[00:22:42] Adam Cloninger: stressful. You got to worry about someone breaking in your house now because I think you can have good stuff, right? Do
you have to move? Oh gosh. Do you have to go to another state while you’re thinking of some serious things?
Well, I’ve thought about the lottery a couple of times.
[00:22:55] Chris Gazdik: Okay. Yeah. I didn’t even think on some of those levels. That you wouldn’t ever have enter into your world of stress? You know, I was thinking on some of the level of just, you know what was I thinking? Well, taxes and I don’t know, I kind of lost some of the things I was thinking when I was doing my show prep, but, but th there’s a counterbalance and then you’re, you’re doing a much better job at me right now than pointing out some of the things that you begin to consider that you never really had to worry about.
You never really had to really even put any energy towards, and now, boom, all of a sudden you got all these things that are kind of popping on. And
[00:23:31] Adam Cloninger: plus you got to think about this. If you got that much money, it’s, you know, it’s one thing. If you have a hundred dollars, you lose $20. Yeah. If you got a hundred thousand dollars, you lose $20,000.
$20,000. A lot of money, man.
[00:23:45] Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Particularly when you’re not used to having that, but somebody who’s has got a lot of, I can
[00:23:49] Adam Cloninger: imagine, you know, the thought of losing money, more, a larger amount of money would be stressful, even if the same percentage of what you
[00:23:57] Chris Gazdik: used to have. Yeah. I, I don’t, I didn’t even know how to categorize that.
You know, because I think people get real flippant. I honestly, it occurs to me, I wonder about this. So here’s a real time thought. So we started off the segment of looking at what does money mean? Okay. So if you don’t really know what money means to you and then boom, all of a sudden you get a lot of it, I would submit to you that you are completely caught.
Flat-footed like, you don’t really even know how to process this. I can say that because I think I just experienced that when you put that out there, you know, percentage wise, what you’re used to losing and you lose this. But yet you’ve got $80,000 other, I don’t even know the I’m just caught flat footed.
I wouldn’t even know how to compute that. Would I be upset or what? I’d just be like, ah, you know, I don’t even know because I don’t think we’re in tune with our emotions very well when it comes to this topic and we’d just really like to avoid it and thinking about taxes too. Absolutely. People get crushed with that.
I got pay how much in taxes, about three quarters of it, literally. Okay, so let’s go on with the next little segment that are the major areas of what generally happens with emotions, right? Shame, guilt, envy, and fear. These are some major things that people get into. I feel like the major emotions that really begin.
[00:25:39] Adam Cloninger: So here’s a negative things you are talking about.
[00:25:41] Chris Gazdik: Well, I didn’t mean to make it negative, but again, when we’re talking about what money means, okay, what was it? Power, love,
enjoy. You said that was positive,
positive things. Well, but that’s not where my mind goes. When I see the mental health concerns or the mental health issues, when it comes to money, it does go to these other ones.
And I think they’re far bigger and far more prominent when people are processing issues that involve money, shame, guilt, envy and fear. I think they come up for people. You know, I’d be curious if we do get a survey out there, if people would agree or disagree with the idea of like, yeah, those are really things that I feel.
So here’s another thing that the article pointed out that I thought that. You say, ah, I don’t feel shameful about money that, you know, look, we just did a show on shame-based feelings and I think it is profoundly common universal man, woman and child that we naturally feel. Okay. We made a convincing argument of that couple shows back tune that one in and soak that in and maybe come back to this segment and look at these questions to see if you really feel shame based feelings.
First of all, shame. Okay. Is I believe the biggest factor. And we talked about this on the show. I’ve done something wrong, right? Or something against that’s unprincipled or something that’s dishonorable that’s that’s the definition. That’s what shame is now again, I think a lot of listeners are thinking, oh, I don’t feel shameful about what I have.
I earned it. I it’s my money. I can spend it the way I want. Look at these questions. I’ve avoided thinking about finance. That indicates shame based feelings. Right. I don’t have enough money. How many people have thought that that actually touches on shame-based feelings? I’ve avoided doing what I’m supposed to do about finances, period.
Right? Like creating a safety net or paying for retirement. Some of the sensible budgeting things that you mentioned. Right? Right. Well, I’ve avoided doing that. Even the idea of avoiding a conversation. Like we said, that indicates shame. I don’t think people think of it that way. I’m really ignorant about all of this.
I don’t really, I’m not really money wise. I’m not money conscious. I, another one I spend too much money. I know I’ve spent too much. That’s a shame-based statement. I shouldn’t have spent that much money on this Thanksgiving meal. I spent too much
[00:28:23] Adam Cloninger: on my truck I just bought. I did it right.
[00:28:27] Chris Gazdik: That’s a shame based feeling.
I buy stuff when I’m unhappy. That’s, that’s obviously, you know, a negative thought that you have about yourself and what you’ve done. I think shame is prevalent with money. Does that sound crazy? No, my convention, you’re getting you to think about how profoundly and often people very much likely feel shame when it comes to their very own hard earned dollar.
Oh, I can,
[00:28:56] Adam Cloninger: I can relate to that. And to me, a lot of that, what you’re saying is almost fear instead of shame.
[00:29:03] Chris Gazdik: Okay. Why do you say that?
[00:29:07] Adam Cloninger: Well, I mean, you’ve avoided doing, you’re supposed to do about finance as well. You’re kind of feared. You don’t have the things to do. You don’t have the resources to do what you need to do.
So you, you kind of avoided it cause your, your fearful for what you don’t
[00:29:23] Chris Gazdik: have that oh, People avoided Chris more because of fear of the topic rather than shame. That’s what I think of. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Well, well there’s probably a combined editor combined component there, but if you think about, I thought those questions were cool.
And the reason why I added them, included them in the show is because I don’t think that people, and we talked about this in a deep dive on shame. You know, matter of fact, I created a concept. I don’t know if I created it, but I haven’t people talk, her, heard people talk about shame attacks. What was the
[00:29:57] Adam Cloninger: whole title of that
[00:29:58] Chris Gazdik: show?
Neil, was it just shamed
[00:29:59] Adam Cloninger: sucks? Cause I saw that didn’t know that was the one I was thinking. That’s what I was. Okay.
[00:30:05] Chris Gazdik: Right. And shame attacks is something that I think people feel intently. I mean, when you feel really bad about something, you know, like bringing money up and somebody was struggling with money and it came out and you just felt horrible about that.
That’s like a full blown shame attack. Meaning a hard feeling with those, that sense that you just had?
[00:30:30] Adam Cloninger: I just started a new job making good money. How about you just got laid off. Oh,
[00:30:35] Chris Gazdik: sorry. A lot of burden in being wealthy, honestly, wealthy people generally are not happy. I think, I don’t know. I don’t want to make that a total statement, but I think there’s a lot of truth to that.
And, and, and it’s because they have a lot of stuff that other people don’t have. And I think they know it. I, Pete, famous people struggle
[00:31:01] Adam Cloninger: being what’d you say wealthy people are, have more issues than
[00:31:06] Chris Gazdik: really? Yeah. Again, I’m willing to try look. Hi. I know, right. I can’t quote the studies, but I think that I’ve kind of seen the studies and, you know, our shows international.
And so we have, we have a lot of weird. Okay. I thought about this, actually. I’m glad it came back to me. I don’t have a prepared segment for this, but off the cuff. I wish I were a cultural expert because I think that the cultural perspective on money is very, very different around the world. Right. Okay. I think that I have seen studies and people talk about the concept that really in third world countries, I mean, I’m talking dirt floors, struggling.
Places where financial resources are more than limited. They just don’t have any, you know, Haiti after the hurricanes and you know, places in Africa with just villages in the Amazon, their mental health, happiness can’t see me off the cameras. Hi, way, way up there, because they’re with their families.
Life is simple. They’re enjoying their activities. They have a tribe. They’re together. They’re with a group they’re connected. They’re not alone. They’re not on her phone. They’re not on the phone technology anxiety. We’ve done a show on that, on how that brings around a lot of stress. I mean, you know, first world problems is a joke we say, right?
You know, we have first-world problems. They’re so simple. They’re not that big of a deal. Well, they stress us out and we’re literally losing sleep over this stuff. The holidays people get. So. When they’re done, they’re just like, oh my God, we got through all of that. And there’s a lot of joy out there and I’m not stamping on anybody’s happiness with Christmas and whatever.
I enjoy the holidays for various reasons, but, you know, isn’t it nice when it’s all said and done and it’s all over. Yeah. Because you get so strained and stressed out and there’s so much pressure. You’ve got to get the gift, wrap the gift, make sure it’s a nice enough gift. Does the person going to like what?
I got them, there’s angst over there, opening the president. I hope they like this. You know, it’s a great feeling when somebody opens up a present and they’re like, oh wow. And they light up, you know, we’re after that feeling, but we’re chasing it and fearful that we might not get it. I have a story. I’m sure that was murderous for my family.
How are we doing on time? I want to divert too far. Yeah, we’re good. So when I was a little kid, mom, I love you. And it’s all good now. I was so excited as a kid, and I’m sure this had to be horribly deflating for, you know, my, my mom, particularly because it was a single parent household at the time. And that’s gotta be terrible when you don’t have financial resources.
And we struggled when we were kids. For sure. So I wanted the millennium Falcon. I know where he’s going. Oh man. I mean, I was, I was all over. We had my star wars stuff and my neighborhood friend Ben played with me and it was, it was great, but I didn’t have the millennium Falcon, big ship, you know, that do the fall of figures.
And I opened up all the family gifts. That’s what we do at Christmas Eve ish. No. Okay. Well, that’s fine. I’m sure Santa, you know, that’s the big day, you know, you get the big gifts then. So I’m opening up every present, every present. And it was like one after the other. And there was a couple of bigger boxes and I thought, you know, Got all through them.
And it was nothing. I was deflated well, but grandma was coming, so, okay. Maybe she’s bringing it. Must’ve been grandma and particularly a year. I always remember this particular gift and I can think back as a childhood, a possession that I had, I loved the possession, but it was the very last gift of the year.
I’m opening up this big box. Paper comes off, the box comes out and it’s a coat dramatic silence. I’m sure my head just dipped. It was a horrible experience for them because I was so disappointed. It was a white coat with blue on. And I remember that coat like yesterday. Did you ever get a, did I ever get the millennium Falcon?
You’re catching me. I think I did. And even the fact that I’m struggling to, to totally remember right now, I’m actually, we had a millennium Falcon, but I feel like that was Benz. I feel like Ben got the millennium Falcon. I’m not sure this explains a lot
[00:35:58] Adam Cloninger: about you.
[00:36:01] Chris Gazdik: The death star fire pit that we were talking about
[00:36:04] Adam Cloninger: before Chris decided to help people from that point on
[00:36:06] Chris Gazdik: that’s the turning moment of my very old life.
But getting back to the point of that story is there’s so much emotion in that. My excitement and my disappointment, that my mom, who must’ve been crushed, you know, my grandma who she may not even have realized honestly, but you know, it, there’s so much wrapped up in all of those, you know, Christmas morning events that we go through, you know?
So we’re going to get to the end of how to manage this, right. You know, and, and get through some of these money struggles and challenges that we have, but let’s look at guilt. Guilt defined really kind of, I have a negative impact on others. Okay. I, I made the point again, going back to the wealthy people.
I feel like when you really in wealth, you know, you, you, you have almost I would imagine a universal experience of this. Like, because you, you, you try to get filled three unpick. What does that word philanthropy save me. I know what you mean, but I don’t trick Flint. He’s going for the mic. He’s going to help me out then the thropic fell.
Anthropic philanthropists. Say that again? Philanthro pic. Yes. It’s a vocabulary day today. That was tough. Can you say the word now? You got to try it, embarrassed myself.
[00:37:27] Adam Cloninger: You’re not even going to spell it. I know that.
[00:37:30] Chris Gazdik: I know I can’t do that either. You might try to give your money away. You might try to get involved in charities and you try to do those things and they feel great.
But when you have a whole lot of wealth, the struggle is I can’t do enough. You know, I think people, when they really get down to it in their private moments, I don’t think you’d ever know it. I don’t think they ever show it. I think it’s avoided, but I think that’s a universal, you know, kind of experience with people.
[00:37:54] Adam Cloninger: Right? I’ll do like a survey thing at you’re into your thing. I mean, I’ll be really curious to see how we both think about when you say that rich people have more stress in poor people. I’d be really interested to see yeah. How many people agree with that and don’t agree with that.
[00:38:11] Chris Gazdik: Particularly wealthy people.
And will they be honest with us about it? Right. So it should be two questions.
[00:38:18] Adam Cloninger: Are you wealthy? And do you have more stress because yeah. Do you think about, you gotta know, you gotta know. Cause the wealthy people might say, oh yeah, I’m stressed out. And then. People who are poor would be like, oh, I’m stressed out.
If I had money.
[00:38:34] Chris Gazdik: I don’t know. I tell you how skewed this is though, man. Eh, so when you say that I have a returned question for you. How many people will define themselves as upper middle class? Have you ever heard anyone say, I don’t know, use those permanency words. I don’t like those kinds of words.
Everybody never, ever. Have you ever heard anyone describe themselves as upper middle-class? No. Right. Does doesn’t get said, you know, because people don’t want it’s like,
[00:39:08] Adam Cloninger: but then two I’d never heard of my referred to himself as upper class or low class either. So
[00:39:13] Chris Gazdik: right. Isn’t that interesting you, right?
It’s what are you, where are you in your financial resources? P it’s such a taboo thing. And I think we just stomped on some feelings and made people feel very uncomfortable, quite possibly listening to that. Who’s going to describe themselves as, oh, yes. I’m in the lower class. That’s me. Gotcha. But they will say, I am struggling.
I am, I am poor. You know, I come from a poor family. I will hear that. I will hear say people say I come from a wealthy family, you know? I’m actually thinking of a person that I’m working with, that, that might make that, that has made that statement. And suggestion caused emotional issues though. I’ll tell ya.
But upper middle-class never heard it, you know, so I think we can go to the extremes a little easier than when I say like I’m upper in middle class than you are. It’s avoided. It is not talked about. It’s shameful. People get shamed. Let’s let’s let’s move on though. Okay. Envy great unhappiness as the definition.
I don’t really even think this requires any convincing your discussion. I think we all have it and we all wish we were wealthier and want more money. And isn’t that a huge part of the emotional experience with money? Again, we’re going to spend a little bit of time on what do we do to manage this?
How do we get out of these emotional spots that we get into? So I don’t know anything else needs to be said there would anybody deny that they have envy about money?
I
[00:40:47] Adam Cloninger: got it. I, to say, I know we’re running short on time, but I gotta say this is, what’s crazy about this this, this envy like you said here, people bought envy.
They want to have be healthy. I mean, it’d be wealthier. Yeah. But same time. You just mentioned that the wealthier people have more stress.
[00:41:04] Chris Gazdik: Yeah. So, or it doesn’t affect happiness minimum. We can definitely say it doesn’t increase happiness. I just think it’s interesting. That is pretty, I think that’s pretty well accepted.
[00:41:17] Adam Cloninger: so they are evnious about someting to have something that may cause him more.
[00:41:21] Chris Gazdik: Yes, I RONIC. Isn’t it. That’s what I’m saying. I RONIC, I’m glad you paused us there. Can we reframe that a little bit? Part of the answer that we’ll get to? I think when a brainstormed that is gratitude, can we say maybe the gratitude is an anecdote to money stress, right.
I like, I like thinking about things along those lines and I feel like that’s a good statement. Yeah. If you’re really grateful for just what you have. I mean, you’ve met people like that. They’re humble. They’re just, they’re really grateful for, you know, the home that I have, the things that I have, I I’m happy with what I have and they’re there.
Their spirit is at ease. They are at a piece of a place of peace and honestly, to use a even bigger words, serenity, you know, it’s serene to be grateful, envy God, that’s so prickly that just hits people hard. I think last one of the big four, I fear I feel is fear. It’s a play on words. And I wrote maybe the greatest of the emotional realities.
I don’t know if shame is bigger or originally when I was writing this. Yeah. I may have agreed with you, Adam. That fear is, is a big part of, you know, a biggest or a bigger part of it, you know? And I mean, I, I agree. I think
[00:42:44] Adam Cloninger: fear is the biggest,
[00:42:45] Chris Gazdik: you think that’s the biggest, yeah. Yeah, I, I have a big debate in my head, particularly Haven, having this conversation, shame, I’m telling you, shame is so big.
It is what makes us avoid it. And don’t even talk about it. Fear. We might even clamor in fear about, you know, what am I going to do? What am I going to do? I need to get money and I get to get this, and this is happening. And my car broke down and I got to get, you know, when you’re feeling shameful, it is so nasty internal and stuck and alone.
And it’s, I don’t know, but I, I may or may not agree with you. I said that I did it on the sheet right on the show notes. So even when you have resources and they never seem to be enough, and the big question there is what really is enough money, and I’m not gonna spend any time with it, but for thought in the car, if you want to push, pause and really think about that is a really, really good question to ask yourself, what is enough money?
Okay. We’re going to move on, but ponder, that may be a little. Should I skip this section or go with it? I love that movie money. Can’t buy me. Love you. Say the movie when we were kids. I don’t think
[00:43:51] Adam Cloninger: I’m familiar with that movie. I may, I may have, but I don’t, I’m not familiar with
[00:43:55] Chris Gazdik: the, yeah, it’s a dude on a lawn mower, little lawnmower.
He’s a geeky kid and he, he money can’t buy me love. He had this crush on the big cheerleader girl in high school and, and it was about him kind of growing individually and maturing and kind of finding himself. And, you know, he got crushed by the loss of the girlfriend. And then they got back together to you in the mood because they always do.
And they were in love by basically accepting each other rather than money. Can’t do that. The question I have, and it’s a healthy question to ask, I feel like is what can money do for you? I think you were kind of going on the top of the show. You know, provide provision of funds and needs and you know, this type of a thing.
I don’t know if I want to spend time on this either, but it’s kind of another good question. If we wanted to spend time with it, I’m going to let you decide Adam, I’m looking at emotionally speaking, not productively or tangibly speaking emotionally, you decide if we want to spend any time on this or move on, what can money provide for you emotionally?
How interesting of a question is that?
[00:45:10] Adam Cloninger: I say we move on. Yeah, the reason is I think that’s something that should be deep thought for everyone.
[00:45:19] Chris Gazdik: I think, I agree know I’ve got you two questions to really, to really ponder there in the, in the middle of this, you know, what, what emotionally does money can money do for you in a positive way?
And then the other question is really, you know, what is truly enough. Those are good pondering questions. All right. Next segment here is, I guess I’m going to be brief because if you’re listening to the show, you’ve kind of heard us play off on to things about like, you know, mental health conditions. You’re the most senior co-host of this show now, actually, this is your third rotation, so I don’t know how much you’ve heard and whatnot.
So I want to ask you, I’ve talked about mental health conditions. Do you know what I mean by that?
[00:46:06] Adam Cloninger: To my clinical diagnosis
[00:46:08] Chris Gazdik: or? Yeah, essentially, essentially. Have you heard me talk about that if we discussed it?
[00:46:13] Adam Cloninger: Hm, well, I mean, every episode, it
[00:46:17] Chris Gazdik: kind of, I call this the tale of two tapes. I’ve said this on the show a few times on the one side.
It’s biological functions drive how we feel, genetics, dopamine, the brain, all that on the other side, social and emotional realities. Life’s relationships. Life’s points of stress, the daily grind, life experiences, right? Those things really totally combined together to create the whole picture. Well, people don’t really think about this side of the equation all lot.
And in partly because it’s our professional job to help you understand that. Do you have OCD? Yes or no? Do you have bipolar disorder? Yes or no? Like that’s kind of our job. Do you have depression? It’s come up into our vernacular. People talk about it around the world a lot more than we used to, but here’s the point.
If you do have a real specific, a biologically based experience with a mental health condition. That’s very much going to affect how you experience money. Right. Hoarding is a good example. Sometimes people will very much hoard money, very big example of anxiety depression, you know, if you’re sad and isolating and not having energy, not having interests not able to really fully focus and concentrate, getting tearful, having irritability that’s depression, how’s that going to influence your behavior financially, your experience of money?
This is a big, I guess I’m just going to give an honorable mention in this section too, to really highlight and understand there’s added components to your financial life when you’re dealing with any of these numbers of these things. Have I made a good argument about that? And I think that’s something that we need to consider when we’re interacting with people.
And they’re dealing with mental health conditions or when they’re evaluating themselves. And what is my financial life with a mental health condition? Another real good one, bipolar, you know, the spendings spreeze people get on, you know what I mean? They just spend money like water. Cause it’s so impulsive.
They’re manic will spend $500 on, on music in one day just because, right. And then try to save after that. Right? Yeah. Addictions actually with debting addictions and gambling addictions, that’s a huge component of what happens with money. Now. You might be married to somebody who has gambling, you’re debting, addictions, and never even realized it.
You might’ve just thought, oh, they budget crackle. I mean, they they’re irresponsible. They’re not, I’ve identified debting addictions with people in my. And I’m willing to bet the spouse. I mean, you figure it out after a while. Don’t get me wrong, but it takes a little while to kind of figure out holy crap.
You’re not just stupid with money. You’ve got addiction. It’s a wow. Right. And yeah. It’s, I don’t know. Let’s move on though. Okay. So let’s get a little bit, oh, okay. I gotta, I got to mention the idea of a Christmas gifts and money. You know, when you talk about the, the mental health effects and what can money do, and then the big four with emotions, we are shot around the world with this podcast and international Show.
I’m not sure about other cultures and all of this type of thing, but I’d love to spend a minute here if we could take any hit in any bite, out of the experience that I think this time of year. Drives people crazy. I know I’ve suffered with it for years and it’s parent guilt about money. You know what I mean?
By that to my life,
[00:50:10] Adam Cloninger: not buying your kids, what you think you should or trying to compare what you want to give to him, to what you actually can give them or something like that.
[00:50:20] Chris Gazdik: Every single year, my kids are a little bit older now, so I don’t struggle with it as much, but honestly, like every single year I have been last second, getting more stuff at the store, just because I feel like there needs to be more there.
And I feel guilty in a lot of ways because there’s not as much there as there should be. Yeah. I’m maybe I’m projecting out
[00:50:49] Adam Cloninger: onto the no, no. I think everybody thinks like that. And they’ll still think as completely normal for someone to think like
[00:50:55] Chris Gazdik: parents get eat up by that. It’s it’s so. And I think that’s probably pretty universal around the world, you know, with, with any kind of gift exchanging and, and parents particular.
But is
[00:51:07] Adam Cloninger: that, but does that guilt worth going in more debt and just then it’s going to cause more,
[00:51:12] Chris Gazdik: the answer is yes, people do it, another do it, they do it every single year. The bills come in January and you come to my therapy office. Cause stress is even more peak. Yes. You’re glad all the holidays are done.
But then the end of January and you get the credit card bills, man, and you start
[00:51:30] Adam Cloninger: Panama and start paying them down. Then in around Thanksgiving, you start going back
[00:51:35] Chris Gazdik: in debt it’s it happens. I think it kills people. I think it’s just kills people. And the truth is half the time the kids are playing for the point that you wanted to get them for about a week.
And they move on to, you know, they go back to the video game. I just hope that we can maybe get parents to think a little bit about, and I’m not saying don’t buy your kids gifts. That’s great. I buy mine this year gifts haven’t yet though. I’m way behind do it. Just be careful about what happens emotionally and take it from parents that have long parented their kids into adulthood that you don’t have to get bought into that emotional pain about parent guilt when it comes to, you know, shame and whatnot.
Okay. So, all right. Hopefully we did a little bit of thing there. I, there was so much to cover with this show for the first time I get to talk about part of what I call the trifecta, a love and logic for parenting relationships, emotion focused therapy for marriages. Have you ever heard of Dave Ramsey’s financial peace university?
[00:52:44] Adam Cloninger: Other than I did see it down here below, but I don’t know if I recall hearing you
[00:52:48] Chris Gazdik: mentioned it before, dude, if you ever get a chance to go to a Dave Ramsey’s no, actually I think
[00:52:54] Adam Cloninger: you, I think you did mention it on other show that I was on. Oh, really?
[00:52:57] Chris Gazdik: It’s surprising. Cause I wanted to really spend some time and talk about it here because it is the beginning of what I see as you know, the solutions for, you know, how do we get out of this?
Myered stress driven envy shame, fear and, and about money, right? It is such a cool approach that he kind of creates. And the thing that I like about what he does it basically, he operates by like, okay, get a budget, you know, sit down with your spouse, get a budget, figure out what money do I have and what do I need to pay it at a lot at four?
And then what debts do I have? And he does his debt snowball. There’s a lot of ways to deal with debt. You know, take the smallest debt and pay that off. What you don’t have money for. You simply don’t pay it’s under a line because you don’t have any money left. You take your money at the top of the month on percent of your money.
And he just slotted in those slots and you live by that. And it’s empowering because a lot of people don’t really operate that way. They don’t, he calls it a zero balanced budget, right? A hundred percent comes in, you allot a hundred percent of where you’re going to put your money. And if you think about it, the way that he begins to transition and shift you in thinking about your money, you tell your money where to go, rather than you wonder what the hell happened.
I just got paid. It feels like a couple of weeks ago. And I I don’t have money for this electric bill here. What are we going to do? Right. It’s empowering. It’s it’s it’s and it’s actually something that I’ve kind of fallen into, you know, for years now in, in operating that way, I’m kind of one of those weird people that actually knows down to the penny.
I balanced my, my checking account and all that, you know, but it’s worked well for me in some ways, but here’s even more magic about the Dave Ramsey process with financial peace. He takes the emotion of money directly on, and I love it the way that he does it. He deals with the shackles that debt creates and he calls it that talks about it in intently, in his video programming, the shackles that debt creates the burden that you carry the process of budgeting and being in management control of your money takes that.
Oh, And you get emotional and he talks a lot about the emotions, the emotions off of you and, and what develops into emotional freedom, because you’re lifted out of the debt cycles that we just go in and out of all of our life. And you, you ultimately work the program that he lays out to becoming completely debt free.
And I’m talking about your house too. Can you imagine what it’s like to live without a house payment? Nice. My next door neighbor is doing that. Now he’s retired, but he got paid off before he retired
[00:56:15] Adam Cloninger: friend of mine has already done it. He’s a very young age, right? Very young age. He’s a lot younger, man.
He’s he’s already done it. I’m like, wow.
[00:56:21] Chris Gazdik: Oh, it’s, it’s gotta be amazing. I want that. I want to experience that. That is a little bit of a goal of mine personally. But when he’s dealing with the money emotions, he also deals with the money emotions of a couple. And he actually identifies whether he realizes it or not perfectly in tandem with the abandonment and engulfment personalities that we develop and the behavior traits that we go by.
And so EFT and the financial peace university matches perfectly. And he tells people that are in the abandonment role. He calls them free spirit or nerds because I’m a nerd. And I got down to the penny. What things are we’re very forward about conversations, shut up, stop, don’t run over the other person when you’re doing budgeting.
And then he tells the engulfment people who he calls free spirits that just sort of, ah, we spend, we do whatever I don’t want to, we don’t need to talk about it to sit down and have a conversation. And he deals with that by getting people together and developing their budget together. Here’s a tip simple Dave Ramsey, financial peace tip with your partner, get together and just create a budget, whatever budget you might be able to create.
That is a huge, huge piece that deals with a lot of the emotions that we’ve talked about tonight. Does that give a little bit of an encapsulation and insight into what we can do to get out of some of this shame to get out of this envy, to get away from the fear to let go of all the doubts that we have?
Okay. Last segment here is on some of the things that my brainstorm kind of created in also, how do we deal with it? Okay. So be mindful about the simple question kind of goes with the question that we had in the middle of this show, right? Are my basic needs met. Okay. I don’t care if you’re in the Amazon.
I mean, you might be in the Congo or down in the islands and the Caribbean’s or, you know, in, in, in China, somewhere or Australia, maybe, you know, Paris, France, wherever you might end up being are your basic needs met, you know, food, shelter, clothing, essentially the fundamental things Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
Do you ever hear of that in psych 1 0 1 that basement level or those basement level meds? Sometimes they’re not, and that’s a real problem. We have a lot of problems with homelessness and poverty and things around the world. That’s for sure. But if you can answer that question are my basic needs met. How far does that go along in quelling?
Some of these angst that we have about money, right? Develop an attitude where money is just a tool. I think you have that attitude a little bit, just talking to you. What does money mean to you? That’s a tool to manage things. It’s to get things. I mean, it’s kind of the way you start. That’s a really healthy attitude.
I guess I’m giving you a compliment. Thank you. You’re welcome. You know, if you look at it as a way to gain love or a way to have power or, you know, these types of things that, you know, a way to keep up with the Joneses and that’s, I need more money so I can feel better. You know, my happiness will improve of add more money.
Well, whoa, wait, hold on a minute with all that, right. What we really want to do is begin to just really understand that it’s just a tool, man. You know, it’s a tool that we have that we can make choices. I can help kids down the street. I can give Chris a millennium Falcon, so he won’t have life trauma.
Sorry. You should see the camera. You didn’t. I went there. It’s okay. Mom, it’s a tool to provide for my family. It’s a tool to close my family. It’s a tool to have fun. It’s a tool that enables me to do something that I enjoy. If it’s just a tool and that’s all it is, it’s really just a currency. I think that takes a lot of the doubts.
A lot of the fears, all of the shame out of the picture to make it a tool, rather than something that you’re getting or something, something else. He didn’t like tools like tools and he doesn’t like tools. It’s a good point. Anxiety, you would think is bad, bad, bad. You know what I thought in my brainstorm, why can’t we use the anxieties that we have naturally to curb some of the way that we spend or to get us in a better financial position?
Right. Use that anchor just to put a check on yourself, to follow a budget or whatever, have it. Maybe anxiety is not all bad here. So anxiety can be a little bit of our friend when it comes to the terrible, painful chaining debt effect that we can have. That’s really, really bad. Self-awareness is a must.
I feel like I was thinking about, you know, when people are trying to lose weight, that’s another thing we do after Thanksgiving. I don’t know what to do around the world, if Thanksgiving’s as much of a thing as it is here in the states, but we eat a lot of Americans, Americans eat a lot, we’ve got the Turkey and the mashed potatoes and all the things that we eat.
And lot of people this time of year, especially new year’s Eve resolutions, O M G would probably need to show on that. Right. You know, This year, that’s my goal. Well, you know, a great way to lose weight is to really think about why am I eating this food, right? I’m not a nutrition expert and not a dietary expert to look at me on the cameras, you know, figure that out.
But the fact is, if you really take a moment to really process what is my behavior for, I want pleasure with the hockey game. Okay. If you know that that’s fun. Ask yourself that question. You know, that’s the same thing with money. Why am I spending this money right now? What’s the purpose in my behavior.
And if you ask yourself that question, you’ll go far into taking your bite out of some of these negative things like fear and shame and whatnot. Okay. What else do we got? Where am I at? I’m looking at patterns you have with money. Yeah. Patterns are important. I think, I think what I was thinking there is, you know, you know what your money tendencies are, you know, how much money you spend on this and that, and kind of what your thoughts tend to be about, you know, your budget and budgeting and your discussions and all that kind of thing.
Just look at your patterns. You can look at your eating patterns using that example as well. Or are you happy with your eating patterns or not? Do they bring you some concern with your nutrition? Are they not? You know, the same thing can be done with money, just evaluate, spend time meditating thinking what are my financial patterns, you know?
And you can decide if you want to keep them or not. And then you get empowered when you make decisions. Okay. Here’s a big thing. You ever make a mistake with money, you ever forgiven yourself for that mistake that you made with money? Yeah. Okay, good. Cause I think a lot of times people really talking about that shame.
This is huge. I spent that time on that segment. Trying to highlight the shameful effects that we have on money. I don’t think people pay attention to like, you know what, it’s okay. That you did that. You don’t have to hold that against yourself. It’s like any
[01:04:14] Adam Cloninger: mistake, right. Everybody’s making mistakes thing is don’t make it
[01:04:19] Chris Gazdik: again over and over again.
Look at your patterns again yet. I feel like it sounds weird, but to forgive yourself of something, but at that, that just goes really deep into yourself. I mean, when you’re, when you’re holding that against yourself over and over and over again, and then begin to identify personal characteristics, like I don’t handle money.
Well, I don’t deal with money. Well, I’ve literally heard people say that, you know, at that I can’t buy that. I don’t believe that people are that bad about math because a lot of it is simple math. I got 50 bucks. I need gas this week and he need to go golfing, wait a minute. I better buy $50 worth of gas is not it’s simple math, right?
Cause if you don’t know, golfing’s kind of expensive. It’s like 30 bucks to go to a basic golf course. Right? Lose all that shame, dig into it. And honestly spend a little bit of time. You’ll get emotional freedom from it. If you forgive yourself, be wary of the perceived need to make finances a private matter.
Can I make that point any more dramatic with my voice tone? This is not a topic that has to be shuttered, hidden, avoided, shut down on like it’s okay to talk about money. Can we say that? It’s really okay to talk about your finances and if you do, you just might find somebody who’s got some good ideas about your finances, so don’t make it a private thing.
It’s a false belief that we have to have privacy about money to the level that we do work to change behavior. You don’t like. Yeah. I use an example, you know, there was a period of time as a young man. I carried a lot of fear about money coming from, you know, some poverty and some, some tough times when I was young and I was really afraid to spend it.
I didn’t like spending it, it, it means it’s not a bad thing though. Yeah, it was because it took a lot of energy in me. I mean, it was like disruptive in my life. And so I actually looked at that behavior. I assessed it as something I didn’t want to have anymore. And I went and blew money. I literally remember like taking like a hundred bucks and say, you know what, I’m just going.
I don’t even what I’m gonna spend this on. I am just going to go blow it. And I, I maybe bought some candy or took stuff. I would purposefully engage what I interpreted as blowing it on. To change the behavior. And I’ll tell you that took a big that was big for me. It took a big chunk out of that, that fear and that, that crummy feeling that I would have about money.
So identify behavior, you don’t like go choose and do something different. It’s a cool thing to play with. And lastly, combat envy with the knowledge that those who spend seemingly frivolously, they have everything they want likely have debt. Right. I, that’s kind of a bit of a truth. What do you see you on the scales there?
I feel like I’ve been leveling on a little bit debts. Do people have let’s let’s end with a little bit, oh gosh. She said just
[01:07:23] Adam Cloninger: call them out here. Average debt, 2020 credit card, $5,315. Personal loan, 16,458 auto loan, 19,703 student loan, 38,792. He like, what’s he
[01:07:38] Chris Gazdik: like, that’s a home equity line of credit for a house.
[01:07:41] Adam Cloninger: Okay. 40 1009 54 mortgage, 208,000
[01:07:46] Chris Gazdik: 185. I was actually surprised that the credit card debt was only 5,300 people carry massive amounts of credit card
debt.
[01:07:53] Adam Cloninger: Well, you got that. And there’s also other people who will not get a credit card for any of that. Exactly. Yeah,
[01:07:58] Chris Gazdik: that’s probably, what’s bringing that down.
Yeah, they use their heat locks to refinance. Yeah, they do. They get high HELOC loans and personal loans to pay stuff down and pay stuff off. And it’s just a raw revolving door. People deal with your budgets and bring your debts down so that you can have some emotional freedom. I know we went a little bit long on this one.
I apologize for that. There was just more than I really wanted to get to because. And I hope you stuck with us through to the end here, because this is not a topic people really focus on. And if we’ve gotten a little bit of head space in your head during such a stressful time, as the holidays can be, I’m glad that, that we did that.
Closing thoughts, comments, questions, my friend we probably need to get out of here. What do you do when you get out of here? All right. Well, listen, have a great holiday season. We’re along the way of enjoying Christmas. We’ve just got through Thanksgiving in the states. Hope you guys are having a wonderful holiday season, and this is hopefully giving you a little bit of a, some heads up on some things you can do to take some of the pressures off the people might be feeling so hope you have a great week.
We will see you guys soon.