Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim
Speaker 1: Stenebek on Bloomberg Radio. Speaking of things changing, we are
Speaker 1: really many of us rethinking our lives post pandemic, how
Speaker 1: we work, where we work, the stuff we have, how
Speaker 1: we want to live our lives, experience it. And I
Speaker 1: think one of the questions we ask a lot is
Speaker 1: when is enough enough?
Speaker 2: That's a question actually that our next guest struggled with
Speaker 2: for years when she found herself stuck on the treadmill
Speaker 2: of professional life. She earned more money, she accomplished more professionally,
Speaker 2: she got awards, but she was still unsatisfied with her
Speaker 2: life and things suffered. Her relationship suffered, her health suffered,
Speaker 2: and even her self worth all right.
Speaker 1: So to get out of this rut, she developed a
Speaker 1: blueprint that she's written about in a new book. So
Speaker 1: we are delighted to have with us financial advisor at
Speaker 1: Minisha Deacor. She is author of the new book Money's In,
Speaker 1: The Secret to Finding Your Enough. She has worked for
Speaker 1: many years her background in financial services, and today she
Speaker 1: joins us on zoom in Maine. Minsha, good to have
Speaker 1: you here on Bloomberg Business Week. Tell us about your
Speaker 1: journey that ended up in this book Money's in.
Speaker 3: Sure, and thank you Carolyntim for having me. So I
Speaker 3: woke up midlife at fifty realizing that ever since I
Speaker 3: graduated from Harvard Business School, I had been living a
Speaker 3: life where I was surviving as a human doing and
Speaker 3: not thriving as a human being. I literally had spent
Speaker 3: thirty years of my life on this twenty four to
Speaker 3: seven Hamster reel of never Enough, and I hit a wall.
Speaker 3: I became very very ill, and it all just came
Speaker 3: together for me that I had been driven by toxic
Speaker 3: beliefs and behaviors around work, money, success, accomplishments. I wanted
Speaker 3: to understand how that happened, and when I figured it out,
Speaker 3: I wanted to just share the answer with people, and
Speaker 3: that's why I wrote the book.
Speaker 2: So what would you describe as being toxic about those things?
Speaker 2: Because for a lot of people, I think, you know,
Speaker 2: they think that perhaps the things that you experienced are
Speaker 2: in fact motivating to them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So here's the thing. The difference is when you
Speaker 3: feel that no matter how much you earn, how much
Speaker 3: you achieve, how many accolades you receive, it's just never enough,
Speaker 3: and almost kind of like you feel like you're never enough.
Speaker 3: In other words, that line keeps moving forward and there's
Speaker 3: a lack of satisfaction as you hit those various goals.
Speaker 3: If you're feeling great as you're hitting those goals, and
Speaker 3: then you don't have this problem. But the thing that
Speaker 3: really distinguishes I think people who are struggling with the
Speaker 3: cult of the never enough the way I was, is
Speaker 3: an inability to kind of disconnect from this feeling that
Speaker 3: the only answer to feeling better be it at work
Speaker 3: professionally is more, do more, be more?
Speaker 1: And can I keep in for a second, because it's funny.
Speaker 1: We were talking about this on our planning call, and
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, people who often reach levels of
Speaker 1: success like yourself, financial as well as professional, and then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden they take a moment and they're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't need any of this, Like it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of easy to say maybe from your vantage point,
Speaker 1: I think, so help us understand that. So and I'll
Speaker 1: go on as basic as we were asking on a call,
Speaker 1: is it's just you know, kind of rich people saying
Speaker 1: this after making money to be fair, Yeah, no, I mean.
Speaker 3: That's an excellent question. No, I mean I in my research,
Speaker 3: I talked to yoga instructors who felt this exact same way.
Speaker 3: I talked to academics who are woefully underpaid, who felt
Speaker 3: the exact same way. It spans all income and ages.
Speaker 3: It doesn't have to do, interestingly enough, with the income
Speaker 3: level or the amount of network that you have. What
Speaker 3: it has to do with is this feeling of emptiness
Speaker 3: inside of you, which many many executive coaches tell me
Speaker 3: that anywhere from seventy five to one hundred percent of
Speaker 3: their successful clients are driven by this. And so it
Speaker 3: is this feeling in our culture that we are what
Speaker 3: we do, no matter what that profession is or it
Speaker 3: pays and when, and unless we keep excelling it, that
Speaker 3: we don't exist as humans. That's the core of the
Speaker 3: problem that I'm discussing. Definitely not a rich person problem.
Speaker 2: So let's transition to the solution here and how people
Speaker 2: make that transformation. How you found that blueprint, how you
Speaker 2: wrote that blueprint. The first step, I guess is recognizing
Speaker 2: you know that somebody actually needs this kind of help.
Speaker 2: But how do you make this transformation internally?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So three steps. One, If you feel like the
Speaker 3: answer to self worth equals question is not something you're
Speaker 3: happy about. That's the sign you need to do this.
Speaker 3: In my case, it was self worth equals networth. In
Speaker 3: the case of a yoga instructor I talked to, it
Speaker 3: was self worth equals the number of students in your
Speaker 3: class academics. Self worth equals the number of papers I published,
Speaker 3: how many times they're cited. If you're confused, go to
Speaker 3: money zen quiz dot com and it'll help you see
Speaker 3: if your cult trapped in this cult of never enough.
Speaker 3: Step two is not fun because it's not quick. I
Speaker 3: identified four buckets of pain points, personal smallti traumas, cultural norms,
Speaker 3: societal influences, and evolutionary biological factors that come together in
Speaker 3: unique ways for all of us to create that whole
Speaker 3: that we're trying to fill with more money, accolade success,
Speaker 3: et cetera. And Step three is then to replace that
Speaker 3: negative modeling self worth equals something that's sucking you down
Speaker 3: because you now have the understanding of that came from,
Speaker 3: and replace it with a new mental framework of financial
Speaker 3: health plus emotional wealth. Is what's going to drive long
Speaker 3: term life satisfaction or what I call money zen. And
Speaker 3: what's important is that financial health number that varies for everyone.
Speaker 3: The definition is you can meet your expenses comfortably without
Speaker 3: stressing out about money. You've got a safety net and
Speaker 3: you feel good about your savings plan for the future,
Speaker 3: but you're not living in the future.
Speaker 1: So a financial component though. It's like, it's funny. I
Speaker 1: remember when E Pray Love came out and I think
Speaker 1: Oprah was on air saying everybody should do that, like
Speaker 1: take a year off, and it's like, okay, but I
Speaker 1: got to pay the rent. Tell yeah, exactly, thank you,
Speaker 1: Thank you, Oprah. I agree we should all do that,
Speaker 1: so and forgive me love you, Oprah. But I'm just
Speaker 1: trying to say, like, yeah, there's a reality aspect of this.
Speaker 1: And you mentioned money. I mean you still have to support.
Speaker 3: Yourself absolutely, And that brings me to the second piece,
Speaker 3: which is emotional wealth that I found. I was literally
Speaker 3: emotionally bankrupt. I was divorced, I had no hobbies, I
Speaker 3: had no friends. And this isn't simply because of the
Speaker 3: industry that I was in. This can happen in any
Speaker 3: profession that you invest. You allocate all of your scarce resource,
Speaker 3: most scarce resource of time into the work bucket. We
Speaker 3: all know acid allocation is one of the most important
Speaker 3: things in portfolio performance over the long run. And my
Speaker 3: argument is societally, we are not encouraged to allocate our
Speaker 3: scarce resource of time to emotional wealth at the same
Speaker 3: time that we're allocating it to financial health. And emotional
Speaker 3: wealth doesn't have to be expensive, it can be. I
Speaker 3: know this sounds trite, but literally we have an epidemic
Speaker 3: of loneliness, disconnection, anxiety, stress. It could be picking up
Speaker 3: the phone, call the phone and talking to a friend,
Speaker 3: it could be stepping up outside in nature. But the
Speaker 3: key point is we value each other for what we do,
Speaker 3: and as a result, we've lost connection with the value
Speaker 3: that comes from investing along our lives in the things
Speaker 3: that make us happy, many of which don't cost a
Speaker 3: lot of money.
Speaker 2: Minitia, I got to tell you I took the quiz
Speaker 2: at moneys in dot com slash quiz, and my results
Speaker 2: I will share them now. I tend to focus more
Speaker 2: on financial health. That said, so, it sounds like I
Speaker 2: need a little bit of a help with this blueprint.
Speaker 3: A lot of us in the Bloomberg world. That's how
Speaker 3: we are. That's what I wrote the book.
Speaker 1: Fun Stuff and fun to get some time. Glad to
Speaker 1: hear though, that you are on a better trajectory as well. Congratulations,
Speaker 1: Money's In the Secret of Finding Your Enough our thanks
Speaker 1: to Militia to Core as we said, the book is
Speaker 1: Money's In and joining us on Zoom from Maine.
Speaker 3: You took the quiz.
Speaker 2: I took the quiz. Yeah, moneys in dot com slash
Speaker 2: quiz and what was your result? I focus more on
Speaker 2: financial health rather than emotional health.
Speaker 1: I'm going to do this.
Speaker 2: You got to, you gotta do it. This one is
Speaker 2: easier because there are no wrong answers.
Speaker 1: Okay, but it tells you what you are.
Speaker 2: It tells you what you are, which might be scarier.