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31: Talking About Money
“Don’t share how much credit card debt you have.”
“Never tell anyone how much you make.”
“Don’t tell a soul what you paid for that.”
“Never discuss how much you charge per hour.”
Most of us were taught never to discuss money in polite company. It’s considered braggy to tell others about our financial successes and a failure to admit how much debt we carry. Lost you job? Don’t tell anyone if you want to save your pride. And certainly never discuss raises with your coworkers.
If “money makes the world go ‘round” then why is it such a taboo topic? On this episode of Unboxing it, Lara and Rowan challenge the idea that finances should be kept personal and share the ways this belief harms most of us while benefiting those at the top.
Links
Lara makes art - follow her on Instagram
Rowan is opening a coffee shop - follow it on Youtube
Transcript
Please note that these were autogenerated and not edited for accuracy.
[00:00:00] Rowan: We have people who work three different jobs and can’t afford rent. So I mean, yeah. It is not, this whole idea of hard work will be a reward. You just have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and that’s b******t. It just is. That is not true. Welcome to unboxing it. I’m Lara.
And I am Rowan,
[00:00:43] Lara: and today we’re gonna talk about a hot topic and it’s money because when it comes to money, there are so many ways that we can feel. Weird, or we can feel like something’s not working, or we can feel like we need to keep things really hush hush. There’s so many things about money, whether it’s scarcity and fear that you don’t have any, whether it’s, you know, belief that abundance is something you already have or that you want it to come to you.
Like there’s so many different things that we can talk about when it comes to money, and most of the time we don’t. Talk about it. We just feel like it has to be like, we don’t talk about money. So that’s what we’re gonna talk about today.
[00:01:31] Rowan: It’s funny because I’m the one who suggested this topic. Lara is, much better at leading this discussion than I am, and I’ll get into that a little bit.
But even though I suggested it as soon as you said. We’re gonna talk about money. I made a face and a noise, like it was this uncomfortable, like, ugh. You know? And, that’s because that is what I have been taught. Money is a taboo subject. You just don’t discuss it because you might offend someone. You might come across as vain, or you might come across as a failure.
And everything in between. Somebody might think you place too much importance on it. Somebody might think that you don’t place enough. It is a very, very tricky topic, but not talking about it also hurts us. So I’m really looking forward to this conversation, even though I made the eugh face.
[00:02:30] Lara: Yeah, I think, even, one of the reasons that we think we’re not supposed to talk about it is because we were told we’re not supposed to talk about it. Like, not necessarily that anybody explained why. Right. You’re just like, you’re not supposed to talk about that.
[00:02:42] Rowan: Yeah. I’m trying to think of what the exact reason was, and I think the idea that I got when I was growing up was, if you talk about it.
Normally you would only wanna talk about it if things are going well for you financially, and when you share that, it could come across as bragging and make somebody else feel bad for not having as much as you. I think that’s sort of the general idea that I got, even though it wasn’t explicitly said like that.
[00:03:16] Lara: Yeah, I think there’s a bit of that. And the other one for me that I think really surrounds it is you don’t want people knowing your business.
[00:03:23] Rowan: Yeah, yeah. You don’t want people knowing your business. The other thing I’m gonna go back to my grandparents, my maternal grandparents, they were wonderful people.
They both grew up really poor, in their respective families of origin, and when they got together, they were also very poor. My understanding was, they were poor for a while. , I think they bought their first home when they were in their fifties, which, you know, back then is, surprising.
A lot of people, if they were going to buy a home, bought it much sooner than that, to look at them outwardly. Even in those old photos from before I was born, you would never know that they didn’t have anything you would never know. And my grandmother, who I absolutely adored and was very, very close to.
Was also really big on appearance. Her whole thing was class and money are two separate things. So you can have class, you can be a classy person and not be a rich person, and I appreciate that. First of all, I think that’s actually a kind of a good lesson, but I think the undertone of that was. You should always look like you have money and you should talk, like you have money, you should speak, like you have money, you should behave like you have money.
Your table manner should be like, you come from money. And so if you talk about how much money you actually make in that situation, well then you’re gonna give it away and people are going to realize you’re poor. You definitely don’t want that. So I think that was the other side of the coin that I learned, you know, just in passing.
Having spent a lot of time with my grandparents,
[00:05:03] Lara: yeah, there’s a lot of shame around not having money. And so, I mean, that’s where the whole keeping up with the Joneses sort of thing came from. Right? You have to make sure that people think you’re doing okay, that you would never want somebody to think you weren’t doing well because that is shameful.
so this is where I wanna put in the little. Caveat. We are not money mindset experts. There are many money mindset experts out there. I have worked with money mindset experts. I think they’re great. We are not that, but we have some experience and we’re just gonna talk about it. But I just wanted to make that clear from the get go.
we know we’re not money mindset experts.
[00:05:43] Rowan: I am definitely not a money mindset expert. I think now is a great time to share what just happened to me yesterday. Which led to this conversation and we can kind of go from there. I do a lot of meditation and yesterday I decided to challenge myself and do a meditation that I found the least comfortable or interesting.
So I found one on abundance and it was specifically about financial abundance, and my first thought was gross. Gross. that’s my own story that I’m telling myself, right? That trying to attract any kind of financial success is bad. So let’s remember that going forward. And this particular meditation was about half an hour long, and it really has, you kind of go into this place where you’re talking to your inner child, you greet your inner child, and you talk to them about what they have been taught about money and the stories they tell themselves around it.
This half hour meditation did not last half an hour. Within about 10 minutes, I was sobbing on the couch, completely surprised by it. I might add, I had no idea how painful it would be to think about how I view money in relation to myself and to think about how my younger self. Learned about money and what that meant for him.
It was transformative. I still don’t know exactly how, but I do know how trauma works. I wrote a whole book on it, and I know that in these situations you hit a trigger, you hit a trauma point, and there’s a release as you let go. Of that old wound, that old trauma that was stuck in there. And then make no mistake, that was a trauma that was stuck in there that had to do with money around scarcity, around not being enough about not ever deserving to make a decent amount of money.
there were all these different things that were going on. I know that over time, because I did that, my brain is going to rewire, hopefully in a much healthier way, which is good because I’m about to open a business and I, certainly am going to need to have a healthy mindset around making money. I’m going to need to make.
Money to not only pay myself and my partner, but also our staff and keep the lights on. It’s very, very important that I have a healthy mindset around it, which is part of why I challenged myself and did the thing that made me feel, ugh. But I am left with so many questions around. How society got so mixed up when it comes to money and the whole nuanced conversation around it.
Because I’m the first person to say, I don’t think we should have billionaires. I think billionaires are a really big red flag. When it comes to an unhealthy capitalist society, and I also think capitalism can be really harmful, and I think that, you know, I want to see people have a basic income, like I believe in all of these things.
And at the same time, I live in a capitalist society and I need to make money, and I would like to be able to do that without feeling terrible about myself. So it’s all very complex.
[00:09:24] Lara: It is extremely I think it’s like calling it late stage capitalism, right? Like we are at this place where things are kind of breaking down, in my opinion.
Maybe I’ll back up a little bit. So I’ve been a coach for, 15 years. I’ve been a business coach for almost 10. And in the coaching world, there was a lot of push. For coaches to dream big you know, you wanna have your six figure business, but within a few years it became your seven figure business.
Like you need to have your seven figure business. How are you gonna have your seven figure business? You need to dream big, you need to go for,, all that’s possible. And I really struggled with it. I was like, I don’t wanna have a seven figure business part of it. Could be that it felt like a seven figure business would be overwhelming.
Too much work than I had the capacity for.
And part of it is just like, I don’t think I need that.
I don’t want that. And again, right, like the justifications are many. It could be, well, if you have a seven figure business, then you can hire people, you can put more money back into the economy, blah, blah, blah. It just didn’t feel good to me anymore.
And as a result, focusing on money so much is something that a business coach is Mostly meant to be doing, and I was like less and less interested in doing that, which is why I’m stepping back a little bit from business coaching. I am still happy to coach folks who are looking to feel aligned.
They’re looking to find their opportunities, they’re looking to figure out that they can make money, and That’s the difference, right? When we talk about. The different levels of money, mindset and how people feel comfortable or they don’t feel comfortable. I mostly end up coaching folks who struggle to believe that they can make a good income, but they’re not looking for seven figures.
They’re looking to make a good and decent and comfortable amount of money, and they struggle to take the steps needed. To get there. I love helping people get through the money mindset bits that are not feeling comfortable, charging enough, not feeling comfortable earning money. But when it comes to like, how can I make as much money as possible?
Bigger, bigger, bigger that’s not where I like to go. but I think that a lot of our society, the capitalist society has taught us that our value comes from how much we earn. And so. If we don’t earn money, we feel badly. And that’s certainly somewhere that I have been in different stages in my career.
in my head, in my heart also, I feel like I know I could earn more money than I do, but I choose to do different things, whether it’s supporting my family, whether it’s passion projects, so on and so forth. But then am I letting down? And I don’t know who I think I’m letting down in this scenario that I’m not earning my earning potential.
I’m letting myself down. again, coming back to shame, right? Like, it’ll come and it’ll sort of creep in on me and I’ll feel terrible about myself because I know I could be earning more money than I am. So why aren’t I? And it takes a lot of work. That I’m still working on to be okay with the choices I’ve made and to understand that my situation is based on choice.
That being said, there’s a lot of people who are in situations not based on choice I’m not saying that that one does deserve to be shameful, but I’m just saying walking through all the different mindsets we have and figuring out why we’re feeling stuck, or why we’re feeling bad, or why we’re feeling good.
There’s work there to talk about it and to understand what’s going on.
[00:12:56] Rowan: Yeah,
I do think inequality can really weigh on some of us when it comes to making money. I am a bit of an anomaly in that when I was a teenager. I lived in shelters for a time and I couch surfed and I, collected social assistance and I went to food banks and I panhandled.
I also didn’t get a high school education until I was in my thirties. I mean, it just kind of goes on from there, right? So statistically, I should not be where I am today. Not that I’m saying that I’m doing really, really well, I would say that I am doing a lot better than expected and there’s a bit of survivor’s guilt that comes with that. I think that plays in knowing that a lot of the people that I knew back.
In those days are either not alive anymore or are still in really rough situations.
And that there was privilege and, some good fortune in my life to be able to not be in that situation anymore. And that’s taught me, I think two things. One is that guilt of, well, I’m already doing better than.
I really should be, should in air quotes here. And so why would I wanna do better than that? And the other thing is I know what it’s like not to have anything, and I’m terrified of losing what I already have. So if I build things up even more than I am right now, if I become. More financially stable.
If I have a successful, thriving business, you know, whatever it might be, that I could lose it all. And if I lose it all, just the idea of that
is terrifying because I know what that feels like. Yeah.
[00:14:52] Lara: Again, we’re coming back from all these different levels, and directions that people come from.
I also. think that universal basic income is something that we should have, right? I think that that would be a really good thing for our society,
and I think that if everybody was a bit more open
about money, we would understand it works better. There are some people who never want to look at their money because looking at it is the scariest part, right?
Mm-hmm. So whether they’re, racking up huge amounts of debt and they never wanna look at it, or they’re fine, but they never wanna look at it because no matter what direction they’re coming at. They think it’s gonna be terrible if they look at it. So they don’t wanna look at it. And I have talked to people who, when they looked at the numbers, everything was okay, but they had lived in this, feeling of fear for years that things weren’t okay and therefore they couldn’t look too closely at it, or their anxiety would go even higher.
But actually. Understanding the numbers, looking at the numbers, being clear on what’s true helps you figure out how to move forward. And, hiding from it is never the right choice. I don’t think
[00:16:07] Rowan: we hide it from ourselves because we’re so busy also hiding it from everybody else. There is starting to be some workplace transparency.
When it comes to salaries, which I think is really healthy because I don’t think that one person. Should be earning significantly more than another person for doing the exact same job, unless there is a damn fine reason for that. And a lot of times there isn’t. It’s just what the person negotiated at the beginning and then their raises throughout and that sort of thing, and we’re all encouraged in the workplace.
Do not talk about how much you make with your coworkers, which frankly only benefits the people at the top who are. Administrating these salaries who are deciding what these salaries are and who are collecting their bonuses at the end of the year and that sort of thing. Right. I think it’s really important that people talk about it.
I also think it’s really important that we talk about debt, that we don’t try to hide debt because you see people. Who live in these big beautiful houses and drive really nice vehicles and go on beautiful vacations and, it’s easy to ask yourself, why don’t I have that? how are they doing so much better than me?
Sometimes they’re not. Sometimes they are barely paying their credit card or line of credit interest, let alone anything else but. Because they see everybody else doing it in their bubble. They think to themselves, well, I have to live like that too. Otherwise, I am failing myself. I’m failing my partner, I’m failing my kids.
I’m just failing at life. Clearly., If my neighbors can afford that. I should be able to afford it too. If my friends who are the same age as me can afford that, I should be able to afford it too. And nobody stops to think to themselves or very few of us anyway.
Maybe they can’t afford it. Maybe we’re all just doing this. And who does that benefit? The banks, the credit card companies. That’s who it benefits. It does not benefit us at the end of the day.
[00:18:20] Lara: fake it till you make it is not ideal when it comes to money.
[00:18:23] Rowan: No! I think even though we’re not, money mindset coaches, I think we can very clearly state that is not a good approach.
[00:18:31] Lara: But I will say that I think there are some people who teach mindset who say. That you should do that kind of stuff so that you embody that person that would make that money and then you will earn that money. I have heard that messaging and I think it’s not ideal.
[00:18:49] Rowan: That seems dangerous to me. I, I think that there’s a difference between you do actually have the money to go out and have a few more experiences every month.
Maybe you should do that versus. You should rack up a bunch of debt so that you can feel like you are an earner. And then the rest will follow. I don’t know. I think that this is falling into manifestation territory and while I do think that energy is a real thing and that you know, if you’re a really positive person, you tend to have more positive interactions and you know that if you believe in yourself, you’re more likely to achieve goals and all those things.
But I also don’t think that. Money just magically appears because you want it to appear. there is such a thing as self-sabotage, and I do think myself, I have done that. I think that there are times where I have had opportunities to make money it has made me so uncomfortable because I didn’t wanna be that person who is thinking about making all kinds of money.
So I turned it down. I didn’t do it, and I, can think of, a few times in my life where I probably walked away from thousands and thousands of dollars because I felt like I didn’t deserve it or shouldn’t be that person, whatever that person is. but I also know that I am not somebody who can just go get a six figure job because I do not have the qualifications for nearly all six figure jobs.
So that’s not a thing I can suddenly do, just because I’m thinking that I deserve it.
[00:20:29] Lara: Yeah. It is so complex and the biggest message that I hope comes from this is talking about money opens up our knowledge, right? If you don’t know what’s true, if you don’t know what’s actually going on with people, if you don’t know how much things cost, like when you have so many things that you just don’t know because nobody talks about it, then of course people.
Get a little bit confused. Of course, people make up their own stories and that’s why I think talking about it makes a lot of sense. I think to your point, that it should be more open, how
much people make. I think it’s always tricky when things are negotiable, right? So one of the most.
Anxiety ridden things for me about cars is that apparently, depending how hard I push and argue, I can pay less for my car. I don’t really want to do that, but I don’t know how much is reasonable. I don’t wanna be unreasonable. I don’t wanna pay more than I need to. I don’t wanna have a fight, like there’s so many, I don’t want to.
I also get angsty about tipping to be. Fair
because it’s not clear.
and so to me, I would like to buy a car where you give me the most reasonable price and I pay you that amount. but the same is true with jobs, right? And I understand that there’s a range dependent on experience and so on. But if you offer me a job and you tell me the salary is.
I don’t know, $85,000. that’s my starting place for this imaginary job.
[00:22:09] Rowan: Nice job. I like it.
[00:22:10] Lara: But the range is like 85 to 120, let’s say.
And you say, here, would you like $85,000? Like
there’s part of me that would be like, yes, thank you. And then. I don’t wanna seem greedy or pushy or create some kind of conflict that might make them not want me anymore to then ask for more money. But one of the reasons that people make different amounts for the same job is because some people ask for more and then they get it, and some people don’t ask for more, so they don’t get it.
And I think it’s tricky. I think that’s just a tricky thing.
we can ask for more. I think we can also do it probably without arguing,
but it can be uncomfortable. I have a story that might be interesting here, which is we had, one of our cars written off after an accident. And I had looked up how much I thought the car was worth,
so that I would have a sense of that. And then when the insurance adjuster called me and said, okay, so we’re gonna be able to give you this
much, and it was more than I thought it was gonna be. And so I had two choices, I could say, oh wow, thank you. Or
I could say what I thought I was gonna say in the beginning when I thought they were gonna low ball me.
And say,
oh, that’s good. is there any chance you could go higher? And the woman said, no, no, we can’t. And I said, okay. She’s like, it’s based on, a formula. I said, okay. And she said, just hang on a second. I have to check something. And she came back and gave me an extra thousand dollars.
[00:23:42] Rowan: Wow.
[00:23:44] Lara: . So some of it. It’s just like
about asking It doesn’t need to always be like this battle that we’re going into, some kind of, major fight in order to get more. It can just be like, so what else could you offer me? And like, you end up having an interesting and different conversation.
The more we can talk about it, the more we can say, can you go higher than that? The more you say, well, I was hoping for this amount. The more likely it is to happen, but if you don’t ask, people will give you the lower amount.
[00:24:14] Rowan: Yeah, it’s true. I do think that negotiation is hard for a lot of us.
I think it’s also, especially hard for people assigned female at birth who were taught. you know, just be nice. Don’t rock the boat. Be a people pleaser, right? That comes into there. I also think when it comes to negotiating things like new job salaries, there is a level of fear that goes into that of scarcity and also of imposter syndrome.
Like, oh, well you want me for this job, me? You wanna offer me this much? Oh no, I better not ask for more because like this is already too good to be true. If I ask for more, then you might realize you’ve made a mistake and I might never get another job offer like this again. That is a really tough thing to work through when that has been.
The bulk of your life you know, putting that fear first. It’s one of the things that I’ve been working on really hard over the last few months is asking myself when I wanna make a decision, if I have anxiety in my body when I’m doing it, I like to ask myself, what is leading this decision? Is it logic?
Is it. hope. Is it anger? Is it fear? And let me tell you, when I feel like that 99% of the time it is in fact fear that is trying to lead the charge. And fear and money in a capitalist society are attached at the hip. For most of us, I really envy people who seem to have no issue. Asking for more. No issue with turning down a job because like, of course I’m gonna get another job.
Yeah, no, no problem. Or they lose their job and they’re like, it’s fine. I’ll just take some time off for me, when I lose a job, I’m immediately hitting the pavement. Like that day, if you will, the proverbial pavement. It’s all online now, but it’s like, I’ve gotta find something else. Oh, I’ve gotta find next plan.
I gotta go to my plan B. Right? There’s never this pause of. It’s gonna be all right. Just take a few days, figure it out, and then get back out there. Something’s gonna find you. You are going to find it. That is the approach that I’m trying to take with money, even when opening this business because everything on paper looks like it’s going to be great.
And the amount of fear I will experience if I start to think about it too much. What if people don’t wanna buy coffee from us? What if somebody comes in and leaves a bad review? What if the weather’s really bad? , And all of these different variables run through my head, but what it really comes down to is.
I am afraid of success because success, Rowan, as a financially successful person, because I’m successful in a lot of ways on paper, I know that already, like, you know, I have bestselling books, I have awards, I have things that can prove that. But Rowan, as a financially successful person, somehow equates to.
Rowan as a bad person, like Yikes.
[00:27:38] Lara: Yeah.
No matter which way we look at it, it doesn’t work,
right? So either we aren’t making enough money and therefore we aren’t, a value to society, or you’re making too much money and now you’re greedy or you just can’t see yourself doing it. I think fear of success is something most people don’t really realize is a thing, but.
There are a lot of people who get stuck in either like, that would make me a bad person. I have actively heard that. Right. Once somebody makes over a certain amount of money, they turn into an a*****e.
[00:28:12] Rowan: Yeah. Yeah. Like why? Why is it Scrooge and Scrooge do that to us? I
[00:28:17] Lara: . I don’t know. But maybe it’s people who don’t want to be an a*****e who stopped trying to get there.
But the people who don’t mind. Keep going. I don’t know.
[00:28:26] Rowan: Well, I do think there’s something about prioritizing money and success and wealth in general above all else. That is a bit of a red flag for me because I think sometimes it’s a lack of balance, right? Where like people are, maybe prioritizing something.
That is very superficial and not seeming to care, like at the expense of relationships, at the expense of empathy, at the expense of other people. And forgetting that we’re a community and that we’re supposed to lift each other up and help each other. So I think that is where, when I see that excess wealth, I really, really don’t like it as a general rule.
but Because I don’t like that. I think the mindset shift I have to make is I’m never gonna be like that. That’s not ever going to be me. I look at Billie Eilish who just donated what, like $11 million to feed people and encouraged. Other millionaires to do the same and has said like, I think billionaires shouldn’t exist.
Right? But like you could solve world hunger if you wanted to. Like you could do it right now, and you’re just hoarding all this money.
[00:29:36] Rowan: So I think there is a way to be a financially successful person and also still be a generous and kind person. It’s just a matter of switching that in my own head about myself.
[00:29:47] Lara: The other part, and I think this is probably an entirely different conversation, is how hard work is revered and how that’s what’s gonna make you more money. And so there’s definitely, for me, as somebody who has ADHD, as somebody who has chronic fatigue. I was like, I would never be able to handle that. Like I cannot do as much work as is required to make certain amounts of money.
Therefore, I don’t want that level of success because it’ll just kill me. and so again, it’s this whole Blend because there’s a lot of millionaires and billionaires who don’t need to work that much. Like it’s not just that, the amount of money you make and the amount of time that goes into it are not attached in any kind of concrete way.
And so again, it mixes us all up.
[00:30:34] Rowan: We have people who work three different jobs and can’t afford rent. So I mean, yeah. It is not, this whole idea of hard work will be a reward. You just have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and that’s b******t. It just is. That is not true.
I mean, yes, clearly, if I just sat in this room and did nothing all day, I would not earn any money. That would be bad. That is true. But, I also don’t think that what amount of energy I put out to earn money is going to equate with massive success. There are so many other elements that play into that.
A lot of these people that we see, some of them are completely self-made. That’s true. A lot of them are not, a lot of them had at least middle class parents went to really good schools, uh, are white and, you know, able-bodied and often male and just kind of, maybe came up with a good idea or made the right investment and everything sort of took off from there.
But you have other people who. Have been working just as hard, if not harder, who are not in that position and never will be. So we need to stop telling ourselves b******t about money and about how if we just work harder. I really, really resent when people my age and older, because that’s normally where you’re hearing it from.
Not always, but a lot of times it’s older people who had some level of financial success, who look down on people who are buying matcha lattes, you know, every couple of days and going, well, you know, this is why you can’t afford a house. That’s not why they can’t afford a house. Can’t afford a house because homes are.
Extremely unaffordable for most people now. So, yeah, don’t wanna go off on a rant because I think I’m speaking for a lot of people here, but I really think some more honesty about how money gets made. What it means to have money and what it doesn’t mean to have money does not make you a better person.
In no way, shape or form does financial success make somebody a better human being? It makes them often a more comfortable human being. That’s about it.
[00:32:54] Lara: Yeah, so let’s keep talking about it. I think that’s the conclusion here. I’d love to hear if anybody has any stories that they would wanna share, if there’s any other angle they would wanna dig in to on this.
If you are a money mindset coach and you want to talk to us, let’s talk about money some more, because I think it’s important and. Like we talked about today, it can be anything. We’re not saying you need to want more, you need to want less, you need to work harder, you need to work less. Like it’s, all of those things are potentially what’s going on.
It’s so different for each person. So some of it is just talking it through and understanding. You don’t need to try to measure yourself up against other people.
[00:33:35] Rowan: Absolutely. It’s been a really good conversation for me. I think it’s gonna help my brain further process. Everything that happened yesterday and you know, construction just started on our cafe and I now am in a time crunch to get to a point of feeling.
Really good about making money, and I know I’m gonna get there because that’s my new goal and this is the next stage of growth for me. I really hope that telling this story and us both sharing little bits of our lives and our perspectives on this has helped somebody else as well. I really would love to hear if something resonated with you.
And especially if something didn’t too, there’s something that we got wrong. According to you, you should let us know that too. I really think life is about learning, so let us know what you learned and what you didn’t.
[00:34:31] Lara: Thanks for joining us and we’ll see you next week.
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By Lara Wellman“Don’t share how much credit card debt you have.”
“Never tell anyone how much you make.”
“Don’t tell a soul what you paid for that.”
“Never discuss how much you charge per hour.”
Most of us were taught never to discuss money in polite company. It’s considered braggy to tell others about our financial successes and a failure to admit how much debt we carry. Lost you job? Don’t tell anyone if you want to save your pride. And certainly never discuss raises with your coworkers.
If “money makes the world go ‘round” then why is it such a taboo topic? On this episode of Unboxing it, Lara and Rowan challenge the idea that finances should be kept personal and share the ways this belief harms most of us while benefiting those at the top.
Links
Lara makes art - follow her on Instagram
Rowan is opening a coffee shop - follow it on Youtube
Transcript
Please note that these were autogenerated and not edited for accuracy.
[00:00:00] Rowan: We have people who work three different jobs and can’t afford rent. So I mean, yeah. It is not, this whole idea of hard work will be a reward. You just have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and that’s b******t. It just is. That is not true. Welcome to unboxing it. I’m Lara.
And I am Rowan,
[00:00:43] Lara: and today we’re gonna talk about a hot topic and it’s money because when it comes to money, there are so many ways that we can feel. Weird, or we can feel like something’s not working, or we can feel like we need to keep things really hush hush. There’s so many things about money, whether it’s scarcity and fear that you don’t have any, whether it’s, you know, belief that abundance is something you already have or that you want it to come to you.
Like there’s so many different things that we can talk about when it comes to money, and most of the time we don’t. Talk about it. We just feel like it has to be like, we don’t talk about money. So that’s what we’re gonna talk about today.
[00:01:31] Rowan: It’s funny because I’m the one who suggested this topic. Lara is, much better at leading this discussion than I am, and I’ll get into that a little bit.
But even though I suggested it as soon as you said. We’re gonna talk about money. I made a face and a noise, like it was this uncomfortable, like, ugh. You know? And, that’s because that is what I have been taught. Money is a taboo subject. You just don’t discuss it because you might offend someone. You might come across as vain, or you might come across as a failure.
And everything in between. Somebody might think you place too much importance on it. Somebody might think that you don’t place enough. It is a very, very tricky topic, but not talking about it also hurts us. So I’m really looking forward to this conversation, even though I made the eugh face.
[00:02:30] Lara: Yeah, I think, even, one of the reasons that we think we’re not supposed to talk about it is because we were told we’re not supposed to talk about it. Like, not necessarily that anybody explained why. Right. You’re just like, you’re not supposed to talk about that.
[00:02:42] Rowan: Yeah. I’m trying to think of what the exact reason was, and I think the idea that I got when I was growing up was, if you talk about it.
Normally you would only wanna talk about it if things are going well for you financially, and when you share that, it could come across as bragging and make somebody else feel bad for not having as much as you. I think that’s sort of the general idea that I got, even though it wasn’t explicitly said like that.
[00:03:16] Lara: Yeah, I think there’s a bit of that. And the other one for me that I think really surrounds it is you don’t want people knowing your business.
[00:03:23] Rowan: Yeah, yeah. You don’t want people knowing your business. The other thing I’m gonna go back to my grandparents, my maternal grandparents, they were wonderful people.
They both grew up really poor, in their respective families of origin, and when they got together, they were also very poor. My understanding was, they were poor for a while. , I think they bought their first home when they were in their fifties, which, you know, back then is, surprising.
A lot of people, if they were going to buy a home, bought it much sooner than that, to look at them outwardly. Even in those old photos from before I was born, you would never know that they didn’t have anything you would never know. And my grandmother, who I absolutely adored and was very, very close to.
Was also really big on appearance. Her whole thing was class and money are two separate things. So you can have class, you can be a classy person and not be a rich person, and I appreciate that. First of all, I think that’s actually a kind of a good lesson, but I think the undertone of that was. You should always look like you have money and you should talk, like you have money, you should speak, like you have money, you should behave like you have money.
Your table manner should be like, you come from money. And so if you talk about how much money you actually make in that situation, well then you’re gonna give it away and people are going to realize you’re poor. You definitely don’t want that. So I think that was the other side of the coin that I learned, you know, just in passing.
Having spent a lot of time with my grandparents,
[00:05:03] Lara: yeah, there’s a lot of shame around not having money. And so, I mean, that’s where the whole keeping up with the Joneses sort of thing came from. Right? You have to make sure that people think you’re doing okay, that you would never want somebody to think you weren’t doing well because that is shameful.
so this is where I wanna put in the little. Caveat. We are not money mindset experts. There are many money mindset experts out there. I have worked with money mindset experts. I think they’re great. We are not that, but we have some experience and we’re just gonna talk about it. But I just wanted to make that clear from the get go.
we know we’re not money mindset experts.
[00:05:43] Rowan: I am definitely not a money mindset expert. I think now is a great time to share what just happened to me yesterday. Which led to this conversation and we can kind of go from there. I do a lot of meditation and yesterday I decided to challenge myself and do a meditation that I found the least comfortable or interesting.
So I found one on abundance and it was specifically about financial abundance, and my first thought was gross. Gross. that’s my own story that I’m telling myself, right? That trying to attract any kind of financial success is bad. So let’s remember that going forward. And this particular meditation was about half an hour long, and it really has, you kind of go into this place where you’re talking to your inner child, you greet your inner child, and you talk to them about what they have been taught about money and the stories they tell themselves around it.
This half hour meditation did not last half an hour. Within about 10 minutes, I was sobbing on the couch, completely surprised by it. I might add, I had no idea how painful it would be to think about how I view money in relation to myself and to think about how my younger self. Learned about money and what that meant for him.
It was transformative. I still don’t know exactly how, but I do know how trauma works. I wrote a whole book on it, and I know that in these situations you hit a trigger, you hit a trauma point, and there’s a release as you let go. Of that old wound, that old trauma that was stuck in there. And then make no mistake, that was a trauma that was stuck in there that had to do with money around scarcity, around not being enough about not ever deserving to make a decent amount of money.
there were all these different things that were going on. I know that over time, because I did that, my brain is going to rewire, hopefully in a much healthier way, which is good because I’m about to open a business and I, certainly am going to need to have a healthy mindset around making money. I’m going to need to make.
Money to not only pay myself and my partner, but also our staff and keep the lights on. It’s very, very important that I have a healthy mindset around it, which is part of why I challenged myself and did the thing that made me feel, ugh. But I am left with so many questions around. How society got so mixed up when it comes to money and the whole nuanced conversation around it.
Because I’m the first person to say, I don’t think we should have billionaires. I think billionaires are a really big red flag. When it comes to an unhealthy capitalist society, and I also think capitalism can be really harmful, and I think that, you know, I want to see people have a basic income, like I believe in all of these things.
And at the same time, I live in a capitalist society and I need to make money, and I would like to be able to do that without feeling terrible about myself. So it’s all very complex.
[00:09:24] Lara: It is extremely I think it’s like calling it late stage capitalism, right? Like we are at this place where things are kind of breaking down, in my opinion.
Maybe I’ll back up a little bit. So I’ve been a coach for, 15 years. I’ve been a business coach for almost 10. And in the coaching world, there was a lot of push. For coaches to dream big you know, you wanna have your six figure business, but within a few years it became your seven figure business.
Like you need to have your seven figure business. How are you gonna have your seven figure business? You need to dream big, you need to go for,, all that’s possible. And I really struggled with it. I was like, I don’t wanna have a seven figure business part of it. Could be that it felt like a seven figure business would be overwhelming.
Too much work than I had the capacity for.
And part of it is just like, I don’t think I need that.
I don’t want that. And again, right, like the justifications are many. It could be, well, if you have a seven figure business, then you can hire people, you can put more money back into the economy, blah, blah, blah. It just didn’t feel good to me anymore.
And as a result, focusing on money so much is something that a business coach is Mostly meant to be doing, and I was like less and less interested in doing that, which is why I’m stepping back a little bit from business coaching. I am still happy to coach folks who are looking to feel aligned.
They’re looking to find their opportunities, they’re looking to figure out that they can make money, and That’s the difference, right? When we talk about. The different levels of money, mindset and how people feel comfortable or they don’t feel comfortable. I mostly end up coaching folks who struggle to believe that they can make a good income, but they’re not looking for seven figures.
They’re looking to make a good and decent and comfortable amount of money, and they struggle to take the steps needed. To get there. I love helping people get through the money mindset bits that are not feeling comfortable, charging enough, not feeling comfortable earning money. But when it comes to like, how can I make as much money as possible?
Bigger, bigger, bigger that’s not where I like to go. but I think that a lot of our society, the capitalist society has taught us that our value comes from how much we earn. And so. If we don’t earn money, we feel badly. And that’s certainly somewhere that I have been in different stages in my career.
in my head, in my heart also, I feel like I know I could earn more money than I do, but I choose to do different things, whether it’s supporting my family, whether it’s passion projects, so on and so forth. But then am I letting down? And I don’t know who I think I’m letting down in this scenario that I’m not earning my earning potential.
I’m letting myself down. again, coming back to shame, right? Like, it’ll come and it’ll sort of creep in on me and I’ll feel terrible about myself because I know I could be earning more money than I am. So why aren’t I? And it takes a lot of work. That I’m still working on to be okay with the choices I’ve made and to understand that my situation is based on choice.
That being said, there’s a lot of people who are in situations not based on choice I’m not saying that that one does deserve to be shameful, but I’m just saying walking through all the different mindsets we have and figuring out why we’re feeling stuck, or why we’re feeling bad, or why we’re feeling good.
There’s work there to talk about it and to understand what’s going on.
[00:12:56] Rowan: Yeah,
I do think inequality can really weigh on some of us when it comes to making money. I am a bit of an anomaly in that when I was a teenager. I lived in shelters for a time and I couch surfed and I, collected social assistance and I went to food banks and I panhandled.
I also didn’t get a high school education until I was in my thirties. I mean, it just kind of goes on from there, right? So statistically, I should not be where I am today. Not that I’m saying that I’m doing really, really well, I would say that I am doing a lot better than expected and there’s a bit of survivor’s guilt that comes with that. I think that plays in knowing that a lot of the people that I knew back.
In those days are either not alive anymore or are still in really rough situations.
And that there was privilege and, some good fortune in my life to be able to not be in that situation anymore. And that’s taught me, I think two things. One is that guilt of, well, I’m already doing better than.
I really should be, should in air quotes here. And so why would I wanna do better than that? And the other thing is I know what it’s like not to have anything, and I’m terrified of losing what I already have. So if I build things up even more than I am right now, if I become. More financially stable.
If I have a successful, thriving business, you know, whatever it might be, that I could lose it all. And if I lose it all, just the idea of that
is terrifying because I know what that feels like. Yeah.
[00:14:52] Lara: Again, we’re coming back from all these different levels, and directions that people come from.
I also. think that universal basic income is something that we should have, right? I think that that would be a really good thing for our society,
and I think that if everybody was a bit more open
about money, we would understand it works better. There are some people who never want to look at their money because looking at it is the scariest part, right?
Mm-hmm. So whether they’re, racking up huge amounts of debt and they never wanna look at it, or they’re fine, but they never wanna look at it because no matter what direction they’re coming at. They think it’s gonna be terrible if they look at it. So they don’t wanna look at it. And I have talked to people who, when they looked at the numbers, everything was okay, but they had lived in this, feeling of fear for years that things weren’t okay and therefore they couldn’t look too closely at it, or their anxiety would go even higher.
But actually. Understanding the numbers, looking at the numbers, being clear on what’s true helps you figure out how to move forward. And, hiding from it is never the right choice. I don’t think
[00:16:07] Rowan: we hide it from ourselves because we’re so busy also hiding it from everybody else. There is starting to be some workplace transparency.
When it comes to salaries, which I think is really healthy because I don’t think that one person. Should be earning significantly more than another person for doing the exact same job, unless there is a damn fine reason for that. And a lot of times there isn’t. It’s just what the person negotiated at the beginning and then their raises throughout and that sort of thing, and we’re all encouraged in the workplace.
Do not talk about how much you make with your coworkers, which frankly only benefits the people at the top who are. Administrating these salaries who are deciding what these salaries are and who are collecting their bonuses at the end of the year and that sort of thing. Right. I think it’s really important that people talk about it.
I also think it’s really important that we talk about debt, that we don’t try to hide debt because you see people. Who live in these big beautiful houses and drive really nice vehicles and go on beautiful vacations and, it’s easy to ask yourself, why don’t I have that? how are they doing so much better than me?
Sometimes they’re not. Sometimes they are barely paying their credit card or line of credit interest, let alone anything else but. Because they see everybody else doing it in their bubble. They think to themselves, well, I have to live like that too. Otherwise, I am failing myself. I’m failing my partner, I’m failing my kids.
I’m just failing at life. Clearly., If my neighbors can afford that. I should be able to afford it too. If my friends who are the same age as me can afford that, I should be able to afford it too. And nobody stops to think to themselves or very few of us anyway.
Maybe they can’t afford it. Maybe we’re all just doing this. And who does that benefit? The banks, the credit card companies. That’s who it benefits. It does not benefit us at the end of the day.
[00:18:20] Lara: fake it till you make it is not ideal when it comes to money.
[00:18:23] Rowan: No! I think even though we’re not, money mindset coaches, I think we can very clearly state that is not a good approach.
[00:18:31] Lara: But I will say that I think there are some people who teach mindset who say. That you should do that kind of stuff so that you embody that person that would make that money and then you will earn that money. I have heard that messaging and I think it’s not ideal.
[00:18:49] Rowan: That seems dangerous to me. I, I think that there’s a difference between you do actually have the money to go out and have a few more experiences every month.
Maybe you should do that versus. You should rack up a bunch of debt so that you can feel like you are an earner. And then the rest will follow. I don’t know. I think that this is falling into manifestation territory and while I do think that energy is a real thing and that you know, if you’re a really positive person, you tend to have more positive interactions and you know that if you believe in yourself, you’re more likely to achieve goals and all those things.
But I also don’t think that. Money just magically appears because you want it to appear. there is such a thing as self-sabotage, and I do think myself, I have done that. I think that there are times where I have had opportunities to make money it has made me so uncomfortable because I didn’t wanna be that person who is thinking about making all kinds of money.
So I turned it down. I didn’t do it, and I, can think of, a few times in my life where I probably walked away from thousands and thousands of dollars because I felt like I didn’t deserve it or shouldn’t be that person, whatever that person is. but I also know that I am not somebody who can just go get a six figure job because I do not have the qualifications for nearly all six figure jobs.
So that’s not a thing I can suddenly do, just because I’m thinking that I deserve it.
[00:20:29] Lara: Yeah. It is so complex and the biggest message that I hope comes from this is talking about money opens up our knowledge, right? If you don’t know what’s true, if you don’t know what’s actually going on with people, if you don’t know how much things cost, like when you have so many things that you just don’t know because nobody talks about it, then of course people.
Get a little bit confused. Of course, people make up their own stories and that’s why I think talking about it makes a lot of sense. I think to your point, that it should be more open, how
much people make. I think it’s always tricky when things are negotiable, right? So one of the most.
Anxiety ridden things for me about cars is that apparently, depending how hard I push and argue, I can pay less for my car. I don’t really want to do that, but I don’t know how much is reasonable. I don’t wanna be unreasonable. I don’t wanna pay more than I need to. I don’t wanna have a fight, like there’s so many, I don’t want to.
I also get angsty about tipping to be. Fair
because it’s not clear.
and so to me, I would like to buy a car where you give me the most reasonable price and I pay you that amount. but the same is true with jobs, right? And I understand that there’s a range dependent on experience and so on. But if you offer me a job and you tell me the salary is.
I don’t know, $85,000. that’s my starting place for this imaginary job.
[00:22:09] Rowan: Nice job. I like it.
[00:22:10] Lara: But the range is like 85 to 120, let’s say.
And you say, here, would you like $85,000? Like
there’s part of me that would be like, yes, thank you. And then. I don’t wanna seem greedy or pushy or create some kind of conflict that might make them not want me anymore to then ask for more money. But one of the reasons that people make different amounts for the same job is because some people ask for more and then they get it, and some people don’t ask for more, so they don’t get it.
And I think it’s tricky. I think that’s just a tricky thing.
we can ask for more. I think we can also do it probably without arguing,
but it can be uncomfortable. I have a story that might be interesting here, which is we had, one of our cars written off after an accident. And I had looked up how much I thought the car was worth,
so that I would have a sense of that. And then when the insurance adjuster called me and said, okay, so we’re gonna be able to give you this
much, and it was more than I thought it was gonna be. And so I had two choices, I could say, oh wow, thank you. Or
I could say what I thought I was gonna say in the beginning when I thought they were gonna low ball me.
And say,
oh, that’s good. is there any chance you could go higher? And the woman said, no, no, we can’t. And I said, okay. She’s like, it’s based on, a formula. I said, okay. And she said, just hang on a second. I have to check something. And she came back and gave me an extra thousand dollars.
[00:23:42] Rowan: Wow.
[00:23:44] Lara: . So some of it. It’s just like
about asking It doesn’t need to always be like this battle that we’re going into, some kind of, major fight in order to get more. It can just be like, so what else could you offer me? And like, you end up having an interesting and different conversation.
The more we can talk about it, the more we can say, can you go higher than that? The more you say, well, I was hoping for this amount. The more likely it is to happen, but if you don’t ask, people will give you the lower amount.
[00:24:14] Rowan: Yeah, it’s true. I do think that negotiation is hard for a lot of us.
I think it’s also, especially hard for people assigned female at birth who were taught. you know, just be nice. Don’t rock the boat. Be a people pleaser, right? That comes into there. I also think when it comes to negotiating things like new job salaries, there is a level of fear that goes into that of scarcity and also of imposter syndrome.
Like, oh, well you want me for this job, me? You wanna offer me this much? Oh no, I better not ask for more because like this is already too good to be true. If I ask for more, then you might realize you’ve made a mistake and I might never get another job offer like this again. That is a really tough thing to work through when that has been.
The bulk of your life you know, putting that fear first. It’s one of the things that I’ve been working on really hard over the last few months is asking myself when I wanna make a decision, if I have anxiety in my body when I’m doing it, I like to ask myself, what is leading this decision? Is it logic?
Is it. hope. Is it anger? Is it fear? And let me tell you, when I feel like that 99% of the time it is in fact fear that is trying to lead the charge. And fear and money in a capitalist society are attached at the hip. For most of us, I really envy people who seem to have no issue. Asking for more. No issue with turning down a job because like, of course I’m gonna get another job.
Yeah, no, no problem. Or they lose their job and they’re like, it’s fine. I’ll just take some time off for me, when I lose a job, I’m immediately hitting the pavement. Like that day, if you will, the proverbial pavement. It’s all online now, but it’s like, I’ve gotta find something else. Oh, I’ve gotta find next plan.
I gotta go to my plan B. Right? There’s never this pause of. It’s gonna be all right. Just take a few days, figure it out, and then get back out there. Something’s gonna find you. You are going to find it. That is the approach that I’m trying to take with money, even when opening this business because everything on paper looks like it’s going to be great.
And the amount of fear I will experience if I start to think about it too much. What if people don’t wanna buy coffee from us? What if somebody comes in and leaves a bad review? What if the weather’s really bad? , And all of these different variables run through my head, but what it really comes down to is.
I am afraid of success because success, Rowan, as a financially successful person, because I’m successful in a lot of ways on paper, I know that already, like, you know, I have bestselling books, I have awards, I have things that can prove that. But Rowan, as a financially successful person, somehow equates to.
Rowan as a bad person, like Yikes.
[00:27:38] Lara: Yeah.
No matter which way we look at it, it doesn’t work,
right? So either we aren’t making enough money and therefore we aren’t, a value to society, or you’re making too much money and now you’re greedy or you just can’t see yourself doing it. I think fear of success is something most people don’t really realize is a thing, but.
There are a lot of people who get stuck in either like, that would make me a bad person. I have actively heard that. Right. Once somebody makes over a certain amount of money, they turn into an a*****e.
[00:28:12] Rowan: Yeah. Yeah. Like why? Why is it Scrooge and Scrooge do that to us? I
[00:28:17] Lara: . I don’t know. But maybe it’s people who don’t want to be an a*****e who stopped trying to get there.
But the people who don’t mind. Keep going. I don’t know.
[00:28:26] Rowan: Well, I do think there’s something about prioritizing money and success and wealth in general above all else. That is a bit of a red flag for me because I think sometimes it’s a lack of balance, right? Where like people are, maybe prioritizing something.
That is very superficial and not seeming to care, like at the expense of relationships, at the expense of empathy, at the expense of other people. And forgetting that we’re a community and that we’re supposed to lift each other up and help each other. So I think that is where, when I see that excess wealth, I really, really don’t like it as a general rule.
but Because I don’t like that. I think the mindset shift I have to make is I’m never gonna be like that. That’s not ever going to be me. I look at Billie Eilish who just donated what, like $11 million to feed people and encouraged. Other millionaires to do the same and has said like, I think billionaires shouldn’t exist.
Right? But like you could solve world hunger if you wanted to. Like you could do it right now, and you’re just hoarding all this money.
[00:29:36] Rowan: So I think there is a way to be a financially successful person and also still be a generous and kind person. It’s just a matter of switching that in my own head about myself.
[00:29:47] Lara: The other part, and I think this is probably an entirely different conversation, is how hard work is revered and how that’s what’s gonna make you more money. And so there’s definitely, for me, as somebody who has ADHD, as somebody who has chronic fatigue. I was like, I would never be able to handle that. Like I cannot do as much work as is required to make certain amounts of money.
Therefore, I don’t want that level of success because it’ll just kill me. and so again, it’s this whole Blend because there’s a lot of millionaires and billionaires who don’t need to work that much. Like it’s not just that, the amount of money you make and the amount of time that goes into it are not attached in any kind of concrete way.
And so again, it mixes us all up.
[00:30:34] Rowan: We have people who work three different jobs and can’t afford rent. So I mean, yeah. It is not, this whole idea of hard work will be a reward. You just have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and that’s b******t. It just is. That is not true.
I mean, yes, clearly, if I just sat in this room and did nothing all day, I would not earn any money. That would be bad. That is true. But, I also don’t think that what amount of energy I put out to earn money is going to equate with massive success. There are so many other elements that play into that.
A lot of these people that we see, some of them are completely self-made. That’s true. A lot of them are not, a lot of them had at least middle class parents went to really good schools, uh, are white and, you know, able-bodied and often male and just kind of, maybe came up with a good idea or made the right investment and everything sort of took off from there.
But you have other people who. Have been working just as hard, if not harder, who are not in that position and never will be. So we need to stop telling ourselves b******t about money and about how if we just work harder. I really, really resent when people my age and older, because that’s normally where you’re hearing it from.
Not always, but a lot of times it’s older people who had some level of financial success, who look down on people who are buying matcha lattes, you know, every couple of days and going, well, you know, this is why you can’t afford a house. That’s not why they can’t afford a house. Can’t afford a house because homes are.
Extremely unaffordable for most people now. So, yeah, don’t wanna go off on a rant because I think I’m speaking for a lot of people here, but I really think some more honesty about how money gets made. What it means to have money and what it doesn’t mean to have money does not make you a better person.
In no way, shape or form does financial success make somebody a better human being? It makes them often a more comfortable human being. That’s about it.
[00:32:54] Lara: Yeah, so let’s keep talking about it. I think that’s the conclusion here. I’d love to hear if anybody has any stories that they would wanna share, if there’s any other angle they would wanna dig in to on this.
If you are a money mindset coach and you want to talk to us, let’s talk about money some more, because I think it’s important and. Like we talked about today, it can be anything. We’re not saying you need to want more, you need to want less, you need to work harder, you need to work less. Like it’s, all of those things are potentially what’s going on.
It’s so different for each person. So some of it is just talking it through and understanding. You don’t need to try to measure yourself up against other people.
[00:33:35] Rowan: Absolutely. It’s been a really good conversation for me. I think it’s gonna help my brain further process. Everything that happened yesterday and you know, construction just started on our cafe and I now am in a time crunch to get to a point of feeling.
Really good about making money, and I know I’m gonna get there because that’s my new goal and this is the next stage of growth for me. I really hope that telling this story and us both sharing little bits of our lives and our perspectives on this has helped somebody else as well. I really would love to hear if something resonated with you.
And especially if something didn’t too, there’s something that we got wrong. According to you, you should let us know that too. I really think life is about learning, so let us know what you learned and what you didn’t.
[00:34:31] Lara: Thanks for joining us and we’ll see you next week.
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