Did you know that financial scarcity actually causes a measurable drop in IQ?

Not just a feeling, actual cognitive impairment that changes how we make decisions, often making a hard situation significantly worse.

This week on the Joy First Podcast, I'm sharing my honest score from the money and security section of the Joy First Audit (nine out of twenty, if you want to know), and getting real about what's behind that number.

This isn't a tidy little success story, it's a pretty raw look at 20 years of entrepreneurial cycles: the lawsuit that ate my savings, the double-burnout before 30, the year, six and seven figure successes, the year everything seemed to break at once, the ten year cycles, and what I'm doing right now in this next 'rebuild' stage.

We explore:

• How Scarcity makes us dumber
• The tunneling effect and why financial stress pushes us toward decisions that feel urgent but make things worse long-term
• My full money origin story, the parts I don't usually talk about
• How the Joy First Audit surfaces the difference between actual financial reality and the fear running the show
• The practical choices I'm making right now to reduce costs without abandoning the self-care that's keeping me functional
• Why building recurring, non-time-dependent revenue is the priority I keep coming back to
• Three brilliant women whose work has genuinely changed my relationship with money, and where to start with each of them
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Resources mentioned:

• Denise Duffield-Thomas: Get Rich Lucky Bitch + Money Bootcamp — denisedt.com
• Ann Wilson: The Wealth Chef
• Catherine Morgan: It's Not About the Money (book + podcast)
• The Joy First Audit: joyfirstworld.com/substack (free + paid with custom GPT)
• Find this (and last week's episode on Vitality) on our new YouTube channel @joyfirstworld

The Joy First Podcast is hosted by J.Nichole Smith, colour psychology expert, brand strategist, and working mum of two: finding, choosing and sharing joy while navigating the messy middle. New episodes drop every other week.

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