The Hidden Emotions Sabotaging Your Finances with Jade Warshaw

Transcript:

So you and I both know anything worth having is worth the sacrifice to get it right. I can't think of a time in life where you just get something and you don't have to give anything in return, right? What they wanted to do was set up some sort of bill payment, some sort of schedule pay. And I knew I didn't have the money. And so I'm just putting it off, putting it off.

Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. And it was like, all right, that's it. That's it. Something needs to change here. Wait a second. Why can't I breathe? Why am I drowning in debt? Why does it feel so difficult just to handle my groceries and pay for my gas? So even though you didn't 'cause it, it's your responsibility a lot of times to deal with it, and that is tough.

That is emotional. So, Jade, welcome to the Personal Finance podcast. Well, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be on.

I'm excited to go through your book here and kind of talk about some of the topics that you're talking through because this is something that we talked about a ton on this show is kind of the emotional side of investing. But in addition, just making sure that you can kind of control your emotions and understand why you're feeling the way that you do about money.

I think this is 80 to 90% of your finances, just understanding your emotions surrounding money and why you kind of do what you do. So what was the moment when you started to write this book that you realize that this book needed to exist? Well, it was before I started writing it honestly that I knew it needed to exist because it was so heavily based on my husband and I story of paying off debt in that long journey.

I think anybody who's ever locked into something that requires kind of endurance and perseverance, you know how tough that battle is. It's not just the practical things that you have to do day-to-day, but it's the emotional side of it that you have to endure when everything inside you is telling you to stop or everything inside of you is telling you this is too much, this is uncomfortable.

I think we've all felt that. And when it comes to money, you know, it's, it's, it's par for the course. And so knowing that and seeing how people get so hung up on the numbers financially, I knew it was important to write this book because there is an emotional side to money that we often forget about. And I remember early on in my financial journey, I would go to the numbers.

I was looking at the spreadsheets and I was going across the board and I was kind of thinking through, OK, well, I feel like I'm doing everything right. I feel like I'm doing the right things to move the dial forward. But it seems like I'm still stuck. I don't really know what I need to be doing next. Why do you think so many people feel that way?

They feel like, you know they're doing the right things, but they still feel stuck with their finances. It's likely because they're not hitting a level of sacrifice. Or possibly they are and when they felt that, they retreated back into a place of comfort. So you and I both know anything worth having is worth the sacrifice to get it, right?

I can't think of a time in life where you just get something and you don't have to give anything in return, right? Even if you're, if you're pregnant, you have to carry the baby for nine months. You have to go through, you know, terrible delivery pains and then you get the thing that you wanted so bad, a little bitty baby, right? So that's the way life is.

You have to sacrifice something to get that really amazing thing that you want. And I think often times people don't, I want to go through that because change requires change and sacrifice is tough and endurance is not fun. And so when we feel that we start to retreat, money's no different, right?

If I say to somebody today, hey, you're interested in in investing, you're going to have to find the margin in order to do that. Likely you're going to have to cut something in your budget. Maybe this year your family doesn't go on vacation. Maybe this year, instead of, you know, spending your money in a way that you like, you're going to spend your money in a way that feels less gratuitous in the moment.

Excuse me? And so that's not fun. And a lot of times, our emotions act up and go, wait a minute. But I work so hard. I should be able to do exactly what I want. And that's where we face a problem. And I remember, you know, that is that is exactly right. And I think overall, you know, there's there's a lot of folks out there who kind of hit this moment or they hit this breaking point.

And this is unfortunate for a lot of us with our money. But I remember that this point in time, you know, when I was early on, I was living a paycheck back to paycheck when I got my first job and I went to go fill up my tank of gas in my car and I didn't have enough money to fill out my tank of gas. And that was the moment for me where I said to myself, I was frustrated and I was angry at myself.

I was like, I'm going to figure this out. I'm going to figure out what I need to do next. And you talk about in the book that you had this breaking point where you get you were in $460,000 worth of debt. And you know, you had this emotional breaking point that you kind of you kind of led to this. And I think a lot of people go through this. So can you kind of talk about what that was and what that felt like?

Yeah, sure. So at that point, my husband and I had decided that we knew that we were in debt. We knew we needed a plan to get out of it and we had started walking a plan that's pretty popular. A lot of you have probably heard of the baby steps. It's so 7 steps. Dave Ramsey made it popular and we said, OK, we're going to do that in about a year and a half in.

We're closer to 2-2 years in. It just we hit this wall of feeling like we were taking 2 steps forward, one step back. And you know that feeling, it's just so frustrating. It feels like you're doing all this effort, but your results aren't matching your effort. And when that happens, you want to throw your hands up.

And I remember specifically waking up that morning and the first thing I woke up to was a debt collector calling my phone. I call it 1800 Pay me. So 1800 Pay me is blowing up my line. And I'm like, Oh my gosh. It just felt like every 5 minutes, every 10 minutes, you hear that. And I'd hit it, you know, to ignore it, save it for another day because I knew what they wanted to do was set up some sort of bill payment, some sort of scheduled pay.

And I knew I didn't have the money. And so I'm just putting it off, putting it off. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. And it was like, all right, that's it, that's it. Something needs to change here. And I remember telling my husband, you know, we were driving down the road and I remember telling him to pull the car over because I just had enough. And after he pulled the car over, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm yelling explicatives and, you know, telling him how everything we're doing sucks and nothing's working and all this.

And after the emotions calm down, we were able to kind of see clearly and go, what do we really think's going on here? Because something's happening. The law of the laws of nature tell you that if you make, you know, if you do the right things, you should be making a certain level of progress. So if that's not happening, something must be the, the matter.

And so I remember I was kind of going through with a fine tooth comb and saying, what is it that this plan that we're working is telling us to do? And then what is it that we're actually doing? Because how many times do we become incongruent with the things that we're doing versus the things we say we want to do, Right.

And so when we did that, we realized, OK, there are some, there are some holes in, in, in our efforts. And this is just practically speaking #1 the plan told us that we were supposed to make make minimum payments on all the debt and then take whatever extra and throw it, throw it on the smallest debt. Simple enough. But somewhere along the line, we decided we were smart, smarter than that in quotes.

And we decided, hey, we don't need to pay minimum payments. Let's just take all our money and throw it on the smallest debt. We'll go faster like that, right? And so you kind of talk yourself out of something that millions of people have done a tested, a time tested plan, thinking you're smarter than it. And that usually doesn't work, right.

And so it didn't work for us. That's why we were frustrated. Another reason we are frustrated is we didn't have enough money saved off to the side. So whenever something came up, it was like the house was burning down, right? Because there was just no money saved. So all those things, sometimes you have to stop and go, what am I doing wrong?

My life shouldn't feel this chaotic. My life shouldn't feel this crazy. My emotions shouldn't be going like this. Something must be be the matter. And when we did that, we were able to close those gaps. And then our frustration, I mean, it minimized greatly because we actually started doing things the right way instead of the wrong way.

And I think the moment you talked about there is really, really important for a lot of listeners just to understand is that when you are living in this paycheck to paycheck cycle or you have a negative net worth and you're going backwards a lot of times, you know, you get so far. I just remember that feeling. You're so frustrated, you're so angry.

And all of a sudden you said the dust kind of needed to settle. And when the dust settled and you got past those emotions and realized, I need to figure out what actions I need to take in order to conquer this, to fix this, to make this better. And I think overall, most people, once they realize how emotional money is, they can start to really think in that way.

And So what emotion do you see is holding most people back? Because a lot of people think money is mathematics. It is just, you know, the the analytics, it's optimization. But instead truthfully, and your book talks about this, it is emotional. So what emotion do you think is holding most people back? You know, I go through a plethora of them in the book.

The first one we just talked about, obviously frustration. I think probably fear is one of the ones that we come up against the most simply because there's so many different types of fear. I know with me there was a fear of change, and then there's this fear of the unknown and there's this fear of judgement and there's this fear of failure.

There are so many layers of fear that we face with money. I can tell you from my end, as a person who helps and coaches people with their money, the thing I find the most is just a fear of the unknown. So I'm always telling people about this promised land that they can make it to if they just do these few things with their money, right?

And it sounds simple enough. But then when that person goes home later and maybe they talk to their spouse or they're just in their car driving home thinking about what I just said, they realize, wait a second, the things she's talking about I've never actually seen before. I've never actually accomplished this. Do I know anybody who's done what she's talking about?

And very quickly, there's a fear of, is this true? Is this right? Is this possible? I, I, I, this is an unknown territory for me. So putting it in real context, I tell people all the time, hey, your car note is the biggest thing that's keeping you broke, paying 708 hundred bucks a month.

And then you're wondering why you can't invest. You're wondering why you don't have money for your kids college. You're wondering why you're living paycheck to paycheck, right. And so I'm always telling folks, hey, you need to pay off your car or, you know, trade it in and get a, a less expensive cash car. And when I say that, it's like, Oh yeah, how that makes sense.

And then they leave and go, wait a minute, that does that make sense? Do I know anybody who drives a paid off car? Do I know anybody who pays cash for cars? Have I seen anybody driving a clunker lately? You know what I mean? All those unknown things start to sink in. Do I know anybody who's ever told me that they, they they became a millionaire because they invested their car note right there?

They're running all these scenarios through their head and they're going, wait, this is an unknown territory I want to back up because I don't know about this. Meanwhile, the person who's telling you it does know it's coming from experience. They're telling you, hey, if you just do these few things, here's what's on the other side.

And so I understand the fear, but there's part of it where we have to learn to trust the process. And we have to learn to say, there's going to be people in life who have done things that we haven't done yet. And there's going to be people who are trying to grab our hand and say, hey, come, it's this way. Like if you, if you want to get to financial success, you got to go this way.

And we're going to have to cross through some terrain that's unfamiliar for us. You know, we're going to have to go in places that are uncomfortable, comfortable for us. But the hard part is the body loves comfort, right? The body seeks it. And so the minute we get into those areas that are like, wait a minute, I've never invested this much of my paycheck before.

This feels crazy. Or wait a minute, Jade, I'm used to having this lump of savings. You're telling me to take that and pay off my debt. Are you crazy? Yeah. You're going to feel fear. You're going to feel like that's unknown, and that's OK. It's just about recognizing it for what it is instead of just operating moment to moment and not really understanding what's causing you to make the choices that you're making.

It's so true in so many conversations with people that I have, they have that fear. They have that fear of a lot of times I see it just with like you're saying, you know, doing some of the the things that most people don't do. The Jones next door, they have the Mercedes or whatever other car they have. And so driving the clunker and kind of paying cash for cars and making sure that you're taking the right steps towards that kind of feels unknown.

Another big one is investing where a lot of folks out there, you know, they've never tried investing. They're not sure really what the market is. And I found kind of two things to help people overcome this is 1, Experience, just trying even on a small scale, taking a small bet and kind of getting started investing what in whatever way, shape or form you want to.

But 2, is that financial education? Just trying to educate yourself more, get you more comfortable kind of it with what's going on. So listen to podcasts, YouTube channels, you're reading books like like Jade's book here is just so incredibly powerful to help you get more comfortable to overcome some of those fears.

And it takes a little bit of time, but if you put that time in, it really does help you overcome some of that stuff. A lot of people when they feel stuck, what is the the number one feeling they feel? I remember feeling this myself was frustration and frustration can turn into anger.

And I think this is one thing a lot of people feel when they really get started with their finances and or if they just never been good with money whatsoever. So why do you think that happens? And why can anger kind of sabotage people's finances? I mean, I can speak to it from the perspective that, you know, that I faced it and the folks I talked to and coach on a daily basis.

And a lot, a lot of times what I think it boils down to, Andrew, is we're kind of sold this dream that, hey, go to college. If you can't afford the college, there's a loan for that, right? And then and then get your degree and you know what, you've worked hard, you deserve that new car.

And I know you can't pay cash, but there's a loan for that too. And then get married and you know, you and your spouse, you've all worked hard. You deserve that house. It doesn't matter if the payments 50% of your take home, you deserve it and there's a loan for that, right? And you take the loans and you do the things that it seems culture is telling you to do.

And then you look up and you're like, wait a second, Why can't I breathe? Why am I drowning in debt? Why does it feel so difficult just to handle my groceries and pay for my gas? And like you said, invest a little for the future. I feel like there's nothing left. There's nothing leftover. And so there's just kind of like that feeling of disenchantedness that you look around and say, I feel like I did everything right.

Why am I still so strapped? And I think a lot of us feel that especially now we have an affordability crisis. You know, inflation is crazy, the real estate market is crazy. Just in general, the economic situation for many of us is crazy. Wages aren't keeping up. And so people feel like this is unfair.

These are a lot of external circumstances, things that are happening out there. I didn't 'cause it, I didn't do it. And yet here it is in my lap, affecting my day-to-day. It's affecting everything. And it's unfair. And that quickly goes from an unfair situation to us feeling angry about it.

And the thing with anger is that anger wants justice, right? That's really what it is. When you're angry about something, it simply means something's been done wrong and it needs to be made right. That's what you want. And so a lot of times, because a lot of it feels external and many, much of it is, I'm not saying that's not, but then we look out there and go, well, they need to fix it.

If it's a governmental problem, then the government needs to make my money, right. If it's, if it's the Student Loans, did the Student Loans need to make it right? If my parents ruined my credit, my parents need to make it right. But the hard part about that is we can't control control them, right? And so it is unfair. I will never tell you it's not, it is unfair.

That's very frustrating. That's very angering. But the problem is when we wait around and we're just shaking our fists at the air hoping something will happen, much of the time nothing does happen. And we spend a lot of wasted time waiting for somebody else to clean up a mess that maybe they did make.

But ultimately it's our life. And we're the only one that gets a, you know, make change in our life. So even though you didn't 'cause it, it's your responsibility a lot of times to deal with it. And that is tough. That is emotional. But again, getting to that point where we can kind of accept the hand we've been dealt, accept the situation we're in and say, well, there's always something that I can do to better my situation instead of wasting all my time thinking about them and what they did or didn't do.

Let me think about me and what I can do next. And so that's really what I talk about in the book is making that transition and putting some motivation behind your anger, not just letting it be. I'm going to call it the think and cuss them out, right? Like we've all been there. It doesn't really do anything.

So can we put some motivation behind it? Can we can we target it at something specific so that we can go and ourselves get the justice that it is that we're looking for? And you really have to train your brain to to do this. Like sometimes a lot of external factors will happen to you and it is really frustrating.

It causes a lot of anger. But really focusing on the things that you can control is the ultimate goal, especially when it comes to your money, because there's nothing else you can do. You have to focus on only the things that you can control. And I remember just kind of remembering and saying this to myself over and over and over again, OK, let's focus on the things that I can control.

What can I control in this situation and in this scenario? And I'm going to attack those things. And it really did change my entire life just by focusing on those things that I can control. So a lot of people when they get frustrated and angry, you know, they are going through all these different financial situations and all of a sudden, you know, maybe they're budgeting every single month and they don't have a perfect month.

And I've seen so many people like I say this all the time. I've never had a perfect month budgeting in my entire life. And So what you got to do is just got to move on to the next month and move on. There's probably 12 Amazon boxes at my door right now. But all, All in all, it's one of those things where you just got to move on and get to the next month, roll with the punches and keep it going.

But a lot of people feel shame about this kind of stuff. And so why is shame just such a, a hard thing for us to overcome in our finances? And how do people overcome that? You know, shame is shame is a tough emotion and it's kind of it's an unraveling that happens with your money.

Money. I kind of explain it like this in the book. Probably the first level before we even get to the shame, the first level that we usually kind of experience is kind of like a regret, a buyer's remorse or a regret. I shouldn't have bought that. Like what would make me, you know, buy that dress that was too expensive.

Oh, I bought that Louis bag. What was I thinking? Right? We've all had that moment where we, we spent money and it just, it didn't hit right. Later on. We knew it was dumb then and it's kind of like you can deal with it, move on. You kind of learn from it. Then there's so that's kind of like regret, that kind of entry level layer.

Then after that we kind of hit a level of, of, of guilt. Guilt usually happens when someone else is in the mix. You know, it's kind of like, I did this thing, I know it was bad, but what's really making me feel bad, it's it's affecting my daughter or I really hate it. It's affecting my boyfriend that I did this.

And it's kind of like when our choices not only have a negative impact on us, but then turn around and have a negative impact on somebody else financially, That's when we feel like, oh, this feels terrible. I'm so guilty. Then the next layer on down is what you talked about, Andrew, where that shame hits, where when we've not dealt with the guilt, we've not dealt with the regret.

We've let it hang around and hang around and hang around and now it's starting to affect how we view ourselves as a person. And so no longer is it, Oh my gosh, I, I, I cosigned for that car and now I'm having to pay for it. My wife is having to pay for it. I'm so frustrated now.

It's, I'm the reason that we're not getting ahead. I'm the financial problem, I'm the mistake. I'm the reason it's when you take on a mistake as your own identity and shame is so, so sneaky in that way, because a lot of times you don't even realize it's happened.

And I remember when my husband and I were in the middle of paying off almost half $1,000,000 of debt. I used to hear him because for our situation, my husband, he had $280,000 of student loans. Those came in from his side of the relationship and he always felt it started out as guilt. I, I feel bad about this because here I am, I took out these student loans and now Jade is having to help me pay him off.

And now Jade is having to, you know, we're holding back a family because we're, we're trying to get this financial thing right. And I can understand that. But then what I started to notice is he would say things like, man, I'm just, I'm just holding us back or I'm the reason we can't get ahead or because of me.

And I, I had to call it out. I was my husband's name is Sam. I said, listen, Sam, I said you got to stop that because the choice, the choice to make a, you know, to have a bad choice, that's, that's human. Like everybody makes bad choices and that's OK.

We can gang up against the problem. If we can say, well, the problem is the debt, the problem is the Student Loans, the problem is the car payment, The problem is a bad business plan. If we can point to that, then we can fight it together. But if somebody is wearing it as their own identity, I'm the problem.

Well, now suddenly there are, there are issues in the relationship. So that's why it's so important to be able to decouple yourself from. The the mistake that you made and as trite as it might sound, the only way to do that is to forgive yourself. And that's what I talk about in the book.

So many of us, we do things financially and we just keep it around. We wear it. We don't take the time to go, man, that was a mistake. I shouldn't have done that. I'm not the mistake. I I need to let that go. I need to forgive myself. And I talk about some practical ways to do that in the book that really have helped me and have helped the folks that I work with.

But we kind of forget that there are these deeper emotional struggles when it comes to money. And so hopefully this is a good reminder for anybody if they need to take a closer look at that. Exactly. And I think most people listening right now, you've probably already felt some of these emotions that we've talked about. You probably felt a lot of these different things and probably have not examined them fully in terms of how this is impacting your dollars, but also your everyday life.

Because we talk about money. Money is just the tool. It's the tool to get you what you want out of life. And really, if you can examine some of these things, you're going to realize, oh, I can make a change. I can make a shift. I can focus on what I can control. And this is really, really going to help help you because here's another big thing is a lot of people, and you talk about this in the book, a lot of people have these hidden beliefs.

And a lot of this has to do with your upbringing or, you know, how you were brought up with money or different circumstances that you've gone through throughout your life where you have these ingrained beliefs in your brain when it comes to money. I see so many of these different beliefs when I come across, you know, having conversations with people. And I think it's just fascinating to see how different upbringings actually 'cause people to have these different beliefs.

But what are some of the common belief patterns that you see people have? Oh boy. It, it, it runs the gamut. I mean, probably 1 of the biggest things is the, the impossibility that it is to, to build wealth, to become a millionaire. A lot of people think that that is unreachable depending on, you know, your background culturally, depending on your economic background, how you grew up, the people around you, that, that affects how we see our life and how we see possibilities.

So that's a big one that I see paying off debt. A lot of people go, Oh my gosh, Dave, I'm with you on paying off the credit card debt. I'm with you. Maybe I'm paying off the car, but paying off student loans, that's impossible, right? So I would say that those two are, are big ones.

You know, I'll tell you another big one that is, is really interesting to me is I always tell folks that they don't need a credit score. I you know, I haven't had a credit score in, in years. And they go, that's crazy, Jade, how can you live without a credit score? And I say, well, for me, I realized a long time ago, I didn't want to deal with debt because it wasn't getting me anywhere.

And so I thought, well, nothing is better than just using my own cash. I don't care about a credit score because it's just a measure of debt anyway. So I'm letting my credit score go and they're like, that's crazy. How can you buy a house? I'm like, I bought it with a zero credit score. It's a you can't do that. And so a lot of it simply is just I, I, I say it in the book, you know, what informs our mind?

It's kind of like ChatGPT, you know, ChatGPT, it doesn't create any new content. It just takes what's already there and spits it out to you. And a lot of times that's the way our minds work. Our minds run on what we've, what we've already seen, what we've seen happen to other people and what we've heard.

And so every once in a while something pops in that that was never in the system, right? Somebody tells you, hey, did you know that if you just invested $500 a month for, you know, 30 years, you could be a millionaire? What? That's impossible. That was not in my system before. And it's kind of like sometimes you have to run these things out so that you can actually see is it true or not?

We can't just go with our first reaction of that can't work, that's impossible. That's not true. We have to do a little bit of due diligence and say, well, is it true? Maybe it's just something I didn't know. Maybe it's this is new information. Maybe I need to run this out a little bit.

And what I found is that if you take the time and really show people and explain it and explain the numbers, then it's like, okay, so logically we've proven that this can happen. Now let's talk about your beliefs and why that's keeping you back and how we can kind of start to to run that out. And so, yeah, credit score, building wealth, paying off debt, all possible.

I love that and I think the one of my favorite studies ever on millionaires is the study that that you guys did at Ramsey Solutions where you surveyed those 10,000 millionaires. And we reference this all the time because it's just so cool to see how those folks actually became millionaires. I mean that most of them did it through their four O 1K. It was just so cool to kind of watch that most of them did not inherit money.

I think a lot of people just have these beliefs where they think that, you know, to become a millionaire, you have to do all these different things. Know anybody in this life, And this is what we truly believe here is anybody can become a millionaire. They just kind of know the the next step to take. And I think overall, that's why it's just such a a powerful message and why you talk about this in the book too, is money is like running a marathon.

And it's like, you know, there's this long term thing that we need to make sure that we have a plan set in place as we start to run this marathon. So what does financial endurance look like in everyday life to you? Yeah, what you're talking about here is, is the answer to all of this, right? We were talking about frustration and anger and fear and guilt.

And at the end of the day, there's just this acceptance of the process that has to take place. And I love that marathon analogy because not only is it reminding us that there is an endurance there, but it's reminding us that there is a process part of it. So I remember when I decided I wanted to run a marathon, which my husband and I did last year.

It was it was the culmination of years of finally making this choice. It was this thing that was in the back of my head for a decade. You should run a marathon. This would be a good idea. But every time, Andrew, there were there were reasons that I didn't do it. It's too hot, it's going to take too much time.

It's expensive. I'm not in great shape right now. You know, maybe in a couple months when things calm down, there's always something that wants, you know, you do not do it. And finally I hit my 40th birthday and I was like, man, it's now or never. Because the truth is, if there was an optimal time to do this, it's already passed, right?

Because now I got two kids. I'm 40 years old. Let's just do this. It's now or never. And I had to accept that there were going to be things that we're going to make this tough, that we're going to be uncomfortable. And I was right. You know, when you run a marathon, you're, you're saying ahead of time, hey, this is going to be at least 8 to 10 weeks or more of training, right?

You could be in that thing for three months training. And every day gets progressively more difficult, right? That's the truth. The truth is you can't control the weather. Some days you're going to be out there in the rain and some days it's going to be, you know, cold or some days it's going to be really hot. Whatever time of year you run, your, your hamstrings going to hurt, you know, all of these things.

And you're supposed to run regardless. And money is the same way. Some days you're going to feel it, other days you're not. Some days you're going to get your paycheck and you can't wait, you know, to open up your Charles Schwab account, right? And other days you're going to get your paycheck and you're just like, man, I don't want to do any of that.

I just want to, I want to buy a new couch or, you know, I want to do what I want to do. And then there's going to be times where you feel really good about the fact that you and your spouse said we're going to pay off this debt together, even though it's mostly their debt and and you're happy to make those transfers. And then there's going to be days where you're like, I don't know why, but this is just not hitting right.

And I'm feeling I'm really frustrated that I have to put my hard earned money over here to pay off a debt that I didn't even create. Right. That's the raw and the reel of the whole situation. And one of the other things I learned about the marathon is that it's more than just having the head knowledge. Like I know I got to wake up.

I know I have to run, you know, 12 miles today. I know I got to, you know, wear the right clothes, all that stuff. But then there's kind of the the the habit side of it, and there's putting the systems into place. Like we all learned from James Clear Atomic Habits. Those systems matter so much.

And it's the same thing with money. Can we put the right systems in place so that when our emotions act up, we still do the right thing? You know, when it was time for me to run, I would lay my clothes out at night. I would put my protein powder, my amino acids, all my electrolytes. I would put all that stuff right there so there was no getting past the fact that today I have to run.

I'd fill my water bottles up ahead of time. It's the same thing with money. Can you go ahead and automate that transfer? Can you go ahead and set an alarm in your phone to check in with your budget? Can you go ahead and do those things? Can you pack your lunch every day and just keep it in the refrigerator and make it the night before so it's there?

You wake up in the morning, all you have to do is grab it. So you don't go to lunch every day and, and, and spend your margin on McDonald's, right? Those are the things that we need to be doing. It's the process. And if we can accept the process, we can win. Exactly. And let me let me piggyback off your marathon example because in 2012 I ran the New York Marathon and I decided this was when I was in college and I decided, you know what, I'm going to run this marathon.

And in weeks we're coming up to the marathon. I didn't train, didn't train. It got closer and closer and closer, still didn't train. And somebody gave me like a ticket to, to join the New York Marathon. So I finally did it. I started the marathon, marathon without training whatsoever and kind of started to go on and finish the marathon. I told myself, hey, this was all became a mental game, like I'm not going to stop.

If I stop, I'm not going to be able to go again. So I went all the way through, finish the marathon in four day for four days after I hardly could walk whatsoever. And this is because I didn't have a plan in place. And you're talking about the system and plan in place when you go on this journey and when you have this marathon in life is really, really important.

Otherwise, you're going to get knocked out and you're going to get laid up. And so you got to make sure that you have that plan in place. And like you said, I love the you talking about automation because that automation helps me so much. It removes my willpower from that equation and just allows me to invest. It allows me to save in my emergency fund. It allows me to save in my sinking funds.

It just kind of gets the ball rolling. So I don't have to think about it anymore. I don't have to rely on my willpower anymore. Those are the best systems to have in place. And I think it's so powerful to utilize that example. One thing I see a lot, and this is really, really big, especially obviously in this day and age where we have social media everywhere.

And you know, we have our neighbors kind of overextending themselves and going into deeper into debt. But it's financial envy and a lot of people are envious of what other people have and or are doing. They're going on these vacations, all these other things. So how do people kind of think through, how can they kind of avoid this comparison trap with the people?

And what are some steps that you took to do the same thing? Yeah, financial envy is. It's kind of a ugly thing. You know, we've all experienced it. It's that feeling that it's really hard for you to celebrate other people, right? We've we've all been there. Somebody walks into the office or maybe your friend, you know, comes in, you know, comes over and is telling, Oh my gosh, I just got a promotion or, you know, your sister's showing you her new car and it's very hard for you inwardly to celebrate them.

You're trying to like threw a a fake smile go Oh, wow, great, right. And and you can't help the tone. It kind of sounds a little, you know, so not very nice. And it's just like, oh, you have a hard time celebrating people. Or maybe you're that person who, you know, you, you see somebody post a win on social media and you're the person who kind of slides in the comments and you're like, oh, well, must be nice.

And you're making these comments like, no, don't troll them. Don't troll them. Just just let them celebrate. And and I get it. You know, I, I remember specifically many times when Sam and I were going through, you know, paying off our debt, we were sacrificing at such a high level that it was hard because you see people seemingly doing whatever it is they want to do with money.

Seems like they're winning with money. And what's really happening is you're feeling behind, you're feeling stuck, you're feeling less than. And instead of dealing with that, it comes out as, oh, well, if I had a spouse who made that much money, I'd be doing that too. And you say these kind of snide kind of must be nice type comments.

And it's, it's tough, it's tricky. And So what I tell folks to do, I'm like, hey #1 let's recognize the problem, which is the problem is you're feeling insecure. That's the problem. It doesn't have anything to do with them. They're winning. They're over there eating a sandwich, celebrating, having a glass of champagne. You're the one who has got the problem.

So that's thing one. And then thing #2 is, well, what's really under the surface? Under the surface, you feel like you're behind. You feel like they're they have something that you wish you had or you feel like you should have. And if that's the case, can we ask him how they got it? Can we just, can we be more curious and less critical?

That's really what we're looking at. Can we say, OK, if there's a person at work who left the job, they quit and they started their own business and they're being successful and you're still at the office and you're feeling jealous and you're thinking, man, I should be doing something like that.

I know more than they knew anyway, right? Can you, can you call him up and say, hey, let's have some drinks? And then at the drinks, can you say, hey, tell me about how you made your business plan? Tell me about how you found investors. Tell me about can we do that? Because that's actually productive as opposed to you being at home losing sleep over the fact that that person is successful and you're not, right.

So I think that's the thing again, it's that awareness of being aware of your emotions so you can actually pinpoint what it is. Because nobody, I think if we stop and realize, oh, I'm being jealous, no one likes that feeling. No one wants to sit with that.

And so most of us, if we just allow us to realize, Oh my gosh, I'm actually envious of them, I'm hating on them, then we'll go, OK, that needs to stop. What do I need to do instead? So it's just all about that awareness. I love that and I think having the humility, just a ghost to someone and have these conversations ask, you know, kind of what they did, what are the steps that they took.

Most people don't have these money conversations or these productivity or, or career conversations that they could have. And really you can learn so much more from other people who have actually gone out and done it. And it's just coming there with a humble heart and having conversations with them. I think that is just so powerful 'cause they want.

It cancer they, they, they want to tell you what it is right? They they're happy to know if you if somebody came up to me today and was like, hey Jade, I'm investing for the first time. I don't know what to choose. I am so happy to sit with them and go, Oh my gosh, yeah, let me help you out, you know? And so even understanding that people want to help, generally successful people are happy to share some things that they've learned.

And so if you're viewing that person as successful, chances are they're going to want to help you get where they got. Exactly. I think that's just such a such a powerful lesson for sure for someone right now who's feeling tired, they're feeling frustrated, they're feeling stuck. What would you say to them or what emotional shift do you think they need to make?

You know, the hard part is when you're doing something and you have a, a, a long time frame, there's a long horizon from, from when you'll see the endpoint, whether it's long term investing, whether it's paying off debt, whether it's saving up for kids, college.

It can be easy to say, man, this is just taking forever. Like, can I put it in the microwave? You know, can I make this thing happen faster? And the tendency is to want to take your foot off the gas or possibly give up. And I always tell people I'm like, the time is going to pass anyway.

And that's the exercise that we have to go through all the time in our minds. I remember specifically back in 2008, Great Recession, right? Everything was coming down. Real estate was crazy, the bubble burst, gas prices were insane.

I don't know if you guys remember that. And right in the middle of that was when everything was hit in the fan with Sam and I with our debt. And I remember listening to Dave Ramsey on what was then called the Dave Ramsey Show. And he was chilling. He was like, man, real estate so low.

I'm just buying up real estate. And I remember specifically being like how in the world like I remember feeling and here it is. I felt a level of envy, like jealousy. I was like this guy, he's not feeling like I'm in a blender right now.

This the world is beating me down because I was smacked. I was in debt. I was smacked dab in the middle of all the problems. And I remember him saying, if you position yourself, he he said, if you can position and start to do the right things over time, you will position yourself to fly over the storm.

And I remember him saying that. And I remember thinking, yeah, the world is the, you know, economics are cyclical. It's always there's a good time and then there's a bad time. There's a good time and then there's a bad time. And I remember saying to my husband Sam, I said, we need to start doing the good things now because this time is going to pass and we're going to get out of it.

And it's, yeah, we're going to have scars and it's going to be tough, but we're going to get out of it. But the next time this stuff hits the fan, we're going to be ready. And we're going to be flying above the storm. And we're going to be looking at everybody else running for their lives, you know? And we're going to go, OK, we're in a safe space. We're not going to be caught up in the tornado like last night.

So that to say, the time is going to pass. And so from 2008, time went on, we paid off our debt, we saved up three to six months. And do you want to know what happened next? 2020 COVID. And in that moment, I was like, man, this is it, this is it.

The time is going to pass. And when COVID hit, yes, it was uncomfortable. Yes, our business shut down for a while and it wasn't fun. But financially we were OK Financially, we had positioned ourselves, just like Dave said, to fly over the storm. And so the moral of the story is the time is going to pass anyway, that 10 years, that eight years, that 16 years, whatever it is.

And you have a choice. You can let that you can wake up 10 years from now and you can either be the same as you are now, which is unlikely. You can be worse off, which is you never did anything. So the debt piled up, the interest piled up, you never set aside for retirement and and now it's time to stop working.

You don't have anything, right? It can be worse, or you can get busy now and do the things that you know to do and do them with intensity and do them with perseverance and you can actually be way better off in 10 years. You can be flying above the storm.

You can be exactly where you need to be and people are going to be looking at you going, how did you do it? That's the point. That's what we're trying to get to. And it's such a powerful, it's such a powerful lesson just looking at this 'cause you have to, like you said, you have choices to either your choices, either, you know, you can stay exactly where you are today, you can go backwards and or you can make the decision to make a change in your life today.

Anybody in this life can build wealth. They just have to know the steps to take in order to do so. And that's why I love you know, your book is it evaluates the part about money that most people don't think about. Once they realize that they can control their emotions and control the psychology side of money, it really will absolutely change their life.

So Jade, I want to shift gears here. I want to ask you a couple of rapid fire questions that we ask a lot of our guests. But the first question, and I'm really excited for your answer on this one because I am a huge sneaker head as well. So I want to hear your, your answer to this. What is your favorite Jordan of all time? The ones I'm wearing that day, so today.

I'm wearing. Oh, I love that. Damn, wearing the lost and founds, Jordan won high top. It's whatever I'm wearing for that day. So that's what we've got on today. I love it. Here's my favorite of all time. I have it in my background and I as a kid, I always wanted these.

It's the the bread elevens, but I always wanted these as a kid because I played basketball throughout like my whole my whole life and finally got them as an adult and overpaid for them. But that's OK. It was it was worth it overall. So I love that. So the next one is if you could tell your younger self one thing, what would it be?

Oh if I could tell my younger self one thing it would be don't take out student loans to like spend on lifestyle. I've seen so many people do that and it's it is over and over again. So yes, that's a great one for sure.

What is the best Money Advice you've ever received? Best Money Advice I ever received would have been, yeah, baby steps, pay off your debt, save up three to six months, invest 15%. Like if you can do there's seven steps, but if you can really just do those three, you're, you are above and beyond in life financially a. 100% and it's just, it's just knowing those steps, that's how people get to millionaire status over and over again.

How do you plan to level up your finances this year? I've been we're working to pay off our house. That's kind of. The goal so. Awesome. We're all taking on any of those 50 year mortgages coming out. So just. Don't do it. Just say no.

Yeah, exactly, and the last 1 is my favorite one, and it's one that we get different answers every single time. But what does wealth mean to you? Oh, for me, in this season, I don't think there's anything more time. I, I, I'm a big one.

Like wealth is, is, is time. Like if you can buy your time back, that's what matters. I've got young kids at home. So if you can get to the point where you're like, I do what I want to do because I want to do it and I do it on my time, that to me, there's nothing better than that because money is great.

Like it's great to go to a job and make money and do all that. But if you're taking time away from your family, you're always feeling it. So setting yourself up to be able to do what it is that you really want to do on the time that you want to do it, man, wealth is time. 100% and I cannot stress anybody out there who is, you know, listening and they, they either want to start a family or have a family eventually.

Getting that time back is so incredibly powerful. I have a six, four and one year old and it's just everything to have that freedom and flexibility. So 100% that is absolutely massive. Well, Jay, thank you so much for coming on today. Where can people find out more about you, your book, and everything else you have going on? Yeah, thanks for having me. If you're looking for the book, you can find it at ramseysolutions.com/store.

Obviously it's anywhere nice books are sold, Barnes and Noble, Amazon. It's all of their target.com and then if you're looking for me, I'm always on Instagram. So just find me Jade Warshaw on Instagram. It's actually me running the page so. Absolutely.

Well, thank you so much again for coming on. We truly appreciate and can't wait to have you back one day all. Right. Thank you so much. Take care.