Tami Simon: Welcome to Insights at the Edge, produced by Sounds True. My name’s Tami Simon, I’m the founder of Sounds True, and I’d love to take a moment to introduce you to the new Sounds True Foundation. The Sounds True Foundation is dedicated to creating a wiser and kinder world by making transformational education widely available. We want everyone to have access to transformational tools such as mindfulness, emotional awareness, and self-compassion, regardless of financial, social, or physical challenges. The Sounds True Foundation is a nonprofit dedicated to providing these transformational tools to communities in need, including at-risk youth, prisoners, veterans, and those in developing countries. If you’d like to learn more or feel inspired to become a supporter, please visit SoundsTrueFoundation.org.
You’re listening to Insights at the Edge. Today, my guest is Spencer Sherman. Spencer was named one of the top wealth advisors in the United States. He founded a sustainable financial firm with Buddhist values and he has an MBA from Wharton Business School. With Sounds True, Spencer is the coauthor of The Money and Spirit Workshop. He also is participating in Sounds True’s new Inner MBA program and bringing his work on the inner mastery of money to the Inner MBA. The Inner MBA is a nine-month training program Sounds True is producing in partnership with LinkedIn, Wisdom 2.0, and a division of NYU called MindfulNYU. You can learn more at InnerMBAProgram.com.
Truth be told, most of the people I know have some type of neurotic or confused or highly charged relationship with money. Here, Spencer describes how we could have a wise, healthy, uncharged relationship with money. Here’s my conversation with Spencer Sherman.
Spencer, I’m so glad that you’re bringing to the Inner MBA a special Accelerator Workshop on “The Inner Mastery of Money.” I think when someone hears at first “The Inner Mastery of Money,” I can imagine them thinking God, even before inner mastery, I’d love to have a decent relationship with money—before I even get to the mastery level.
To start, what keeps us from having a healthy relationship with money? Truth be told, I don’t know very many people who do have a healthy relationship with money. Why is this so tough?
Spencer Sherman: Yes, Tami. I like to think of money, I like the metaphor of the iceberg. On the tip of the iceberg, what we see represents all the ordinary things with money that we often think about, like bills and taxes and investments and insurance and credit cards and mortgages and houses. All that’s in the top half of the iceberg, and then there’s the submerged part of the iceberg, and that’s where our fixed beliefs with money and our fear lies, and that’s what I’ve discovered really drives the bus with money.
I mean, I have a Wharton MBA, and what I’ve discovered is that those beliefs that we cling to around money and the fear we have around it drive the best of us, in terms of our behavior with money. I think you know a little bit of my story with money, that I had this experience of running into a building that was completely unsafe as the firefighters were putting out a fire in Philadelphia a long time ago. I, and a few other people, somehow convinced the fire marshal to let us into that building where my stuff was, my material possessions. Only discovered they were all worthless after I recovered them.
That day was a huge wake-up for me, Tami, because I realized I had this belief very solidly embedded in my mind that my self-worth equals my net worth. I’ve discovered that’s a somewhat pervasive belief in this culture, and that belief drove me to value my stuff more than my life.
TS: OK. When we talk about this iceberg analogy, which I think is a powerful one, can you give me some examples of fixed beliefs that are “driving the bus,” as you say, when it comes to how we handle money?
SS: Yes. I’ll share some that I can recall from some of the workshops I’ve done. God will provide. It’s easier to get a camel through the eye of a needle than a rich man into heaven. Stay out of debt. I don’t deserve it. Don’t trust people with money. I mean, here’s one that I have very strongly growing up: rich people are happier. Money is everything. Your net worth equals your self-worth. You have to work hard to get money. I’ve heard this from a lot of women: women aren’t good with money. I didn’t get that money success gene. Money is evil. Those are some of the messages that I hear, and those messages override anything we learn in school around money.
That’s why I’ve seen MBAs make the same errors with money, do the same irrational things that the rest of us do with money. I’ve realized that it’s not just about what we know or even our experience with money. It’s these emotional beliefs. These fixed beliefs are really driving our everyday money behavior.
TS: OK, well, let’s just choose one that I think is pretty common, which is: I’ll never feel really safe and secure. I’ll never have enough money. I’ll never have enough money. I don’t feel safe. I don’t feel secure. Let’s say someone says, “I know that’s a belief that I have because I’ve had it my whole life and I’ve never felt secure, never felt like I had enough.” How is Spencer Sherman, with his work around the inner mastery of money, going to help me with that belief? I’ve felt it my whole life and it seems entrenched.
SS: Yes. This belief about not having enough. Well, you’re in very good company because I think all of us have that sense that there’s not enough. I mean, we live in a culture that’s all about more. John Rockefeller, the world’s first billionaire in 1916, his definition of enough was “just a little bit more.” I think that was an incredible dharma teaching, because if he’s saying that enough is a little bit more, then we know it’s not about accumulating, it’s not about getting to a number. Although I will say, and I’ve been very clear about this, that our basic needs need to be satisfied of food, shelter, health care, basic education, all of that.
Then, literally, someone doesn’t have enough if they don’t have those things satisfied, and that puts us into a huge place of stress. I’ve always said that I think there’s a huge opportunity in this country. If we were to give everybody a living wage so that they had enough for the basics, first of all, we’d recognize their humanity, but we’d also see all this economic potential. As a Wharton MBA, I’m saying, hey, let’s think about this idea of enough, because if everybody had the basics for enough, we’d liberate a lot of potential in everybody.
When people are in that stress place around not having enough, they’re not creative. I think there’s an opportunity there. For the rest of us, I think it’s this realization that we’re never going to get to enough by wanting more, and that the way to enough is to start appreciating and meeting what you have, start living in this present moment, because enough also brings us into the future. Like someday I’ll have—when this happens, or when I have this much money, then I’ll be in a place of equanimity. Then I’ll be able to relax.
I’m saying, and I think John Rockefeller was saying, you’re not going to get there. It’s time to just recognize that you need to start practicing being … Taking on this practice of enough right now.
TS: Now, here you are, you’re the founder of Abacus Wealth Advisors. I presume that you’ve met at a conference room table again and again and again with many wealthy individuals, you are helping them invest their money. I’m sure you’ve met with people at all different levels of financial means, but here you’re meeting with people who clearly have enough. They could relax. They could say, “We’re good. We’re good. We’re at peace. We’re chill.” But yet, they’re not. They’re not acting that way. They’re not feeling that way. Even hearing you talk about it, I wonder how much it penetrates people’s beings such that, like—what actually works to get people to come to this place of relaxation and ease?
SS: Yes. It’s the recognition of the stress that not having enough produces, that when we’re always on that hamster wheel of wanting something to be different, wanting more, there’s a stress with that. I think, when that stress gets to be intense enough, we wake up and say, what are the other options? If nobody is getting to this place of enough, not even the billionaires, then what if I just start to experience that I have enough money, enough time, enough friends, enough skills, enough brain power? What if I have enough right now? To me, that, it’s a liberating idea and it’s one that we can start to practice.
TS: One of the most interesting aspects to me, Spencer, of your work is how you draw on Buddhist teachings and use their wisdom to help us with our money neurosis and money insanity. I wonder if you can give some examples of that, where you draw on Buddhist teachings and help us with our money life.
SS: Yes. Well, I think one of the principles of Buddhism is being content with what one has, and it’s letting go of the future and living in this moment, being right here with this inhale and this exhale. This work is about coming into the present moment, is letting go of the future bringing you anything that you don’t have today. Again, Tami, this is assuming that we all have those basics.
I thought I’d share one other example of somebody who asked … A client asked me, who had a couple million dollars, which is a lot of money, but said to me that “If you can double my money, I’ll be free. I’ll have this freedom.” He almost talked about it in a Buddhist context. I got so excited about that, this possibility of that if I could only double his money, he’d be free. Five years later, the markets cooperated, he saved money, he had doubled his money. I walk into the office and I’m so excited to deliver this incredible news, and instead of him being less stressed, he’s more stressed. He has a look of dread on his face.
It actually was the beginning of a wake-up call for him, and this person has actually become one of the most generous clients that I have, and that’s the other thing that happens when we get to this place of enough: you start to become more generous. And I think it’s also true that, as we become more generous, we recognize the enoughness of what we have, and that generosity leads to a much more open heart. It’s a condition for happiness and well-being, and then it connects us to many other beings as well.
Let’s talk about this structure of the brahmaviharas from Buddhism. The brahmaviharas are the four highest emotions in Buddhism. The one I like to start with is equanimity, because that’s all about finding peace within the storms. I think so much with money, we have this idea that, or in a lot of areas of our life, that if I do everything well, if I brush my teeth, floss, take the right vitamins, meditate, listen to all the podcasts at Sounds True, etcetera, I’ll have this life that’s just smooth and even keel the whole way, right?
The equanimity practices are about knowing that there’ll be setbacks and developing this resilience inside so that you can be with the ups and downs of your investments or the ups and downs of your business. Knowing that in advance can lead to very different decisions than if you have some idea that it’s going to be this constant upward trend. That’s equanimity, which is also upekkha in the Pali language. Then I thought we could talk a little bit about sympathetic joy.
TS: Sure.
SS: Yes, because sympathetic joy is, to me, the Buddha was really recognizing something underneath sympathetic joy. Sympathetic joy is about feeling joyful for another’s success, right? That’s somewhat of an un-American idea, right? The idea that you’re going to be happy when other people are happy. I grew up in New York City. I grew up to be competitive, to not be happy when another person is happy. I think what the Buddha was really pointing to was envy and ill will.
What I became aware of in my life is how much envy I had of a person in my life or a friend in my life. I saw how it was really keeping me from enjoying this person, loving this person, and also being successful myself, because every time this person had something to report about their life going well, I noticed these unpleasant emotions. Like I wasn’t proud of them, that here I was meditating for several years and I was still having all this envy.
If I can call this person Buddha Boy, for a moment, Tami, Buddha Boy was someone who can meditate for hours perfectly still. He’s this super athlete. He has two best-selling books. I kept saying, what about me? Why is this person getting all the attention? Can’t the sun shine a little less on him and a little more on me? That’s when I turned to this mudita, sympathetic joy practice. The essence of it is wishing that person absolute success, more success. And I was like, that is the craziest thing, wishing him more success.
There’s a part of me that wants him to fail a little bit. But I took on the practice, because I knew how much this was costing me, this envy. I did it for a month, and you know what happened? Nothing in a month. Nothing. I felt no change, but I stayed with it. In the second month of doing this, wishing this continued success for him, amplified success, things started to shift. I can say today that I feel happy when Buddha Boy calls me and tells me about another success in his life. The envy in my body has decreased immeasurably.
TS: OK, Spencer, I want to really get into this for a moment because I think almost all of can relate and can think of someone that we compare ourselves to.
SS: I like that you used that word compare, because I think that’s the generic word for it. We have a lot of comparing minds, right?
TS: Yes. In this case, since we’re talking about the inner mastery of money, we compare our financial situation to their financial situation, and their money seems to be multiplying. OK, so how do I actually do this? I pick the person who, for me, is Buddha Girl or Buddha Boy, or whatever you want to call it. How do I actually take time to wish this person success? What do I do? What am I saying? How am I practicing this?
SS: OK. I invite you to close your eyes and picture this person in your mind’s eye and notice for a moment, just breathe for a moment, notice how you’re feeling, even as we begin this exercise. Then as you’re picturing this person, say to this person, either silently or semi-audibly, “I wish you unlimited success. May you flourish in all ways. May your happiness continue and increase.”
TS: All right. Let’s just pretend that when we say inside, “I wish you unlimited success,” we hear a little smarmy voice that says, “No, I don’t.” What do we do then?
SS: Well, that’s what I … For a month, Tami, nothing happened with this practice with me. Some days it actually, just like you’re saying, it got worse. I became even more aware of this intense envy that I had. I’d say, continue. Just bring constancy to this practice because … That was my experience, is that it took me about six weeks of doing this practice daily. I spent about five minutes a day on it daily for about six weeks until I started to see that structure of envy start to fall apart, that structure of the comparing mind fall apart.
To me, the ability to enjoy another person’s success, particularly in the business world, is such a liberating and powerful thing, because if you can do that, you’re not wasting energy in this comparing mind. You’re not wasting energy with envy. You’re enjoying this person’s success, and that joy can actually feed you. It feeds your creativity. And you’re also able to call that Buddha Boy person and say, “Hey, just wanted to pass something by.” You’re able to connect with that person and get ideas from that person, learn from that person.
TS: OK. When the practitioner says these phrases—“I wish you unlimited success”—is that accompanied by visualizing, seeing images of the person on the cover of the New York Times or whatever it might be?
SS: That’s a little bit of what I did, yes. I would see this person … Yes, I’d see the person with their bestselling book. I’d see the person sitting absolutely still in meditation, being this super marathon athlete—I’d see all that in my eyes. I think the biggest thing was really having this earnestness about it. It’s really like practice till you make it with this. I really dedicated myself because … I mean, this is where, you had said earlier, what is ever going to bring us to this place of enough?
Well, what brings us off into these places of letting go of envy or getting to this place of enough is pain. It’s like we get to this place where we’re not satisfied anymore with how much it’s costing us to be in envy, how much it’s costing us to be in the sense of lack or scarcity, which is the opposite of enough. We’re in that place of fear and scarcity. That doesn’t often bode well for success in the world or happiness in the world.
TS: All right, now, you briefly mentioned equanimity as another one of these immeasurables, this terrific ocean of being able to go with the ups and downs of our economic life. What do you suggest for someone who says, “I’m fine with the ups, but I’m not so good with the downs. How do I cultivate equanimity during a down cycle?”
SS: Well, one is to recognize that there are down cycles. I think some of us have this idea that if we, like I said earlier, if we’re really good humans, we won’t have down cycles. I think the other thing is, let’s work on these fixed beliefs. I think some of the fixed beliefs, including maybe the belief that it should all go well, is often keeping us. Or maybe there’s some other belief that we should always be successful. I inherited a little bit of that kind of belief. And then it’s also this, having … I think some of our meditation practices are really powerful for working with resilience, for feeling the pain, the anxiety that accompanies a downturn.
Instead of pushing it aside, actually opening to it. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the RAIN practice, but that’s something I do, where that R stands for recognize in RAIN, of recognizing the pain, the anxiety in the body when there’s a downturn. Then the A is allowing even that pain or anxiety to amplify in the body. Then the I is investigating: What is this about? Getting really curious, like a curious, kind scientist. Then the last step in RAIN is N, nurturing, telling yourself that I believe in you, I love you, I care for you. You’re going to get through this downturn. That’s been a very powerful exercise for me as well with cultivating equanimity.
TS: OK. Let’s make it a little grittier, Spencer. Let’s say someone is in some kind of downturn, like they lost their job or something like that, and they just have a lot of fear. There’s a lot of fear, and listening to an inspiring talk like this, and it’s barely penetrating the fear that they feel, the survival-level fear, meaning it’s just what comes up. Even if they have savings or whatever, they’re still … You know what I’m saying? It’s like, this is absolutely terrible. I am terrified. How would you apply, whether it’s the RAIN practice or this teaching of equanimity, how would you help someone in that state?
SS: Who’s absolutely terrified?
TS: Yes, they’re afraid.
SS: Yes. I would say take a money breath. That’s what I would say. Money breath is … Actually, the Wall Street Journal did publish my money breath on the front page a while ago, which I thought was really amusing, that they took that. But the money breath is about … It’s about getting oxygen into the body, because when we’re in that fear-fight place, that fight-flight space, there’s not a lot of oxygen coming to the body. I came up with this idea of the money breath of taking an inhale, inhaling through the nose, and then exhaling through the mouth and making the exhale twice as long as the inhale.
That’d probably be the first thing I do, is start to oxygenate the body, because you’re operating on fear. The next thing I would do is start to look at some of your fixed beliefs. We can do that if you like, Tami, we can do a little practice with fixed beliefs.
TS: Yes, let’s do it.
SS: Because there’s definitely a fixed belief probably happening. When we’re in that really terrified place, we might have a belief like it’s over, I’m never going to be successful. This is the way life is going to be. I was handed bad cards around money. The first thing we’ll do is to think about: What is circulating in your mind? What circulates in your mind around money? What beliefs? Maybe it’s a belief that I’m never going to be good with money. What are those unproductive, often negative, critical beliefs that we have around money? Or maybe not critical, but just any belief that you feel you cling to? It’s a belief that circulates in your mind often around money.
It could be that you should only buy a house or you should only rent. You might also think back to your childhood, because often, we have this money initiation. Think back to a message that you received from your caregivers, from family members, maybe from other friends, or the culture around money. I mean, for me, when I was eight years old, I asked my father, “How much money do you make?” And he gave me a stare. He never answered my question, but that stare spoke volumes. It told me that you should never, ever talk about money. It also told me that money must be the most important thing in the world.
Travel back to childhood for a moment and see if you can find a prominent belief that you acquired. Just breathe into that, recognize that belief, and recognize the associated emotions around that belief, and maybe even the sensations, the tension in the body that accompanies that belief. Now that you’re clear on this belief, that it’s probably been guiding a lot of your money behavior, guiding maybe the way you spend, the way you save, the way you are willing or not willing to talk about money, whether you’re able to talk about your fees in the business world, whether you’re able to ask for a raise. How you borrow money. I mean, it might … These beliefs often affect every aspect of our money life and our business life.
All right. Now what I’d like you to do is, as you’re remembering the story, I invite you to become the awareness of the story, to become the witness. So, bringing your adult self into this story. You’re remembering the story from maybe when you were five years old, ten years old, 12 years old, and you’re seeing this younger version of yourself. Then you, as the adult, are outside witnessing. You’re the awareness, you’re the witness to what’s happening, and seeing this whole scene where you got this message.
Maybe it could have been something less dramatic than what I received. I received this in my father not answering my question, when I asked him how much money you make. It could have been, in many households, like your family just didn’t discuss money, but it was obvious that there was tension around money, but everyone was numb around it.
So, witnessing that, I invite you to open your heart and offer compassion for this younger version of yourself, that this younger version just happened to receive this message and it wasn’t their fault. That they were just in the room, they didn’t know anything about money and they somehow inferred this belief that I’ll never be good with money or money is the most important thing in the world. Offering compassion to this younger version of yourself.
And now also seeing the adults in this scene and offering compassion for them as well, and recognizing that they have their own money histories. Consider the possibility that the adults intended to convey something positive, or were trying to protect you in some way, or they were dealing with their own money trauma from their childhoods. I invite you to imagine this adult saying or doing the opposite, or something very different from what they said or did. Just trying this on, we’re in the sandbox, we’re playing here together, just imagine this adult saying or doing the opposite, or something very different from what they said or did. And be aware of how you feel in the body with witnessing that, hearing that, getting a very different message with money. We know, of course this is feasible, because often our sibling has got completely different messages about what we grew up with about money, about many things.
The question now is, who would you be if you received this new message around money growing up? Who would you be? Can also put it in the present tense: Who are you with this new message around money? Just let yourself feel that. You might even imagine how that would show up for you, how you might be different in the business world, how you might be different with your personal finances. And then letting go of this scene and start to travel back to this moment and acknowledge what’s arising for you as you start to travel back to this present moment. Staying with yourself, even as you begin to open your eyes and connect with the world around you.
This is where often, in the workshop, Tami, where I’ll have people go straight to journaling and write down the insights that they gained from doing this reframe.
TS: Well, let me ask you a question, Spencer, because a couple of times you’ve referred to doing this in the context of being a businessperson as well. As we were doing the exercise and I was hearing you say that, one of the thoughts that occurred to me, I’m now a businessperson who’s wishing my competitors unlimited success, I’m spending time in my meditation practice wishing them unlimited success, and also I’m rescripting some of my early money memories, so I’m not going to be as driven to be like success, success, success. I’m going to be enjoying the flow of my life more. The question I have for you is: Am I going to be less or more successful running a company?
SS: Well, I think the answer from Buddhism is that, with equanimity, with sympathetic joy, with compassion, self-compassion and compassion for others, with kindness towards oneself and others, with generosity, I mean, all of those things put one in an elevated state of being. These are the four emotions in Buddhism. In that elevated state of being, I can’t help but imagine that you will be more successful. I have felt more successful as a result of these practices.
Now, maybe that’s going to lead to one day realizing that you have enough and taking your company from a billion in revenues to two billion is not necessary. That it’s enough and you can enjoy it, and there’s no there, there. But I think, if anything, you’re going to be much more in the flow. We all are very attracted to people who are in that ease and flow, or aren’t in that place of desperation or scarcity. I mean, who’s going to get the business when you’re selling in the business world. Often, we’re always, all of us are in somewhat of a sales role, especially if we have our own businesses. But even if not, we’re sort of, almost—even teachers are in some ways selling. Who gets the opportunity, the person who’s desperate and clinging for it or the person who’s in that place of equanimity, who’s radiating generosity and sympathetic joy?
TS: Very well said. Now, you mentioned generosity, cultivating. How do we do that? What’s the actual practice for doing that? Obviously it involves giving some of our money away.
SS: Well, not necessarily. I mean, there’s certainly the example of some people like Andrew Carnegie, who created the public library system. All around the world, he funded libraries. So, you can do some wonderful things with money, with generosity, but you can also give away your time. Give your time, resources, skills to others as well. The effects are similar. I also say that with, even if you are going to give money, you don’t have to give as much as Andrew Carnegie gave, or as much as Warren Buffett gives.
Giving even a dollar a month, I think you’re still telling the brain that you have enough, and it’s another way of getting to enough— by cultivating generosity—because you’re telling yourself, I must have enough. The brain is thinking, well, I must have enough because this person is giving something away. Those are a couple of ways in the … The other thing about generosity, it really comes from this place, like I said, of enoughness. So doing a gratitude practice, doing an appreciation practice for what you have is a very powerful way to cultivate generosity.
Often, we’re in this place of like, it’s so easy to get new things on Amazon, and what about appreciating what we have? That puts me in a place of generosity, in a place of less … I’m not feeling as much scarcity when I’m validating and having gratitude for all the abundance that’s in my life, all the good things that are in my life—non-material, material.
TS: OK. We’ve talked about some different emotional aspects related to starting to be on a path, let’s just say, of the mastery, the inner mastery of money. What about someone whose issues relate to spending, they overspend? How can the work you’ve done with the dharma of money help someone who has a spending challenge?
SS: Yes. Well, I think it’s … The spending, what’s at the root of the spending? Is there … It could be spending money to avoid feeling the pain of my life, and the spending can be this cover up for that. Because it’s so easy to spend money today, and the culture is all about “buy something and you’ll feel better.” I think, again, it’s this practice of ever appreciating what you have. There’s even the idea of taking something that you value, putting it in a closet or your garage, putting a date on your calendar to retrieve it in three months.
You will value that object so much more that you’ve been without. I would start to look at: How are you getting value from that spending? And really look at your priorities and what’s giving you real value and what feels like just autopilot spending? Then I’d start to slow down the spending. I’d start to really watch yourself as you’re spending and use this as a meditation practice. Like every time you spend, slow it down. What’s really happening? What’s driving you to hand over that credit card? An astic teacher of mine once said that the moment of greatest happiness is the moment right before we type in our credit card on the screen or hand over our card.
Once you’ve given the card and get the item, our happiness starts to decrease. Start to notice all of this. I think it also comes back to this idea of this self-worth and net worth. It’s recognizing how incredibly wealthy you are, that there’s no comparison between anything you can have or any amount of money you can earn and who you are. I mean, I’ve often asked the question, would you prefer a billion dollars and one additional health challenge or your current life? I’ve had very few people who’ve taken the billion dollars and one additional health challenge, even a modest health challenge.
There obviously is so much value that we’re not recognizing in ourselves, and we need to get to that place, recognize the priceless nature of our own beings. I think maybe that spending will start to dampen. The need to spend will start to dampen.
TS: One thing I’ve heard you teach on that I think is really useful, and I wonder if you can describe it to our listeners, is this idea of finding someone in your life who could be a money ally for you and help you be sane when it comes to money. Tell me how I find a good money ally and make sure it is someone who’s going to help me be sane.
SS: Yea. A lot of my work, Tami, is about helping us get to this place of being able to access our wisdom. I mean, often I’ve said that money is this distinct field where all of us have the ability to be really successful. It’s really different from the world of like becoming a surgeon, [which] takes a decade or more. Becoming a great violinist takes decades, but becoming really good with money, we can do that in weeks. So much of it is about common sense. So it’s like, how do we access our common sense and let go of the emotional cobwebs that are keeping us from being able to access that?
TS: Well, just to pause right there, Spencer, when you said we can become really good with money in a matter of a couple of weeks, I could certainly hear inside my head plenty of people saying something like, “Say what? I’ve been working for decades to become even reasonable with money, how I handle my investments, saving, finding the right balance with how much I should give away, working out stuff with my spouse so that we’re on the same page with money, etcetera, and you’re telling me I can actually figure this out in a few weeks? No, I don’t believe you.”
SS: Yes. Well, it’s not that complicated. And I’ve seen people who know very little about money, and like I said, I’ve seen people who know everything about money, who can handle their finances intelligently, because they’re just letting their emotions override all their decisions. It really comes down to common sense. That wisdom is in each of us with money. There are some very simple rules to follow with money, which we can all gain access to. I mean, they’re all over the internet. There’s just some [inaudible], like you spend less than you earn. If you’re going to invest, you spread it out into many things.
But a lot of us don’t follow these simple rules. We put a lot on credit cards. We concentrate our investments in just a few things. A lot of this work is designed to see if we can … To settle those … To dissolve some of the fixed beliefs that we have, and to settle some of the emotions we have around money so that we can come to this place, a centered place, and access our wisdom.
And you’re mentioning this money ally, that this is an additional resource. I think it’s very helpful. I have a money ally in my life. I have a professional money ally, so you can hire a professional advisor. Assuming that person has some awareness of some of this inner work of money, which I think is really the critical work. And it could also be a nonprofessional. It could be a friend, not a best friend, preferably someone who doesn’t live in your area, but someone you trust, someone who has common sense. Doesn’t need to be someone who has years of financial experience, or is even in the financial industry in any way, but just someone who has common sense who you trust, and you can do this trade with each other. Many, many people from my workshops have been doing this for years.
I have one couple that’s been doing it with another couple. They’re on like their 12th year of having regular, periodic check-ins with the other couple about, hey, we’re about to buy a house, here’s our situation, are we crazy? Those kinds of check-ins are so valuable because of the stigma around money, because it’s such this taboo topic we’re often told, like I was, don’t talk about money. We keep it private, and that privacy leads to us doing unhelpful things, unwise things with money. I mean, I can think back to my life, Tami, of some of the crazy investments I’ve made in my life. I didn’t want to tell anyone about them because I knew they were crazy, and I didn’t want anyone to talk me out of them.
TS: It’s interesting that you mention money as a taboo topic because on the one hand, it’s something people talk about a lot, a lot. They talk about their concerns, what they’re doing, this, that, but yet, it’s also really taboo to share our deep feelings and our deep fears around money. I wonder, what is the way to bring money out of this taboo world, make it normal, and share about it in a way that’s going to be productive, that’s helpful, where we can learn from each other?
SS: Yes. Well, A, it’s recognizing that we have a predisposition to not talk about it and certainly not talk about it consciously, with intention, with people who are going to be nonjudgmental and listen in a very receptive way. And that’s what my workshops are about. I mean, there’s also things like Underearners Anonymous, Spenders Anonymous. I think those are also very viable places where one could have a conscious conversation around money—and then this money ally possibility. But I think it’s starting to investigate what’s in that submerged iceberg, your beliefs. A lot of women take my workshop because they complain about, they feel like they’ve always been underearning.
When they start to investigate the beliefs that have supported that underearning, just that awareness starts to break down the rigidity of those beliefs, and they gain some comfort in being able to say, “Hey, here are my fees,” and not being shy about sharing those fees. I think it’s this recognizing of, and discussing in safe environments, our money tendencies. With business partners, there’s another opportunity, or a romantic partner, is to at least know, what’s the money tendency of your business partner and yourself? Is that person more risk averse, less risk averse? Is that person more likely to want to spend a lot or save a lot? I think those are important things to know going into a business relationship.
TS: Now, let me ask you a question, Spencer, because you mentioned that there are many women who attend your workshops, who identify as underearners. What is the fixed belief under that that’s keeping those women from being able to confidently earn the kind of money that would be industry standard for the quality of their work?
SS: Yes, I think some of the beliefs are from our culture. I mean, it’s just been conditioned. I don’t deserve money, I don’t deserve to earn a lot of money. I’m not good with money. I mean, I’ve heard from so many women who say that my brother got a financial education from my parents, but I didn’t. I was left out of that. Even younger people today tell me, people in their 20s and 30s will sometimes share that with me, that there’s this bias around money that a lot of us carry. Breaking down those beliefs, seeing that those beliefs are not really true, that it’s just a belief. When they start to feel the pain underneath those beliefs and really meet them instead of just reacting to those beliefs, something softens. The grip loosens.
Like the Buddha talked about, when we become less attached to our beliefs, it’s sort of game over. Our life is different. We’re liberated. We start to be liberated from the confines of that belief and we’re able to approach an earning conversation, a business conversation in a new way without the backpack, that heavy backpack of, “I don’t deserve money.” Maybe we still have that awareness of that belief, but it’s no longer driving us.
TS: I’m so happy, Spencer, that you’re going to be bringing your work with the inner mastery of money, the dharma of money to the Inner MBA. I want to ask you a couple of questions that I’ve been hearing from people who are currently in the Inner MBA program. One of the questions that I have been hearing from a lot of people is that I’m in transition, I want to do more purposeful work in the world. Work that’s more aligned with who I really am. I’ve been doing this work because it makes me money. It’s not really what I want to be doing, but I’m scared to make that shift. What would you say to that person in terms of engaging in purposeful work, but I won’t make as much money?
SS: Yes. I’d say, first of all, we’re so drawn to being vague about our money. The first thing is know the truth, know your numbers. Know what does it cost you to live your life in the current way? Maybe what would it cost you to live your life if you had a job that you were totally aligned with? Maybe it would cost less. Maybe with all the travel that your current job requires, it’s like, you need so many massages to get by. Do those columns so you know the numbers, because maybe in this new career, you don’t need the kind of money you previously did.
I think the other part of it is to recognize, what’s really important? There’s been all these studies done on money, and usually the studies come out with somewhere around $75,000, or $100,000 of income—once we get to those levels, our happiness rises up to those levels, but beyond that, our happiness tends to plateau. Recognizing that and seeing, what actually gives you joy in your life? I would bet that there’s a lot of things that are giving us joy that don’t require much or any money. I think that those can help alleviate the anxiety.
I think I’d start also gaining some data, like talking to people who have made a lot of money and ask them like, what has all this money done for you? Or ask somebody who’s given up that fast track and ask them, do you have any regrets about not having as much money as you could have had? What I’m sort of pointing to is, instead of staying in the head with anxiety, getting out there and taking action and really investigating—what might happen if you took this other career path?
TS: OK. Here’s another question that I think a lot of people are grappling with in the Inner MBA, people who got a traditional business degree—and you’ve referenced a couple of times your MBA from Wharton—a degree, and this is how you do things. This is how you negotiate a deal so that you can emerge successful from the negotiation. Now they’re getting deeply immersed in an Inner MBA, where they’re learning what it means to recognize our inherent interdependence with each other. They’re trying to put all this together, how do I function as this new kind of businessperson? I’m curious just what some of your comments might be about that.
SS: Yes. A new kind of businessperson who has respect for others and is connected to others, who’s ethical, is that what you’re pointing to?
TS: Yes. Really, we’re going to come through this together on the other side—I’m not negotiating against you, but we’re going to figure this out together. And the sense of almost like my conventional education and these new wisdom realizations are in conflict. I feel like I’m getting rewired. I don’t know how to operate anymore.
SS: Yes. The MBA I received was definitely an outer MBA and there were some useful things. I’m not going to completely put that MBA down, but it was, in some ways, it didn’t really produce my success. It didn’t really produce the happiness that I have in my life, the equanimity, the resilience that I have in my life, the skills that one really needs to be successful. I mean, this is going back for a moment to this last question, that when people say to me, I’m going to earn less in the new career—how do you know that? Because you might work longer. Because I know so many people have burnt out of careers. Ten years making 3X versus 30 years making 2X might be a lot more money, right?
TS: Good point.
SS: Yes. I would say, I think the whole world, I mean, my company is a big corporation, the whole world is recognizing that it’s not all about money, and that your sustainability of being able to sustain yourself in the working world and sustain your happiness and your well-being, in some ways, depend on this inner landscape. That’s why I think I’m also so drawn to this program, the Inner MBA program, because it’s really what is going to produce this inner success for us. I believe it actually produces outer success too.
We have to be at our best creative selves. When you’re, like you said earlier, you said, are you really going to wish success for your competitors? It’s like, absolutely. Absolutely, because I need to keep reinventing things and coming up with creative ideas. The world is changing so fast. I mean, it’s permanent, it’s here to stay, even though we prefer otherwise sometimes. Working on our fixed beliefs, coming to this place of enough, letting go of envy, pointing ourselves more and more to this present moment instead of being so focused on the future, all of this helps us in the business world—helps us be more creative, helps us attract the best people. I mean, we want people who are fun to work with, who are creative and going to love working with us. How do we cultivate that kind of environment? I think it’s by first, being that leader who’s cultivated the kind of landscape that’s going to track these amazing people.
TS: OK. I have to ask you this other question about this “enough” point, because I think a lot of times people think to themselves, there’s a number that I need. There’s this number that I need. I need to bank X amount of money. It’s some number so that they can retire and they never have to work again, and dah, dah, dah. What do you think about that? Is that the right calculation that people should go through to figure out what their enough point is? Is that what you did to help yourself relax with enough?
SS: Yes. First of all, like I said earlier, there’s 10 to 15 percent of our population who literally doesn’t have enough, and there’s a huge, I think, a huge transformation that would take place in this country if those people had their basic needs met. For the rest of us, and for myself, there’ve been all these studies that recognize that the $75,000 to $100,000 level is enough. That’s one data point. But the other thing is, what I’ve seen is often, if we’re thinking in terms of finding that number, it’s very easy for the mind to keep saying, well, wait a second, what if I need a new brain? A new brain might cost a billion dollars.
It’s never enough. I contrast often John Rockefeller with Chuck Feeney. Chuck Feeney earned $8 billion, and he gave away nearly everything. He kept 2 million of the 8 billion. So, he kept less than one percent of his wealth, does not own a house in San Francisco—rents—does not own a car. He said, that’s enough. What he wanted was engagement with the world. That’s what gave him wealth, was engagement with all of his philanthropic work, and I think that’s where we have to come to is, what is going to give you this power in life? What’s going to make you feel like you’re giving your gifts to the world, that you’re living your best life?
What’s going to help you do that, and just having a storage room of money often does the opposite. The more money we store, the more we tend to kind of relapse into fear and scarcity. There’s a balance here. I’m not saying that one shouldn’t have savings, but I think a lot of us tend to overdo that sense of like, well, you can never be secure. You can never have enough, which is a lot of the messages that my parents gave me. I think it’s eventually just dropping in and saying, hey, I have enough, I’m going to continue saving or doing whatever I feel is really right to do, but start to operate as if you have enough money, you have enough time.
I’ve often said don’t, instead of telling people, I’m totally swamped, more than full, tell people that you’re feeling spacious. Practice till you make it with that. But just turning around these strong cultural conditioning that there’s always scarcity and you can never actually arrive.
TS: Beautiful. I’ve been talking with Spencer Sherman with Sounds True. He’ll be offering a new Conscious Business Accelerator as part of the Inner MBA program on “The Inner Mastery of Money.” The Inner MBA is a nine-month immersion training program that Sounds True’s created in partnership with LinkedIn, Wisdom 2.0, and a division of NYU called MindfulNYU that gives certificates of completion to participants when they graduate from the nine-month program. You can learn more at InnerMBAProgram.com. Spencer, I’m so glad you’re bringing your wisdom about money to the Inner MBA. Thank you.
SS: I’m very thrilled to be part of this program. To me, it’s about getting an Inner MBA, not an outer MBA.
TS: Thank you for listening to Insights at the Edge. You can read a full transcript of today’s interview at SoundsTrue.com/podcast. If you’re interested, hit the subscribe button in your podcast app, and also if you feel inspired, head to iTunes and leave Insights at the Edge a review. I love getting your feedback, being in connection with you, and learning how we can continue to evolve and improve our program. Working together, I believe we can create a kinder and wiser world. SoundsTrue.com: waking up the world.
