339: Moneyzen—Leaving the Cult of More with Manisha Thakor

When you walk into a Burlington, you're walking into amazing prices and great gifts. That's main character energy. Because at Burlington, the holiday savings aren't the only things turning heads. Discover quality finds and perfect presents for everyone on your list, even those who are hard to shop for. Toys and jewelry to new beauty brands and styles. These gifts go seamlessly from our stores to under your tree. Seriously, with these savings, why shop anywhere else?

Burlington deals, brands.

Wow.

So people tend to find money leaks, things they're spending on that don't bring them joy. And sometimes they are really big things, like your housing payment. When you realize how much you're spending on that, then maybe you're an empty nester and you now have more bathrooms than people in your house and you think, ooh, that money could be going to something that makes me happy. So the idea is find money leaks so that you can redirect that money and to things that make you happy.

What's next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot podcast and author of Pivot. The only move that matters is your next one.

For show notes from this episode, visit pivotmethod.com podcast. If change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

Welcome back, Pivoters. Jenny Blake, here with a very special guest, Manisha Thakur. Manisha is the author of a new book called Money the Secret to Finding your Enough. She has worked in financial services for over 30 years, helping individuals of all ages to balance financial health and emotional wealth. Manisha, welcome to the show.

Jenny, thank you so much for having me on.

The very opening of your book struck me because you say that while you have written about money problems in the past, this book addresses money worries, the deeper roots of our money problems. What's the difference?

So money problems are things that can be solved with factual solutions. So, for instance, I'm drowning in student loans. What do I do? I have been late on my credit cards so often my credit score's in the tank. How do I improve it? How much house can I afford? Those are money problems. Money worries are much more subtle and sometimes we don't even realize consciously that we have them. One of the classic ones is fear of being a bad lady, ending up alone and under a bridge. I can't tell you how many super successful, financially sound women have told me that's their fear. Other times, the worry is just a general feeling of scarcity or a feeling that Your relationship with money is just effed up. And it's not technically an issue. You've got all your finances in order. It's the way you think and feel about money and its role in your life. So that's the difference between problems and worries.

And I know that a huge part of this, it's even in the subtitle, is addressing the feeling of enough. And you talk about the cult of never Enough, both considering why we entered it and why we've stayed in it. So what is the cult of never Enough? Cause I do think that has to do as well with a subjective, persistent sense of money worry. Almost no matter how much we accumulate, if we're doing that unconsciously, Jenny, you nailed it.

That is the never ending cycle in the sense that modern society seems to be telling us that the answer to pretty much any problem we have in our life is more, buy more, do more, spend more time improving yourselves. And what I found specifically when it comes to money, work, accomplishments, accolades, is that we are pushed by ourselves and by society to kind of feel like. Well, not kind of to feel like it's never enough. And part of that reason is that oftentimes you hit that bar and then it doesn't feel as good as you thought it would, so you reset it further down the road. And so many people tell me, I feel like I can never earn enough and I can never do enough, I can never achieve enough. And that makes me feel like I'm not enough.

What was one of your biggest aha moments in this arena where you realized, I'm going about this the wrong way?

Oh, Jenny. There were so many examples that I should have caught. For instance, I am divorced now, but when I was married, my ex husband had a very bad motorcycle. He's an off road motorcyclist, had a very bad motorcycle accident, and he was in a fairly rural area and he was potentially gonna lose his leg. And they had to perform emergency surgery. And I was doing some meetings in San Francisco, you know, and I was in like my fancy pants stage of life, and I was staying at the Four Seasons and going to meetings and car service and feeling like I was so important. And my attitude was like, okay, well, you made it through the surgery, you're in pain, but there's nothing I can do about that. I'll show up when my meetings are done because I need to keep moving forward with my accomplishments and the bonus that I will get if I keep doing well. And I mean, that's sick. But the real aha. And what caused me to want to write the book is I had a near death experience, literally for the second time. The first one didn't wake me up enough and I realized through a specific meeting that I was at work, that I had more than enough money to live the way I wanted to live, but I wasn't living. And that was when I realized that, oh my God, I'm going to turn 50. At the time that I started this project, I'm 53 now and I have spent the last three decades doing and not living.

That's such a powerful experience to have had. And I hear sometimes people say I had an NDE as well, the literature calls it for short, had an NDE and nothing happened. And then you have some who say, and I saw a light and I got all this insight for you. Was there a moment within the experience where you felt zapped with this wisdom or was it reflecting on it afterward? Or maybe even both?

So the two incidences were very different. The first one, I had been in Laos on a motorcycle trip riding 2 up, which is in motorcycle parlance, riding on the back of someone's bike. So I was riding with my ex and we were in the jungle for a seven day trip and I got bit by an infected mosquito and came down with dengue fever. And they call dengue fever breakbone fever because it's so painful. It literally feels like somebody's crunching your bones. Normally when you get enough fluids and rest, you are fine. But what happened to me is I had complications and I had a lot of fluid buildup in my chest. And because I'd been pushing myself so hard, my adrenal system was shut down. And the big worry with dengue fever when you start to get complications is organ failure. I'm in the hospital. By this time, I've been returned back to the U.S. i'm in the hospital and I can remember being in the emergency room for like the third time. Second time I think it was, and my teeth were chattering like those cartoon characters. Like, I was under like five heated blankets and I was so cold. I was just shaking, shaking, shaking. And the doctor said, you know, we need to call in your family. So my parents came in, my brother came in, and my ex was in there. And I thought, oh my God, like, really, this is it. And what ran through my mind was, holy crap, it's right. When this is happening, you do not think, I wish I had spent more time at work. You think about the people you love and care about. I did not think about anything Else except the people I loved and cared about. Didn't think about hobbies, didn't think about accomplishments, didn't think about money, just love. And then within three weeks when my health started coming back, I was back to my workaholism. That one didn't wake me up and the next one was kind of a slow growing illness. I had Epstein Barr which is kind of like mono on steroids. And I basically was increasingly only able to stay awake about five hours a day. And then my autoimmune system started attacking my body and I had, you know, 103 degree fever and I had these red painful swelts all over my body. And basically I was told I had to take bed rest and stop everything if I was going to heal. And when I started up again, I was going to have to move at a different pace or this could come back. It's a virus that lives in your body. It's like a snow globe. And if you want to go act like a crazy person and not give yourself any rest or self care, your snow globe will shake it up again. It wasn't like these out of body experiences, at least for me. It was more of these kind of oh my God, what really matters. So those were my experiences.

Thank you for sharing those. Isn't it wild how long it takes us sometimes to get the memo? It's like our bodies are trying to get our attention in any way that they can. That you know, if you're overworking or something's out of alignment. And I feel like money, first of all, our energetic money blueprint gets imprinted so thoroughly and deeply at such a young age. It is tied to our parents survival, to our survival. And then we become adults and it's our survival and anyone we're taking care of survival. So it feels like it's just really rooted. That's all I can say. And like money is such a rich area for exploration. And I love that you're dedicating your career to this because as you talk about the hungry ghosts of money, fame, approval, I've added control as one of the hungry ghosts, thinking we could control our way into some kind of happiness. And they are truly never ending. My question is coming, which is that we all know, at least pivoters know about the hedonic treadmill. We get that if we covet material things or even a hedonic treadmill of fame and approval, there's like no amount of likes that will be satisfying. At a certain point we're just going to want more More, more. We acclimate to the level that we have. In my experience, sometimes if I'm in an austere period, I'm not buying any clothes and I'm not going out to eat and I'm not doing anything. Then money comes in and it's almost like a pressure release valve goes and I'm like, oh, finally I can buy some new clothes now. I can go out to eat, I can go have some fun experiences and I actually do things that I value. But I can see how even that. I guess what I'm saying is there seems to be some middle path where we do want to spend some of what we earn and enjoy it. It's just that so quickly those things start to seem normal. So then if a downturn comes again, it's kind of shocking to go back.

We have come to identify ourselves with a couple of different things. One is what we do for a profession, right? There's the classic. You go, you meet someone and you know by question number two or three, in the US they're asking you, what do you do? So you're very tied to your profession. And then the measure of success in your profession is money. But you can't run around with a number on your head like, woo hoo, you know, like I made $100,000 this year. How do you show this? Well, you show it through the peacock feathers of possessions and then you get subtly rewarded for people treat you a little different when you're in one car versus another car and you're dressed one way versus another way because we no longer seem to judge people on their character and their humanity and who they are. And then you layer on top of that non stop, really well created ads that come at us from all directions telling us again that we're not enough and we need to buy this product to have more. So even when we try really hard not to cross over that line, there's so many forces pushing against us. And then there are also some that are coming from deep inside of us that make it feel like a vice. Like there's external things pushing down and then there can be this internal series of personal, I call them small T traumas that can be coming inside. And I think that's why it happens.

That makes a lot of sense. And then there's also what you were describing in there is the status that we translate. You put it so beautifully. I love how you said the peacock feathers of possessions. And it's one thing to deride luxury goods. I mean, I've got to Say, like, I got a hand me down ultra luxury bag. And I love that bag. Yeah, I love that bag. But it's like, I didn't buy it. You know, it's kind of hand me down, I don't care. But it's true. We put meaning into these symbols and then even though I know it's sort of like meaningless. Okay, let's say this. There is a certain craft put into high quality goods compared to goods that are like fast fashion, very cheaply made. So there is an element of craftsmanship.

We'll be right back just after this.

When the holidays start to feel a bit repetitive, reach for a Sprite Winter Spiced Cranberry and put your twist on tradition. A bold cranberry and winter spice flavor fusion Sprite Winter Spice Cranberry is a refreshing way to shake wake things up this sippin season and only for a limited time. Sprite Obey your thirst with Venmo Stache.

A taco in one hand and ordering a ride in the other means you're stacking cash back. Nice. Get up to 5% cash back with Venmo Stash on your favorite brands when you pay with your Venmo debit card. From takeout to ride shares, entertainment and more, pick a bundle with your go tos and start earning cash back at those brands. Earn more cash when you do more with Stash. Venmo Stash terms and exclusions apply. Max $100 cash back per month. See terms at Venmo Me Stash terms.

Isn't it wild how especially for women. Oh, what kind of bag you're carrying at a conference is actually this seemingly really important thing to have that peacock feather of this possession of approval or status or showing you're successful. And then it's not even out of the question that people respond to that they actually infer status at the same time as well by looking at these peacock feathers.

Exactly. And I want to be clear that I'm not saying it's not healthy to buy nice things. I had spent my junior year abroad at Oxford, and one of the things that blew my mind as an American moving into my accommodations at the start of the term versus my British and Continental peers was that, you know, I had like these two huge Samsonite suitcases full of stuff and a couple boxes on their way to me being shipped. And the other students came with so much less. But they were exceptionally high quality items. Like maybe they had three, three sweaters, but they looked brand new, even though they might have had them for 10 years because they were Exquisitely made. Obviously not everyone is like this, but, you know, one of the things my grandfather in India used to say is buy few, but buy the best that you can afford at that time. Which in his mind meant you've got the cash for it because they last and you feel good when you're in them. I'm not saying that it's not good to have those things. It's when you come to so tightly align your identity, in my case, and everyone's different. Some people may identify with the clothes they wear. In my mind, I had, and this comes from things that happened in my childhood, but I literally was optimizing my life for the equation self worth equals net worth. And that's where my self worth was coming from, was I'm not a particularly stylish person and I don't have a lot of fancy things, but it's like I have this need, or I did, to just accumulate the biggest pile of money that I could for security and safety, which I didn't realize at the time was what I was doing.

One of the practices that might be an antidote to some of this is what you call joy based spending. What is that?

Oh, it's my favorite tool. So. So many people hate budgeting, and it's completely understandable. Although some people do love budgeting, I actually do love it. But if you asked me to make a food diary and track what I was doing, or a timelog diary, I mean, that would make me want to vomit. So everybody has different things they don't enjoy tracking. And so joy based spending was my alternative to a budget. And so what I like to tell clients and to teach and when I'm consulting is to say, you know, there are these three steps that you can use to more closely align your spending with your values and most importantly, what brings you joy. The first one is simple. You take a piece of paper and for a period of at least a weekend, ideally a month, if you can force yourself to do it. And every time you spend money, just write down the item and the amount. And at the end, though you don't have to add anything up. There's no judgment. What you do is you take out a highlighter and you look down that list and you highlight anything you spent money on that didn't bring you joy. Most of us, right, it's like the utility bill or your house payment. But people often find, I call them money leaks. You know, like soccer lessons for your kids and the kids hate the coach and you hate driving them there, or drinks out with friends that make you feel bad about yourself when you're done hanging out with them. So people tend to find money leaks, things they're spending on that don't bring them joy. And sometimes they are really big things like your housing payment, when you realize how much you're spending on that, and maybe you're an empty nester and you now have more bathrooms than people in your house, and you think, ooh, that money could be going to something that makes me happy. So the idea is find money leaks so that you can redirect that money to the things that make you happy. Could be paying down debt that's stressing you out, or it could be buying that handbag or doing whatever you want. The second of the three steps is something I learned 25 years ago reading the iconic book youk Money or your Life by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez, which is to equate money with your energy. The idea being money comes into our lives for most of us because we worked for it. So when we spend it, we're spending our life's energy. So you take your income and to keep it simple, I just use gross income and you divide it by 2000 hours, which, broadly speaking, is how much we spend on work related activities, commuting, getting to work, doing the work, et cetera. If you're making $60,000 a year and you divide by 2,000 hours, you're making $30 an hour before tax. So if you see a $300 something or other that you want to buy, you can just do the math and say, wow, if I'm earning 30 bucks an hour, I'm going to have to work more than 10 hours because I got to pay those taxes to earn enough money to buy this thing. Is it worth it? And many times the answer is yes, and many times the answer is no. But now you have a way to really think about it in a different framework. And then the last one, just because it's been so easy for all of us to just hit yes to the checkout cart on our computers, is if there's stuff you want, put it in your basket and make yourself sit on it for a week. And then go back and ask, do I really want this? Or if it's in a store, take a picture of it and sit with it for a week and ask, do I really want this? And again answer, maybe yes, maybe no. But when you take them together, what they do is help you focus on, on the point that money comes into our lives partly for safety and security. And to provide our basic, you know, the bottom level of Maslow's hierarchy. But also we want to spend it in ways that bring us joy. That's what joy based spending is about.

I appreciate that thorough response so much in these examples and the exercise of highlighting money leaks, that's so smart. You also give a very powerful permission slip that stopped me in my tracks. You say to live a rich, joyful and connected life. Achieve less. Now, this is shocking for some people who've spent at least the first half of their lives trying to achieve a lot and collecting accolades. And so I'm really curious to hear where this comes from. And do you think it's easier for some of us to say just achieve less once we already feel comfortable with what's under our belt? Like, would your 20 year old self have listened to this advice?

Well, I'll tell you, my 53 year old self still is a work in progress on implementing the achieve less, the permission to achieve less. And you know, there's so many things that brought me to give this advice. And then I'll give you an example of how I'm still trying to get my sea legs and implementing it. But we have lives that are so full now I go back to this. We're not human beings, we're human doings. We are just going, going, going. And again, this comes back to this societal notion that the answer to everything is more. The notion of achieving less sounds absurd in our current culture. And part of it may be just the structure in the U.S. you know, lack of social safety nets and so forth. You know, you notice a stand. When I look at studies about residents of the Scandinavian countries, there seems to be less of pressure to do more. But it is scary. I mean, the first couple people I ran this phrase by and said, you know what comes to mind immediately when I say achieve less? You know, it was slacker, lazy, couch potato, pothead. You know, like there were no good words that were originally associated with this. And then there were other people who said, well, I don't want to achieve less. And there are points in time where you don't want to, but there are points, no matter what your age is, where I feel like most of us, just as with the joy based spending, we're leaking time. We are spending our time achieving things. And when you ask yourself the question for what, you don't have a good answer. And I will tell you right now, I am trying to achieve less. I've had kind of a varied career. Half of it has been in a Very structured corporate environment. Half has been in more of an entrepreneurial environment. And I feel like I'm heading into the third chapter of my life and I am struggling. I've decided what things I'm going to say no to to achieve less. Yet when the opportunity comes to give extremely well paid keynote speech, it's so hard when I tell myself I'm only gonna do so many of these a year. In my case it's four. And then the fifth one pops up and I have to like tie myself down not to say yes. Even marketing this book, I feel like I have fallen into this trap. You know, there aren't book tours so much these days, but podcast tours. And so next thing I know I'm saying yes to every possible podcast without thinking, you know, does this podcast audience, would they even be interested in my message? Even with all the research I do did for the book and all the studies that I've looked at about the benefits of doing less and having that space culturally, it's hard. And for me at least on my feeling of self worth, it's like if I'm not doing well, who am I and what is my worth?

We'll be right back just after this.

The who's down and who Newville were making their list, but some didn't know Walmart has the best brands for their gifts.

What about toys? Do they have brands kids have been wanting all year? Yep. Barbie, Tony's and Lego. Gifts that will make them all cheer. Do you mean they have all the brands I adore? They have Nintendo, Nespresso, Apple and more.

What about so the who answered questions from friends till they were blue? Each one listened and shouted from Walmart.

Who knew?

Shop gifts from pop brands for everyone on your list in the Walmart app.

This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast. Smart move being financially savvy. Smart move. Another smart move having State Farm help you create a competitive price when you choose to bundle home and auto bundling. Just another way to save with a personal price point like a good neighbor. State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state.

I can relate so much on something like a book launch where it's ambiguous exactly what to do, how much to do, what to prioritize and whom. I mean, some of the answers are obvious, like the zillion dollar keynote. I'll take it. You know. Ok. But what I find is that sometimes I might do less. Or I get to a phase where I'm ready to take a step back and then the little gremlins come in. Well, Jenny, if you had just done 10 more podcast interviews, maybe it would be taking off even more. Or if you had just worked a little harder. So there's this gremlin that comes on the other side saying, hmm, I'm seeing the gap here between what you thought would be the sales and what are the sales, and you really could have done more. That's like the voice that will come in for me. Even though I know I made the best choices for me in the moment to prioritize the full picture of my life. But still it's hard in the moment. It's hard when you get a really juicy opportunity like that fifth speaking gig. And then it's hard, I think too sometimes in reflection, saying, but what if I had done more? What if I had kept my foot on the gas of the achievement ladder?

That's the crux of it all. So how do you solve this? And I'm not gonna say it's easy. It's not a light switch. I feel like it's a dimmer. And sometimes you may wanna turn the dimmer back up in certain periods, and other times you may want to turn it down or your body says, you have to turn it down, otherwise I'm gonna make you sick. And the way I have found to lay the breadcrumbs and start firing, following them to this calmer place is I have a new formula that I am finding to be really effective with people of a wide range of income, professions, ages, and it is shifting your mindset from self worth, in my case equals net worth. For other people, it may be self worth equals number of likes, self worth equals what cars I have, so everyone's different. But shifting living your life to optimize that algorithm or equation rather, which has no end in sight to another mindset or mental rubric which is focusing on optimizing your life for financial health and emotional wealth, which financial health. We all need money to live, so I'm not saying it's not important and it's not healthy to learn how to manage it properly and to be proud if you earn more and good things are happening, but that the issue is how much do you really need to live the life that will make you happy? And that's the question that shapes what financial health looks like for you. And oftentimes what we find is that when we push beyond our true place of enough, which we may not know yet no matter what happens, more and more money doesn't necessarily make us happier. And it's not quite the hedonic treadmill, it's something different. It's that once you're able to meet your basic needs, income over that doesn't tend to increase your life satisfaction unless you have a base of emotional wellbeing. And yet for many of us who are in that like Go, go, go, strive addiction, which it felt like in my case, we don't put time to invest in our emotional wealth. And then you wake up and you feel one day you look back at your life and you feel really empty.

I'm so glad you shared this equation. Financial health plus emotional wealth. Is that the definition of money Zen or do you want to share? Is there a broader way that you describe what Money's End is? Which of course is the title of the book itself in the top line.

Context of Money's End is having calm and confidence and clarity about the role you want money to play in your life and your relationship with it. That's what Money Zen is. So it's not a judgmental statement about what is the right role and what is the right relationship, but it's knowing that for you and the equation, financial health plus emotional wealth is the tool that you can use to help you reach that state of calm confidence and clarity about the role money plays in your life and your relationship with it. And it's not a static thing. It can evolve as you pivot, you know, and you're in different stages of your life. But we just aren't taught well, first of all, we aren't taught personal finance at all. So that creates a whole jumble about why we chase after financial wealth and what would financial health actually look like. And so having this framework and then putting emphasis on the priceless nature of a lot of things that bring you emotional joy. So in other words, building out that emotional wealth part of your life. It certainly has helped me tremendously in changing how I spend my time, what I'm focused on, and how I define success as a human. And many people who have been going through this journey as I've been researching and writing this book, have told me that simply having a guidepost, a really rough, flexible guidepost to kind of be your North Star when figuring out how to deal with money, work, accomplishments, prestige, and what that means to you at different stages. And it could mean a lot at some stages, and that's good.

So to that end of having a North Star, if you could leave listeners with One small experiment over the next week or two, after they're done listening, in addition to the MoneyLeaks audit, what would it be?

I would encourage people each day to eliminate one thing from their life. It could be a tangible item. So you might have a box and you might just put a fork or a spoon that you no longer need because you've got like 50 bajillion of them and that box will go to Goodwill. Or, or it may be a bottle of nail polish that's 15 years old and like so dry it's never going to be used. You can put that in the trash. Or it might be an obligation, something you said yes to, that you don't want to do anymore. And I encourage people to honestly explain why you might be reneging in a way from that obligation. And in a way, it can be a blessing because it can help other people see what it means to say no so that you to have the space where you can think about what I'm saying. In money's end, when your life is just packed, it's very hard to find the mental and emotional calmness to think about these issues. And one thing I have found is that when your physical space is not overwhelming, it can help. But more importantly, the reason for this exercise is it's just a small action you're taking each day to help remind yourself or to create some new neural pathways of removing, not adding. So that when you get to the point where it's the big stuff in achieving less, you've got some experience with daily small steps heading towards less and that makes it less scarier.

Yes, I love that. And just one thing at a time. And that reminds me, you recently quoted the Rock on Twitter that I loved this. You said it inspired you to start flipping two simple words. Instead of saying one day, I will say today is day one of and I just thought, that's so good. Today is day one of Money Zen and. And we will eliminate one thing we no longer want, whether it's sitting around the house or it's sitting in our calendar or in our stick box.

What we said we would do.

Manisha, thank you so much for this beautiful book. I was honored to get to blurb it, so I read an early copy. Is there anywhere else you'd like to send people to learn more and keep in touch?

Actually, two places. If this conversation has resonated with you, I'd like to encourage you to go to moneyzenquiz.com where I have a short seven question quiz that can help you sort of see along this perspective of never enough thinking where you are. And then the other place is if you just go to my website, which is moneyzen.com, you'll learn about the book and places to pre order or buy. But even more importantly, I keep lists of curated resources to help you with financial health and with emotional wealth. And I will continue to be adding podcasts, books, article links every quarter, updating so that people have a place that they can go if they need a little touch base inspiration to put the lessons of the book to keep putting them into practice.

Amazing. And we'll put all those great links in the show notes including the quiz. I love it. Are you trapped in the cult of never Enough? Take it and find out. Manisha thank you so much again and big thanks to all of you who are here listening.

Thanks Jenny.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot podcast. Make sure you and don't miss an episode or my insider tips and templates by signing up for Pivot List, a curated twice monthly newsletter where I share the inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening to and the latest tools I'm geeking out on. Sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotlist get show notes from this episode@pivotmethod.com podcast and connect with me on Twitter ennyblake.

Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always.