003 The Money Taboo That Keeps You Broke

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This is the affluent Entrepreneur show for entrepreneurs that want to operate at a high level and achieve financial liberation. I'm your host, Mel Abraham, and I'll be sharing with you what it takes to create success beyond wealth so you can have a richer, more fulfilling lifestyle. In this show, you'll learn how business and money intersect so you can scale your business, scale your money, and scale your life while creating a deeper impact and living with complete freedom, because that's what it really means to be an affluent entrepreneur.

Hey there, Mel Abraham here, and welcome to this episode of the Affluent Entrepreneur show. And in this episode, we're going to talk about something that most people don't want to talk about. The whole money taboo. All right, but here's the thing. The money taboo is keeping you broke. I gotta tell you, if we truly aren't willing to talk money because it we. We've grown up to. To believe that it's taboo or we shouldn't be talking about money, we should. They say. They say we're not supposed to talk about. What is it? Religion, politics, money, sex. I don't know if that's in there, but let's call them the big four. Religion, money, sex, education, and politics. Okay, well, here's the deal. If we truly are not going to talk about money, how do we expect to improve? How do we expect to learn? How do we expect to grow? How can we have those conversations? Now, I'm not saying that you need to go and divulge all of your finances to the world. And money is a funny thing. Money's a crazy thing because it's deeply personal, it's highly charged, and it raises so many emotions and so many people, because fact of the matter is that there's a tremendous amount of emotion around money. In fact, I'll do an episode on the emotions of investing and your money emotions and how to deal with that coming up. But the bottom line is this, is that people feel guilty when they have it. People feel ashamed when they don't, and all kinds of things in between. Here's what I think we need to realize is that until we change our relationship with money, our money will not change. Let me say that again. Until we change our relationship with money, our money will not change. But here's the thing. When you start to see this. I've watched people give up their health for money. I've watched people give up their relationships for money. I've watched people give up their time for money. I've watched people give up their integrity for money. It's a crazy, crazy thing, but. But no one wants to talk about it yet. We're going to give up slices of our life. We're going to give up the best parts of our life and give up our souls sometimes for it. I think it's a mistake. Money isn't a bad thing. Money is actually neutral. Money has. It's a tool. Just like a hammer, just like a screwdriver. If I take a hammer or screwdriver and I use it wrong, I can do harm. The same thing with money. Why should it be negatively charged? You know that three out of four parents never ever talk to their kids about money, which means that we're perpetuating this. This is a strong term, but I'm just going to say it. This ignorance about money because. Or this fear to even discuss it, this fear to even have the conversation. I want to make sure that we have a conversation. I want to make sure that we have a frank conversation. I want to talk about the fears. I want to talk about the guilt. I want to talk about the embarrassment. I want us to have those conversations. Because until we.

Extract those splinters that are festering from the past, we can't move forward to a better future. If you've ever had a splinter, can you imagine? I don't know if you've ever had a splinter. I know I have. And that splinter's in there. You can't get it out. And it's festering, it's sore. And then you got to dig it out, and you got to dig it out, and you're digging it out, and it hurts to dig it out, but as soon as the splinter's out, it's pure relief. It's the same thing. This whole idea of the money table. Why talk about money? Let's just look at it. If we talk about money when we have real conversations, smart conversations, authentic conversations, sincere conversations around money, it affects our ability to have a good relationship with our spouse, with our family. Okay, here's the thing, one third.

One third.

Of people surveyed that were in committed relationships said that the biggest source of conflict in their relationship was money. And they even say that it's one of the leading causes of, of divorce. You know, there's a survey now, it's back in 2015. There's an organization called stressinamerica.org, it's a wonderful organization. Stressinamerica.org There's a study that showed that money stress is at the top, is at the top of the stress causes in life. And it is above work stress, it's above family stress, it's above health stress. 72% felt stressed about money.

Well, think about this. If 72% are stressed about money, how is that going to get solved if we're not willing to talk about it, if we're not willing to have a frank conversation, if we're not willing to have a dialogue about it, it's not. Because now we're going to make some assumptions, we're going to make some presumptions, we're going to make some flippant decisions without knowledge. There's people out there that have done it. There's people that have navigated, there's that maybe understand more than we understand. And by having those conversations, we can solve those problems. And remember, it's about bringing you together. If we can strip away the stressors in the relationship, in the marriage, by having real conversations around money, and we take that piece out, how many people, how many couples might get saved. Because one of the things that also happens is if it's that deeply personal, if it's that deeply charged, and we can navigate that as a couple, what else can we navigate? What else can we navigate? So talking about money can affect our ability to have close relationships with our family. My son and I and his wife, we constantly have conversations. Now, it's not the only thing we talk about, but we are open. If money stuff comes up, we have a conversation. My wife and I, we do the same thing, but also talking about money. The second reason we need to talk about money because it's your pathway to growth. It's your pathway to gaining knowledge, to gaining understanding, to figuring out how to get to that place of wealth you want to be. Fact of the matter is that you can't just say, okay, I understand what covered calls and options and all that stuff are. No, we got to have a conversation around it. Now, I'm not saying you go out and do options, but I am saying that if you want to understand investing, if you want to understand money issues. If you want to understand how to get out of debt, if you want to understand how to build wealth, we got to have a conversation around it without the embarrassment, without the judgment. Look, here's the deal. I'm not exempt. I've made some really bad financial decisions in my past. I've lost more money than some people will ever make in a lifetime. I myself, in 2005, got wrapped up in a Ponzi scheme, wiped out one third of everything I own, one third in the seven figures between me and two friends, the three of us lost over four and a half million dollars. You want to talk about embarrassment? I'm a cpa. I'm a financial guy. I'm the person that they hire to put some people like that away so it never happens. And I got taken. So you talk about embarrassment, you talk about shame, you talk about fear. I had all of them. I had all of them. Here's the thing that I realized that it wasn't until. It wasn't until I was willing to look myself in the eye, in the mirror and say, I'm responsible. Not for blame purposes, but for empowerment purposes. Hear what I'm saying? I'm responsible for getting involved in that Ponzi scheme. I'm responsible for making the decision. I'm responsible for further investing. When I lost it first, thinking I was going to make it all back, I was responsible. Until I was willing to take on the responsibility, I was not in a place to reconstruct it. I was not in a place to grow. I was not in a place to learn. So not only did I take that responsibility on, I used it as a vehicle to start talking about it, to start having these conversations so someone else doesn't get taken. You know, the blessing was this. At the time, I looked at my son and I said, yeah, this one's going to hurt, but it's not going to destroy us. And rather than curl up, because I could have curled up in the fetal position and got resentful and got hateful and got angry, which, trust me, I went there for a little while. But what was I teaching Jeremy? Jeremy was going to learn that when adversity hits you curl in the fetal position, you get angry. I couldn't do that. I couldn't do that. And so I'm hoping that no matter what your bad decisions might be or you think your bad decisions were in the past, that you move beyond it, that we have this conversation and we learn from it now. I'll tell you that in 18 months. Not only did we recover what was lost, but we surpassed it by three times. So we were fully recovered, and we're three times better off than we were when we first started. And it was because of principles, it was because of skills, and it was because of the willingness to have the conversations and say, what lessons do I learn? What are the things that I can take away so it doesn't happen again? How do I learn? That's part of why I'm doing this, is to make sure that things like that don't happen to you. So that's number two. What are the other reasons we should talk about money? Well, having positive conversations around money shifts your relationship with money. If your constant talk and chatter in your head is negative, speak around money. It's the root of all evil. It's for the greedy, rich people, lack integrity, all those things. Then what do you think your relationship with money is going to be like? See, your relationship with money is no different than your relationship with your spouse, your significant other, your friends or anything else. And if I'm constantly in negative chatter in my head about those relationships, how are those relationships going to flourish? They're not. Same thing here. We need to have positive conversations about money. The fourth thing is now we can talk to the kids. You can talk to your children, your grandchildren. I talked to my son. I started talking to him about money when he was 11 years old. He's now 30. But today, because he's learned money principles, because he's learned some of the principles that I talk about, he is at 30 years old and his wife 27 years old. Three homes, net worth in excess of seven figures. And it's because we were willing to have these conversations. The money taboo, lack of talking about it will keep you poor. Let's keep talking about it. Number five. Here's the other one, is someone needs to start the conversation. Why not you? It doesn't matter. You may have grown up in a household where you said, we don't talk about money. Break that chain. Now, you may want to talk about money in general terms. I'm not talking about intrusive behavior and saying, hey, what do you make? And this and that, but having real conversations about what does money mean? Just start there, someone break the cycle in your family so you can have generational change. Because number six in this is that if we don't talk about it, we can't solve anything. Too often the problems that we think are big problems could be solved if we simply start to have a conversation. So here's the thing that money taboo, the not talking about it, will continue to keep you poor because it's not going to open up the real conversations that we all need to have, including myself, to move past any shame, any embarrassment, any guilt, any past bad decisions, past upbringing. We'll talk about the money stories in another episode and how that affects you. But if we're not going to have that conversation.

We'Ll never move beyond where we're at. So if we truly want to grow, let's start having real conversations about real things that matter around money in a positive way so we can make a difference in people's lives, including our own and those around us. I hope that makes sense. Here's my call to action for you. Here's my ask for you, especially if you're in a committed relationship. Here's what I'd love for you to do. I'd love for you to set a monthly money date with your significant other. Just have a conversation and it doesn't have to be how much are you spending? What are you making? How much do we it's about first understanding. Are we on the same page about money? How do we see money and start having those dialogues? And it's not about judging each other, it's about conversing with each other. So have a money date. My wife and I will sit down at least once a month and just talk about where we're at. How are things going? What's going on? What's going on with you? Set a date and time and make it happen. The other thing is, if you want to have more conversations around money, wealth, affluence, freedom, do me a favor, join our Facebook group, the Affluent Entrepreneur Facebook Group. It's a private group. It's a community. It's a safe place to have real conversations around these topics. So go there. We'll put the link in the show notes. We'll make sure that we give you access to it. And I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to hear your questions, your comments, when you had the conversation, what happened, your challenges. Let me see if I can help you on your journey to affluence. So go there, join, ask me questions, send me DMs. I'd love to hear from you. We'll bring some of them on the show. Maybe if you want to, we might even bring you on the show. I look forward to seeing you in the next episode of the Affluent Entrepreneur Show. Until then, keep making a difference, keep crushing it, and I'll see you soon. Cheers.

Thank you for listening to the affluent entrepreneurship with me, your host Mel Abraham. If you want to achieve financial liberation to create an affluent lifestyle, join me in the affluent entrepreneur Facebook group now by going to melabraham.com group and I'll see you there.

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