Don't Tell People THIS About Your Finances

Hey there, real quick, before we jump into the episode, listen, if your earnings treadmill hasn't set you free yet, running faster won't either. Listen, hustle without principles just going to burn you out. So here's what I want for you. I want you to join me for my money machine experience. Live it is three free trainings. Deep dive into how to escape the treadmill and build a money machine that actually works for you. All right, grab your spot here by going to moneymachinelive.com and I'll see you in the free training. Curious. Have you ever shared something about your finances, your income, your investments, or even your debt, only to regret it later? Listen, if you've ever felt judged, envied, or taken advantage of because you shared too much about your money, this episode, it's for you. Because I'm about to reveal the critical financial details that you should never, ever reveal and why the wealthiest people, most successful people, keep their money matters private.

Your finances, they're your business. But telling people this could cost you more than just money. It could cost you relationships, opportunities, or even peace of mind. And I know that there's this whole conversation around transparency, but I think that there's some things we need to be careful and cautious of because there's a danger in oversharing financial information especially. I see people do this a lot where they're sharing their portfolios on social, and I understand the marketing pizzazz of that. You'll never see it from me. I think that it's a mistake. I'm not gonna share my income. I'm not gonna share things. And I'm gonna talk about why I think that that is issue, because I think that there's a danger. And personal finance, it's personal for a couple reasons. One, it's personal to you. Keep it personal.

There are people that are in your life that maybe have a right to know, but the general public, I don't see that. The other part of personal finance is that it's personal to you as far as what you want to do, how you want to do it, and all that stuff. So I think that we can talk about what to keep private, what to open up about, and how to safeguard your financial future. Because here's what I know and what I've seen. There is a psychological. There's a psychological impact and a psychology behind oversharing. And why do people even do it? Well, some are doing it, like I said, because it's marketing. You know, if you see that their portfolio is big and this and that then maybe you'll follow them and buy their courses and all that stuff. I think it's manipulative in some senses. Yes. You want to know that they've run the miles. The fact is that there's a lot of people out there on the Internet, especially in the financial space, that create these beautiful facades and they have no, they have no reality to it. They've not run the miles. You know, I look at like my journey. One of the benefits of being my age is I've been through, you know, recessions, crashes, booms, you know, the, the dot com bust, the SNL crisis, the banking crisis. I've been through all of it, survived all of it, navigated all of it. And I got the experience.

That comes with that. There's a lot of folks that don't have that experience and they may have hit a home run on one thing, but they can't duplicate it. And then they're out there trying to, to sell people into it. And I've seen a lot of people lose a lot because they jumped in with someone, because they flashed this cool car or their portfolio or something like that. So that's one side of it. The other side of it is I think that there's some people that will overshare because they're seeking validation or admiration for their accomplishments. If I'm going to get admiration, I want it to be because of who I am.

Not necessarily even what I've done and what I. Certainly not because of what I have. Don't admire me because I live on the beach.

That's a house. It's a structure. It doesn't mean anything admiring for. Because how I showed up in people's lives, you know, hopefully it was good. The second psychology behind it is that there's this fear of being judged negatively. I think if they don't explain their choices, their decisions, because they went and did some lavish thing or, or something to explain why it was okay for them to do it, to validate it. You live your life. This is, this is your existence, to live by your terms. And if it's, if it's not immoral, it is not illegal, and you're not hurting people on the journey. Live it fully. Live it fully. It's your dream, okay? And I think the third reason that people do it is to prove that they're successful, especially in competitive environments, especially in that kind of thing. So it could be talking about your salary during social gatherings, it could be sharing your investment gains on social media or in a conversation that now all this could lead to also unwanted attention. And so I think in general, over sharing, taking the marketing and all that stuff out of it can stem from insecurity, but can also backfire. And so I think there's some things we shouldn't. Shouldn't be sharing. I'm going to talk about those here and why I think that's an issue. So I think the first thing I wouldn't. I. It's no one's business. What's your exact income? And I know a lot of people's exact income. That's because I'm a cpa. It's because I'm their advisor. That's because. Because I'm their right hand, their consigliere, if you will. Their financial consigliere, if you will. Okay. But I've had people say, well, what do they make? You're not getting that out of me. Okay. There's a level of integrity and confidentiality that I think is important. So. So I think for me, I wouldn't. I wouldn't share my exact income. Okay. It's no one's. It's really no one's business. I'm talking about outside, you know, you know, my wife, obviously, and, and my advisors and a couple of very close, close folks. Yeah. But I think it's dangerous, too. It leads to comparisons, it leads to jealousies. It leads to other people feeling entitled because you have all of this stuff. It can create tension with colleagues. It can create unwanted attention in social media if you have kids. Like, I'll be honest with you. You know, when, when my son was getting married and they. They were thinking of going to certain countries on their honeymoon, and I said no. I said, you. Even though I don't share anything. They were going to countries.

That had elements of kidnapping and factions that would do that for ransom and this and that. I said no, because I'm still in the public eye. There is this perception. I don't want it to be tested. So I think that there's some danger in sharing that. And, And I think that you can impact people negatively if they feel unworthy because you're sharing, sharing that. So I think that it's important to understand the context. It's important to know who it is that you might be sharing with because we don't want other people to feel less than. And it may not motivate them, it may not impress them, it may depress them. And I don't ever want to be that for someone. Now it's on them to govern their feelings. But I Certainly don't need to pour fuel on the fire and everything. So the first thing is exact income. The second is your total net worth. I think that when you, and look, I see this come out of the woodworks when someone wins the lottery, someone passes away and they inherit a lot of money. But it. You become this target potentially for financial exploitation. There are so many, so many scams out there, and if you just, just look them up, it's the, the Tinder. The Tinder swindler was one of them. Okay. In fact, I, I did an episode on the psychological, emotional triggers of scam artists. Go back and listen to it. Because the, it can lead to financial exploitation and scams where if they know that you have a sizable net worth, all of a sudden they're coming out of the woodworks for, for, you know, friend loans, for I've got an investment, business opportunities, all that type of stuff. And so it puts you in a position of, of saying no, when that, that could create conflict in a family or judgment or envy or pity and all that stuff. So I think it's important to focus on sharing our values, not our numbers. Focus on, on the things that we're doing for good, for people. And not necessarily, here's my balance sheet, it doesn't matter. It's an arbitrary number and, and everything. So I think that we need to be really careful about what we're sharing out there. The third thing is this is I would not be sharing any of my specific investment strategies. Now here's why. There's a couple reasons for it. One, I'm a CPA and a financial advisor to my clients. They're the ones that we'll have conversations about. But the broad public, it's not my place to tell them what to invest in because I, I don't know their age, stage or circumstances. Remember.

When we start to create a financial journey, we start with the vision for our life. That vision is what defines the plan. And I go into detail of this in a prior episode. The plan will set the strategy, the strategy will determine the tactics, and the tactics will give us the action steps we need to take. The investments you make are at the tactic level. And the tactic that you use for yourself is good for you and your circumstances because you have a specific strategy, you have a specific plan, and you have a specific vision. That tactic that I use for investing isn't good necessarily for my son who's 30 years younger than me, with two young kids with a different vision for his life. So, so I think that one invest Sharing investments and stuff comes with a risk because it may not be the right investment for them. There isn't a one size fits all. And someone could copy your investment, your strategy, they could lose money, and now you damage a relationship or a reputation. And so I typically don't share at that detail level with outsiders, with my clients and my family members. Sometimes we'll talk about it, and I'll give them the caveat. I'll give them the cabinet. This is what works for me, and here's why it works for me. It may not work for you, and so.

I wouldn't share that. Number four, your debt details. Okay. I think that.

When you start to open up, you know where you are on debt. Maybe you have big student loans or credit cards or something like that. You open yourself up to judgment and probably a whole lot of unwanted advice. I know, I know I'm guilty of it, all right? But I'll ask permission. I said, is it. Do I have permission to give you some advice? Because they brought it up. They know what I do. And, you know, do you want some advice? You just want me to listen? But the fact is, is that you could open yourself up to advice, which isn't the reason you did it. And now all of a sudden, you've got this tension because you feel judged. And now if you don't take the advice, what happens? You know, I think that it creates an environment that could be tense. Now, if you need support and you want to discuss it, then I would discuss it with someone that you trust. Discuss it with someone that. That you trust their knowledge, their expertise, their journey, and set the context. But I wouldn't do it in. In a casual conversation. And then number five, I think is this. Is that some of my financial goals. Sharing your goals can invite criticism. Like if I told you that I wanted a hundred million dollars, okay.

What does that make you think? Oh, he's greedy. I mean, greedy or whatever. It's not the number. It's not what I want, okay? What I want is a rich life. What I want is a rich life, rich in experiences, rich with the relationships, rich with the sharing, rich with the memories. And now I sit back and say, well, what's the number that allows me to live that life by choice? The tagline of this show, and that's really the number. It's not just a number. Who cares, y'? All. There's a guy by the name of Merkel. He was one of the wealthiest people in Europe. He was. He was like, I don't. And don't quote me on this is like he was like number four, number one, or, I don't know, $14 billion. He made a bad investment in Volkswagen. It went down. He dropped a couple runs. Now, he had other financial issues going on at the time, but his esteem and worth was so tied to where he was in that pecking order, he couldn't handle it, and he threw himself in front of a train. Okay. I think that. That the judgment of others can force us to do things. And so I look at things and say, hey, some of the stuff is just always going to stay private or within a very, very narrow group of people. I'm not broadcasting it because it's no one's business, you know, And. And to have someone where you say, well, you know, I want to save $100,000 a year, and then someone turns around, says, you'll never be able to save $100,000 a year. You're crazy. I had people tell me that, that some of the things that I was trying to do would never happen, and I accomplished them. But there's other people that when they have someone criticize them and say they can't, and they go, well, maybe I can't, and they stop. Okay? So I think that. That there's a place to publicly declare your goals, but there's also a who to publicly declare your goals to. To just broadcast it to people that don't necessarily matter, but are willing to criticize, judge, and critique you may bring you down, especially if you have that personality. So I think that I would be cautious about that. Now, why does this really matter? I think there's a couple of reasons why. One is that. And I mentioned this, is that it protects you against scams. Okay. So I used to do business management for someone who is very, very prominent in the music industry. I ran their whole financials, and his wife.

His. His wife rear ended someone, and she's driving a Mercedes and she rear ends someone, and the guy gets out of the car. She gets out of the car, she takes her cell phone and she dials me. She calls me on her cell phone and. And. And looks at the guy that she just rear ended and says, this is my. This is my business manager. Talk to him. He'll take care of it all. I'm like going, oh, my God. I said, give the phone back to her. Because now, he wasn't a scam artist, but do you think he saw dollar signs? Yes. And I think that when we. When we too, openly broadcast our private financial matters, it opens us up to possible phishing scams, identity theft, other scams that come into play. I got caught in a Ponzi scheme partly because I was finding I wasn't broadcasting it, but he was told about me. And so, you know, hey, he's successful. He's doing this, he's doing that. And so he. He worked me, worked me good. So I think that it protects you against scams. Number two, it prevents relationship strains. Sometimes when you start to.

Talk about, you know, in a prideful way that, hey, I accomplished this, I did this, I was able to do this, it may come across it as bragging. And with friends or family, you could end up in a situation where they resented or they turn around and they start to ask for gifts or loans. You can afford it, go out to dinner, and they want you to pick up the bill. And that starts to cause resentment and stress in the relationship. And so relationships can be damaged if we're not careful about it. And I think the third thing here is that it avoids external influence and oversharing will invite opinions about financial strategies. Other friends, other advisors that see you and that want to come in and say, hey, I've got a deal for you, all those things will start to come into play. But now, does that mean that you don't share anything? Well, I think here's what you can share and how to do it the right way. One is general advice or insights that can help people without exposing your situation. I think they help, like automating my. Here's one of the things I did. I automated my savings. I talk about this all the time. Removing the friction from your investing, that's what helped me build wealth. Okay? It wasn't the dollars. It was the habits. It was the behaviors. And so. So automating my investing helped me stay consistent. Is. Is really good, good advice. It's not exposing anything. How did you can share it smartly, though, is that you can sit back and say, look, I, you know, I follow the. The wealth priority ladder in my book, and I put away 20, 25% of my income, okay? And so you've got anonymized, if you will, the numbers in that way, okay? The other way to do it is to look at the lessons you learn. Like I talk about the Ponzi scheme and the lessons that I learned there. Not listening to my voice or in my head, not having investing rules, all those things that allowed me to understand. Instead of that to sit back and say, depending on who it is, I might, you know, obviously, I think that there should be Full transparency. In a marital relationship, in an intimate relationship, there just should be, you are in a life together now.

Outside of that, I think that you pick and choose. There are some people in my life that know that are very close to me and they know a lot more about my financial world than others do. And believe it or not, a lot of those may not be family and that's okay. So I would be very, very picky on who I share what with in doing that. Okay. Because I think that there's some real life consequences when we aren't careful and we over share, you know, whether it's salary and bonuses to colleagues at work that lead to jealousy or, or strain the team dynamics, we, whether it's a friend that flaunts their wins and games, you want your friends to grow and win and all that stuff. But if it feels like flaunting, if it feels like goading, it's just eh. And it sets them up for being scammed. When family members are struggling, yet you're sitting back saying, well, I'm doing great, that starts to not feel good. Okay? So I think that those are the things that, that come into play. Now what do you do? I think that there's four things to do. One is this.

Before you share things, before you start doing anything, I in advance would say, what are my boundaries? Being really clear about what you're going to share, why you're going to share it, how you're going to share it, what are the boundaries? In advance? Okay. And if someone asks you a question, you're welcome to say, you know, I'd rather not talk about that. Okay. You don't have to say, it's none of your, none of your damn business. You can be nice about it, but establish your boundaries up front. In fact, I think that that is good advice in all relationships. You know, whether it's an intimate relationship, what are the boundaries, what are the must nots and the must haves. So you make sure that you're getting into a relationship that matters, that that makes sense. Number two, be selective. Share only the information that that makes sense and your financial details with your professionals, the trusted professionals. Like advisors, we have a duty of confidentiality. So anything that's shared with me, I don't speak to anyone else about it. It's not my place and I can't. But if you share it to some outsider, they could broadcast it on the Internet. So I, I'd be selected with the who and the what.

And number three, if you're sharing it, you're Sharing it for the purpose of education and not bragging. Bragging. Okay? It's. It's sharing an experience to help others versus flaunting it in. In their face. And last, I would protect yourself online. I would be really careful about what I post online. Uh, there's phishing scams. There's scams out there. There's all kinds of things out there. So that's. That's how I look at it. Look, financial privacy, it's not just about protecting your money. It's about protecting your peace, your relationships, your family, and your future. I think you choose wisely what you share and who you share it with. Let your actions, not your words, speak for your success. The generosity you have, the way you show up in the world, the ability to do those things. So I would look at it through those eyes. I know that this was a different kind of episode, but I think that it's important for us to be safe. The last thing I want to have happen is you have everything in place and you build this amazing financial structure, and you lose it because of a scam because you were flippant about putting it out there. Or even worse, you lose money, meaningful relationships because you shared something that probably ought not to have been shared. Okay? So just bottom line is, be discerning, have boundaries, doing in advance. Think about the what, think about the why, and think about the who. Then doing that. All right, here, I would love to hear from you. What's one financial boundary that you've set or maybe you want to set that will make a difference and. And how this might have impacted you? All right, I, first off, want to just say thank you for being here. This show is such a joy for me to be able to speak to you. The comments that I get from you, the, you know, the. The DMs and everything, just, they mean the world. And so do me a favor, Keep the comments coming, keep the questions coming, keep the DMs coming, share it with people, make sure you're subscribed. I don't want you to be on a financial journey alone. I want to do this with you. I'm on a mission. I'm on a crusade to light the path to financial freedom for a million families. And I want one of those families to be you. Okay? I got no investments to sell you. I got no insurance to sell you. I simply want to sell you on the possibility of your dreams. All right? All right, y'. All. I hope to see you on the road to your financial freedom. Until I do, always, always strive to live a life. See you in the next one. Thank you for listening to the Affluent Entrepreneur show 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.

And that's it for this episode of Building youg Money Machine, where we help you learn how to master your money, eliminate financial stress, and live a life of choice. If you found this valuable or helpful to you, here's what I'd love for you to do. If you do me a favor, go to Apple, Apple Podcast or wherever you're listening to this podcast and rate and review the show. It helps us tremendously to keep us at the top of the list so we can continue to get this information and this message out to people. Because I truly believe that financial freedom is your birthright and I want to help each and every one of you claim it. Thanks so much.