Mike MichalowiczBusiness Author & Keynote Speaker Empowering Entrepreneurs

MONEY - What season are you in? My chat with Hala Taha from #youngandprofitable about your money

19 Feb 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

1:05

In this interview segment, host Mike Michalowicz and guest Hala Taha discuss the framework of four "financial seasons" that describe a person's current money mindset and behavior. The four seasons are: Recover – a proactive, temporary state focused on reducing debt and improving finances; Fund – a deliberate period of saving more than you spend to build a financial cushion for future goals; Activate – a phase where you intentionally spend beyond your earned income, using saved resources to enjoy larger experiences now; and Balance – a blended approach that maintains present enjoyment while also preparing for future needs. Hala emphasizes that these seasons are not permanent, have clear timeframes, and can be consciously chosen and moved through quickly, allowing individuals to manage their money intentionally rather than being stuck in a single mindset.

Chapters

I love this concept of the four financial seasons. So there's recover, fund, activate, balance. Talk to us about each one and how you can tell if you're in each bucket.
When people say, I have debt, that they are also saying, I am always in debt. We need to put the word recover. So if I'm in a recovery state, that means an active move toward improvement. The other thing is, seasons are not permanent. Recovery season is a positive temporal state. When I say, oh, you don't have debt, you're in a recovery season. How long is this season going to last? It's like, oh, that's right. There's a timeframe to it. So that's why those terms exist. The next one is funding. Funding is where we're intentionally saving more than we're spending of our income to prepare for some kind of future experience. Activate is where we're spending more than we're actively earning. So we're actually downing our money savings with intentionality because perhaps we want to live larger in the moment. The final season is balance. Balance is where I'm actively trying to live in the now, but also preparing for some future events. The interesting thing about seasons, though, is you can choose the season you're in and move through them quickly.