Self Worth | Money | Wellness | Women with Author, Amanda Steinberg

Wellness Force Radio Feelings are essential, but they can't dictate our actions.

We literally infect each other with our emotions.

We came here for a special purpose.

Let the purpose unveil itself. Knowing without doing is the same thing as not knowing.

They're not just trackers. I'm gonna wear this and it's gonna.

Help me do the right thing.

Wellness Force radio episode 104 with the author of Worth it and and the CEO of Daily Worth, Amanda Steinberg.

Our feelings and our relationship around money have very little to do with the actual circumstances of our finances. Because if women are disassociated from finance, as our culture has required it, women are never going to be able to take care of themselves and it's going to perpetuate this impossible situation. And this is really about an integrity building thing more than anything. It's about creating a case and then proving to yourself in your mind so that all those voices in your head can't talk you out of what it otherwise thought to be true. It can be a difficult conversation and a very confronting one because we shape our identities to protect ourselves from pain. And so when you start to dismantle some things that you realize maybe don't have to be entirely true, it can be really painful for you to realize. People are so afraid to be judged by others, they don't realize that anyone's judgment of you is actually more about them than anything to do with you.

What's up, my friend? It's Josh Trent and welcome back to another episode. This is your weekly access to global experts in all things wellness, behavior change and new technologies. In this podcast, together we'll discover the connections between our emotions and healthy habits to live life well and enjoy the process. This podcast is brought to you by Perfect Supplements, a company who actually walks the talk with their values of pesticide free non GMO real food supplements that fuel us for the wellness journey, save money, support the show, get more wellness. In the process, head over to perfectsupplements.com wellnessforce Enter code wellnessforce to save 10% off your entire order. Okay, honest question time. How much is your self worth? Consciously or subconsciously tied to your net worth? In a world where we all know money helps to give us freedom time and the resources to live life well. In combination, of course, with our gratitude and mental health practices, it's pretty safe to say that the more money we have coming in, the more likely we are to live a life of wellness. So in that light, today on the podcast, we're talking to Amanda Steinberg, the founder of the personal finance website Daily Worth and the investment platform Worth fm to learn about her new book worth it, you life, you money, you Terms for Women this episode is going to be especially profound and thought provoking because one of Amanda's core missions is to help people, specifically women, increase both their self worth and their net worth. We'll learn from years of research around the psychology and behaviors that determine how much money we spend versus how much money we save and the stories we tell ourselves during that process that brings us closer to where we want to be, when or pulls us back. So for this episode you'll learn and understand what are the stories we tell ourselves in society, especially women, around money, how current financial systems prey using ancient psychological practices why Amanda's upbringing helps fuel her passion to cut a new channel in the patriarchy and empower a new role for women inspired by the lessons she learned at a very young age. And I think you're gonna be as surprised and captivated as I was by where this conversation went in the second half of the interview where Amanda and I talked about the elephant in the room in our current industrialized society, the role of women in relationships, how they earn money, it's changing. We explored what feminine versus masculine is in 2017 and this shift of how men and women are earning money, what that means to relationships and what it means to having greater wellness in our lives. We'll talk about why Amanda believes all we need to succeed is what she calls roots and wings and also some tactical and practical things we can start doing every single day to practice that self love and discipline around our relationship with money. If the word money brings you stress and you've been looking for permission and some new tools to write a brand new story that allows you to have more abundance and wellness in your life, let's jump in right here, right now with Amanda Steinberg. Amanda Steinberg is the founder and CEO of Daily Worth, the leading financial media company for women publishing financial and business advice to millions of women daily. She is an international business leader, public speaker and author on the topic of women and money. After launching daily worth in 2009 to bring a fresh voice and an outsider's perspective to personal finance, Oprah selected her to the exclusive Super Soul 100, while Forbes named her one of the 21 new American money Masters. She is also the founder of the new digital investing service Worth fm, which received front page coverage in the New York Times Business section, and the author of Worth Life. You Money, you terms a brand new book which Released this month. Amanda, welcome to the show.

Thank you. God, I'm kind of exhausted listening to you saying all that.

I know you've done quite a bit. I mean, from pro developer to CEO, financial guru, there's so much about you online you share so openly and powerfully in your book. We were talking before we recorded. I was actually laughing in the first 50 pages. I didn't know I could laugh on a financial book. But I'm curious. What is something about you that most people in the media and your readers might not know?

You know, I guess what strikes people as so odd so often is that I'm really laid back. And I think because of my accomplishments and my ambition, they picture a banker who has perfect hair and the right jewelry on, and usually I have, you know, like, split nail polish, and my hair is frizzy, and I'm kind of more hippie than I am banker. And that just typically throws people off.

That is. Thank you for sharing that with us, because I think casual and finance are not always terms that co mingle. And, you know, we discussed a little bit about money and worthiness and wellness on the show before, but the connections between these. I am so excited to get a woman's perspective, especially a woman with your story. One of the things that I got from you online was you quoted my life and work are dedicated to the reinvention of financial advice and financial services so that anyone, regardless of circumstance, gender, or knowledge level, can experience the thrill of clarity and control in money. Tell us about that. I mean, how do we have the clarity and control of money as a segue to this show?

Sure. Well, what's interesting about money is you can be someone who has $100,000 in debt and be like, I'm killing it. Or you can be someone who has a million dollars in the bank and be petrified that you're broke and you're not doing enough. Our feelings and our relationship around money have very little to do with the actual circumstances of our finances. And so ultimately, what my work is about is, you know, it's going through my journey, which you read about, which is especially witnessing how it's been more feminine and more socially acceptable for women to be disassociated from money because it threatens the power relationship that is so central to how our culture has evolved over the last couple of centuries and probably longer. But as a result, this has been especially destabilizing for women because even with all of our advances and the workforce and our independence, we're still disassociated from money to the extent that we delegate it or see it as not interesting. And that, to me is the greatest travesty, especially for women, is that we can't really fulfill our potential until we understand, you know, until we understand our money, because that's a big part of it. So that's, that's. I'm trying to support that shift so that it doesn't feel like work and you don't feel bad.

And on top of that, it's hard to have real wellness in our current industrialized society without financial health as well. I mean, there is a major bridge between our personal wellness and our health habits. Our stress load, Amanda, of how much we have in the bank. This is something you learned at a really early age. You're the youngest of three girls. Your mom had a divorce, and it was around finance and stress. And I have something very similar. Money. My story, which we'll talk about later in the show, tell us about what that was when you were a child growing up in that situation, what money belief got burned in, and then we'll discover how you got clear of it.

Sure. Well, so I experienced when I was three years old, my parents getting divorced. And what happened was it wasn't just the financial stress that my mom endured, but her total identity meltdown because she had always thought that if she was the good wife, that she would have a secure life. And so I watched her cry for years because she just didn't know who she was and didn't know where to go. But as a result, she really instilled in me the importance of independence. And I joke that she turned me into the maniacal, ambitious entrepreneur that I am today because that was really a way of healing my mom was, if I can become independent, I will make sure not to repeat the same pain that she has felt. So I did everything that I thought I was supposed to do. And I'm sure many of you listening, relate, and, you know, you try to create a budget. You may read a David Bok or a Suze Orman book, you set up your savings account and your retirement account, and you follow all these steps. And the problem that I really ran into for the 10 years where I was a computer programmer trying to follow all these steps was that I did them all. And I still went deeper and deeper into debt. And that was the humiliating part for me that really broke me when I was 30 and really forced me to go, okay, timeout. Game over. Starting again.

I can specifically remember when I was a kid, I had moments where I was just paralyzed by the thought of money when you were actually going through it as a child. Did money in that situation, was it paralyzing or was it something that was abundant and free?

Oh, it was paralyzing. I mean, it was. Everything was about money. And, you know, what my dad had and what my mom had and what my step siblings had and what we didn't have, and it was just this, like, vicious, horrible object that there was never enough of. And it just made me angrier and angrier.

And so you vowed to be this conscious student of learning this money story, and what did that look like for the actual discovery of the story? Like, what was the point where you realized, oh, my gosh, I'm running on old software.

Yeah, exactly. Very astute comment there. It was really that I, you know, I picked up computer programming young, and that was an incredible skill for generating a lot of income in the late 90s. When I did it, the old software was simply, as long as you earn a lot, you'll have a lot. And even if you're spending a lot, you'll still always be able to make more, which makes no sense in retrospect. It was when I realized that I was making multi six figures a year being a computer programmer, and that that didn't. And I was actually going deeper into debt because I didn't understand my assets.

In the early years of this struggle, you actually attended a conference. It was a class from a hip hop poetry artist named Ra Goddess and a spiritually elevated human rights advocate. Is that where things started to shift? Tell us about that.

You know, it's funny. Ra Goddess, I first met at an Omega institute meditation class when I was 21. That's the hippie in me that I talk about. I've always been fascinated with spirit and breathing. As you can hear, I don't really do very much of it. So clearly it's a fascination of mine. Meditation and transformational thinking had a profound impact on me at a young age, and yet it did not really influence my money because I didn't think there was a problem at the time. My software business grew really fast, and I bought a big house that I couldn't afford, and it put me close to $100,000 in debt. And I got an invitation from Ra and Leah to attend a women and money seminar in 2008, and that was when the Amanda Steinberg, as you know me today shift began.

It's in the beginning stages. I think we're all interested in the story because right now, I'm sure can agree in the media. There's so many how to guides and a lot of tactical kind of mechanical ideas that are around there. But what really pulls the emotional weight for us listening and for me sitting here with you is the story. So when you got out of the conference, I mean, what did that look like? What were the first steps in you reframing the story, building the new software?

First, let me set the stage for you. It was September 8th. I remember it was my birthday and I was seven months pregnant with my second child. My marriage was on the rocks. I had a close to million dollar revenue engineering company that was super overwhelming. And I also had another business that I just started around an open source platform called Joomla. That was similar to WordPress. So the last thing I needed to do with one toddler and a newborn on the way, a marriage in the rocks, $90,000 in debt on a hot summer day, was to start another company. Right? That makes absolutely no sense, but the universe sometimes has other plans. So what I did was after I took this class for two hours, the thing that's always been most important to me is I've had a lot of privilege. I learned computer programming. That's a very powerful skill. Even though I whine about my difficult childhood, relatively speaking, I had a house, I had food, I had a good education, I had a mother and father who loved me. It wasn't really that bad. I have a lot of opportunity in this world to make a big impact. And so I've always been sitting there thinking, how can I reduce suffering for people as much in the world by using these skills and privilege that I have? And so when I went to this women in Money seminar, it wasn't just about me. It was like I struck into a current of dynamic that exists in our culture that hit me so hard, it was like a bat hit me over the head. It was like, Amanda, you need to bring this message to millions of women. Because if women are disassociated from finance as our culture has required it, women are never going to be able to take care of themselves and it's going to perpetuate this impossible situation.

You talked about the society piece too. So let's discover that. I mean, there was trains that came and as soon as trains came, it kind of changed the whole landscape of how men and women earn money. And then of course, in the 60s and 70s, we saw women leave the home. And what's happened since then? I mean, one out of four women make more money than their men and husbands, Correct?

Yeah, exactly. So what happened was money became very gender delineated. The trains you mentioned is the commuter trains that really came about in the 1800s when suddenly. But it used to be more enmeshed. You know, there was the family business or the family farm. It wasn't like men left to go to work. And when men started leaving the home to go to work, this idea of what was feminine and what was masculine started to permeate our culture. And money became further and further away from women, especially the longer term planning and earning of it. But in the last 40, 50 years or so, as women, as birth control came about and women. And it became more socially acceptable for women not to have to get married or have to have children. As far as social validation was concerned, we're starting to have this ability to make more decisions in our lives so that we're not valued by how well we fit in, but we can create our own definition of what value is. And that's a really, really big and complicated shift because it's so different from how it's been for so long.

I want to go back because something that you wrote that really struck me in the chest in the book was the debt led to doubt and the doubt spiraled into despair. I can remember many times in my life before launching Wellness Force, sitting in a job I might not enjoy or maybe I hate. And a lot of people can relate to this. What was that moment? Where did that quote come from?

Yeah, it's just what I remember where. You know, I've been on this treadmill for so long. I. My. I'd set my life up because I thought it was how it was supposed to be. Not necessarily because what I wanted. I'm much more of a free spirit and independent thinker than the kind of suburban housewife life that I had set up for myself out of fear of not fitting in. I'm kind of over that now. I was trapped. I thought I'd done everything right and I got to this point. Bottom dark place where it was like, I'm trying and trying and I'm out of juice and game over.

And so you created this news story about yourself and money and then you're really now sharing how people can dismantle this and figure it out. There is a ton. We're not going to have time to go into it in the show, but there is a ton of tactical and guiding points in the book. One of the things that I loved was when you referenced a quote from your mom. Actually, she said, all you need are roots. And wings. Can you tell us what the roots represent, what the wings represent and how that relates to.

Sure. Growing up, I thought my mom was really weird because she didn't give me any rules. And I would often look around and go, mom, I'm sitting here in front of the TV with a box of sugar cereal, and I can do this for days on end, and you don't stop me. And that's very weird. Why are you raising me that way when everyone else seems to have structure in their lives? And she said, amanda, you know, I really believe that as your mom, I only have to give you two things for you to be successful. Roots, which is a family that loves you, the security to know that a family always loves you, and wings, which is the confidence to go out and do whatever you want in the world. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. Because she would say, as long as I see you getting those two things, I want you to decide to find your own life, because that's how you're gonna learn and become strong. And in retrospect, I have a very similar methodology with how I'm raising my own children. And I'm the outsider parent. What I did in my book was I wanted to give that gift to other women, many of whom think that they have to follow rules in order to be good. And instead saying, how about you write your rules? I'm going to give you the two things that you need in order to write your own rules and design your own life. And the first is roots. But in the case of the book, I define roots as assets. Assets are investments that you make, either a retirement account, investment account, a home, or a business that they're expensive to set. They don't always grow. They do have risk, and they do have costs associated with them. But if you learn how to manage these different types of routes, you can grow really strong security for yourself. And as a result of that, you can generate wings. Wings is either income, a savings account, or credit. And what the book does is instead of telling women to earn more and then budget and get on that treadmill of trying to figure out how you eke out $200 at the end of the month. And, like, what's in my 401k? I have no idea. I can't even get there. I flip it and I say, first, let's talk about your roots. Do you want to own a home? Do you want an investment account? Do you believe that being an entrepreneur suits you? If so, here's what that really, really means. Here's the simplest way to do it so you're not putting yourself at added risk before you understand. And then we'll talk about income so that you are building security for yourself, not leaving that as the last possible priority.

What do you think right now in 2017, that the narrative is with most women that have a full schedule, specifically moms? If there's not enough financial abundance in the house, in the bank account, in the life, how does that impact their wellness? And then what's the typical dialogue that you've seen based on all this research and all this experience?

You know what? I observ in so many of my kids, friends, parents in particular. Cause they're not. I mean, yes, socially, they're similar to me because we're the same, quote, unquote demographic, I guess, but still, it's more of a sampling than, say, my work world, which is much more reflective of my mentality. This feeling that you have to do everything that society says you're supposed to do in order to raise good children and be a good person. So your kid has to have soccer and do these lessons and, you know, be at the right test scores, and you have to dye your hair in a salon and wear the right clothes and have the right car. So not so that you think you're better than anyone else, but so that you have a baseline of normalcy. But even this baseline of normalcy has set it up. People are so afraid to be judged by others. They don't realize that anyone's judgment of you is actually more about them than anything to do with you. And I'm most interested right now in how do we strip away all of these expectations. Where did they even come from in the first place? Give yourself the freedom of space. Give yourself the freedom of. Give yourself the freedom of saying, no, I'm not gonna go to that birthday party. I'm not gonna buy your kid a gift. They're not even gonna notice that I bought it for them. Cause they got 15 more. Let's just stop the insanity and go and hit the reset button because it's just not worth it at the end. It's gonna make you way worse off than better off.

Yes. Oh, God, I love that so much because the narrative is so incredibly important. Many of the guests we've had on the show have talked about mindset and the importance of actually building new synapses in the brain when it comes to these neuropathways that are set when regard to money and our relations.

Childhood.

I had a specific example. I was raised on Welfare. So we're talking, like, blocks of government cheese and kick cereal, you know? No, no. Produce. Nothing. Nothing like that. And so from an early age, I just thought, well, money is pain, because money represents my mom being stressed out. It represents fights between her. And my parents actually divorced as well. And so I had to go to a lot of different therapy pieces, workshops. And what I eventually came to the idea of was my mom and dad did the absolute best they can and with the straps they were given. And so in your case, and with the people that may come across your bandwidth, is that the same narrative? Is it what we really absorb from our parents, or can we learn these money habits from another source?

Oh, we can absolutely learn these habits from another source. And the thing there to get into is this idea that we're not hardwired. There is such a pervasive idea in our culture right now that you're born a certain way, women are a certain way, men are a certain way. It's really just an education, I think, is coming about for various reasons, that actually our brains are far more malleable. And that even just introducing that idea creates a lot of intrigue. And people go, hmm, how do you do that, exactly? What does it mean to rewire yourself so that your life can occur a different way?

Okay, well, I think you just asked your own next question. How do we begin this process? And I know you talk about it so much in the book, but as the beginning stages for somebody that wants to do the rewiring, what does that look like?

Well, first of all, I just want to invite you into a very. It can be a difficult conversation and a very confronting one, because we shape our identities to protect ourselves from pain. And so when you start to dismantle some things that you realize maybe don't have to be entirely true, it can be really painful for you to realize because it's almost, like, not embarrassing for yourself. But oftentimes, when I reflect on where I have been telling a story about myself for so long that's made my life the way it is, I'll give you an example. I get kind of sad. Like, the one I'm working on right now is, I'm out of control. That's always been me because I've got so much ambition, and I don't see risk that I. And being a single mom that I oftentimes. I mean, the amount of dropped balls in my life is staggering. But I've realized, because I teach a course once a year called Money Clarity, it's coming up Where I always have to take on something big for myself or else I'm not going to teach the material very well. And so I have to take on this idea of not being out of control. And that, to me, is confronting. So first you have to get comfortable with the idea that it's going to be uncomfortable. And then the second is to get really clear on what those statements are. The things you say to yourself over and over again that probably start at a very young age, that no longer serve you. Like, you know, I've always said since I was a kid, I'm fearless. That's a good thing. I'm not going to change that. I don't want to suddenly become fearful. But when it comes to feeling out of control, that really no longer serves me and my work in the world. So that's what I'm working on next. So really getting clear on what those expressions are. Write down a really long list and then circle the ones that bring you the most pain that you really want to get rid of. They might be about the world. There's never going to be enough. The world is unstable. It might be about your relationship to money. I'll never have enough. I'm out of control. I'm just not good with money. I don't understand it. Or it might be about money itself. It might be that money is greed, money is the source of all evil, et cetera, et cetera. So really understanding what those are and then deciding which one you want to get rid of. The one I wanted to get rid of the most is the fact that I always say I'm a spender, not a saver. That was the one I really had to get rid of. So what I did, here's the strategy that I used to shift that. And this happened over many years for me. And this is why I started Daily Worth. After my workshop with Leah and Rob. I didn't hire a financial advisor. I launched Daily Worth as a newsletter because I wanted to put everything honestly out online. Even if it was embarrassing, even if it was painful. I wanted to be held publicly, accountable to make sure I couldn't continue to screw up my finances. And so what I'm telling you right now is a synthesis of years of work. This isn't something you necessarily learn overnight. I'm just giving you an overview so you can start to get used to the language and the ideas. I'll tell you. Oftentimes, I'll build up my emergency fund to 10, $20,000 of liquid savings, which is awesome, because when something comes along unexpected, like a trip I want to take in the summer or summer camp, which I never seem to budget properly for. You know, it'll wipe out your emergency fund. And oftentimes when that happens, my old story emerges. So I'll give you three examples of what I do now. Every single time my emergency fund gets wiped out and I have to remind myself that I'm a saver, the first thing I do is I take out a mason jar and I fill it with all the coins and the dollar bills in my house. And I do that literally just to put it on my countertop and look at it and go, there's your savings, Amanda. You're saving. You are actually being a saver. Great. That's the first step. The second step is I go into my credit card statements and I find a subscription to something that I've joined and I cancel it if I'm no longer using it. And then I take that months of subscription and I move it into my savings account. And so not only am I putting money in a jar, but I'm starting to move money back again into savings. And this is really about an integrity building thing more than anything. It's about creating a case and then proving to yourself in your mind so that all those voices in your head can't talk you out of what it otherwise thought to be true.

Ooh, I want to ask you about that before you go on because that little win, what I'm hearing from you is it's like a small benchmark on the way to a big goal. So you physically put the jar like on your kitchen counter on your bedroom shelf?

Yep, I do. I put it on the window. I have it there right now, actually. Integrity to me is the source of everything. And your mind is very loud and very opinionated. You have to learn the tricks to trick it. It's like you're brainwashing yourself. Honestly, it's really just like your brain isn't as smart as your conscience is.

Oh my gosh. I love how the conversation has taken a turn from money to mind. There was something you posted on Social. It's a few days ago and it was a quote from Carl Richards and it was all, your truth exists because you arbitrarily chose it for no reason long ago and then collected evidence. That's it. Except for be nice to people, be honest, love wins. Otherwise all bullshit. Tell us about that. Why'd you post that?

So I've collaborated with Carl for seven years. He actually worked for DailyWorth in the very beginning, writing some of our articles and he's the New York Times personal finance guy who draws these cartoons on the back of napkins and they're always about things that are obvious about money that no one does. I was excited to see that Carl had done something so viscerally cognitive as opposed something about personal finance, which is just the core idea of the way our minds evolve. And that's what's exciting I think about being alive right now is humans are starting to really realize that we are the creators of our world. Our world is. We are not victims of it. And there is. It's like an academic process as much as it is an experiential process that anyone who is new to these concepts, you just need to learn the vocabulary. But all of my work comes down to especially for women. Women have been programmed to be selfless, dependent and bad with money. And so I am overtly and expressly reprogramming women in partnership with them, not convincing them they need to. Most of them show up deciding they want to. Helping women learn how to reprogram themselves so that they are self full, not selfish, but they are valuing themselves along with everyone else that they are independent in ways that they choose to be and that they are able to live life by their own definition. And sadly that is still radical.

It is no surprise if we're on point in taking care of our emotional health. It makes it so much easier to let go of old weight and have more energy throughout the day. But believe me when I say it's hard to treat other people well and think good thoughts if we're walking around hangry. One of the best ways to support our body's energy systems and help cure that satiety and satiation, AKA hangry is to add in collagen to your waters, shakes and food. Over the past year I've been using powdered collagen from perfect supplements in my morning coffees, waters and post workout shakes to get some organic proteins I can feel good about eating. You know by now healthy cows eat grass and these sick cows from CAFOs eat corn. So beyond the healing powers of collagen for digestion and joint health, this 100% pasture raised organic hydrolyzed collagen has 20 grams of protein in two scoops which helps curb appetite and increase satiety and satiation from ethical harvesting you can actually feel good about. Collagen from grass fed cows has five times as much Omega 3s and twice as much CLA as found in grain fed beef. And best of all, you can Sleep well at night knowing you're supporting the change we need for this broken food system. Get a box of single serve packets for on the Go grass fed collagen or purchase it as part of the WellnessForce discounted bundle by clicking over to perfectsupplements.com WellnessForce and be sure to enter code WellnessForce to save 10% off your already discounted package. My experience of you is that you're putting information out there that is going to allow people to shift into a new narrative, which is really where all the change occurs. All these strategies and tactics, they're great and they're important. But what you talk about, where you're actually going to take the emotional inventory that matters the most, is that kind of what people are feeling from your work.

We don't realize that our identities aren't hardwired, you know, and we especially don't realize that as women, we don't have to be nurturing to be good. Oh my God. I lost it on stage at an event the other night because a woman was like, well, really what you need to do as a woman is go out and hang out with your friends to talk about these things. Because as women, we're social beings. And I was like, that is doing just as much harm as it is good. Because then people think if they're not doing that, there's something wrong with them.

I feel that we're seeing a lot of change that's incredibly powerful for women, especially in the workplace. Do you know of any data or have you seen in your studies that supports the actual growth of women being in leadership positions, women earning as much or more than men, where 10 years ago that just wasn't the case?

Yeah, I see it's very, very promising in the under 30 set. But unfortunately I still don't see it at the upper ranks. You know, I'll tell you, at being a woman in finance right now, the patriarchy is strong. And I never felt it as a computer programmer because when you're a programmer, people need you because there aren't a lot of people who do what you do. But being a startup founder where I'm raising venture capital, you know, they don't need me because they already have trillions of dollars. And so I experience sexism and how much harder it is to be female in that environment in a way that I never had before. I have a few women CEO friends. One in particular, she's a Fortune 1000 CEO. She has 10,000 employees. She's one of my mentors. I had lunch with her a few weeks ago. And there's still a deep frustration that it hasn't changed. And that's either because the cultural narrative of gender is still far more powerful than an individual will at the moment, or that the corporate structure unto itself doesn't inherently serve women. It's one or the other, and we will see. So I see a lot of promise in the Millennials, but after that, sadly, it's still pretty stagnant.

Well, I think technology is changing things so much for the better. It's funny you have such a deep background as being a programmer. Did you actually work on dos like the old school green screens? And so coming from that, it's beautiful. It's a nice contrast. Contrast, because the old way of men and women operating in the workplace or out of the workplace, it's like these green screens that barely worked and they kind of got the job done. But now, what's most exciting, and the question I want to ask you is, as technology increases, how do we still maintain what David Dida calls the arc of polarity between men and women? Women being in their feminine being, trusting, being open, men being in their masculine doing. How do women and men balance that and keep that spark of polarity as men and women become more equal in the digital landscape?

You know, I love David Dieta so much, and I've read a lot of his work. I believe that those concepts of polarity are actually part of the problem. And I think they're perpetuated by the story. And I don't think that they're as true as we believe them to be. I'm pretty counter to the, to that thought process. I don't think gender is as great a determinant as others feel.

Tell me more about that.

I think that there's a lot of this kind of provider nurturer division is a narrative that was created simply because women were the ones having babies. And so we, we did not really have a choice. But in terms of my observations and the psychological studies that we've been doing through Money Type and the Cognitive Center, Pacifica Institute in California, who we're collaborating with on these cognitive studies, is that when you look at the data and women's experience, once their knowledge level increases, their provider mentality and their appetite for risk also increases. So I just, I, you know, as you can hear, I've got a deep voice. I played video games, I'm an athlete. I always felt like I didn't fit in because I had more masculine tendencies. And fortunately, I've been able to Find more of my tribe and bring others about to the extent where we can break out of these gender determinants of how we are supposed to be. Because a lot of men don't feel like providers and a lot of women don't feel like nurturers. I just think there's a lot more fluidity and there's a dissolve happening and it does run counter to even kind of the more progressive ideologies. I'm here to kind of strip off the social norms so that people can be more at peace in their own selves.

So the polarity thing might be an old paradigm where you don't think that biology can be a precursor to how we can behave.

You know, I don't know yet. I don't know yet. I'm not trying to emasculate anyone or, you know, sob for my own insecurities about having a low voice and always being a tomboy. Who knows? I don't know yet. Yet. Okay, can I get back to you? Maybe it should be my next book.

Yeah, totally. I don't usually stump people, so. Thank you. There are many instances where a man can just be more in his feminine. Like maybe naturally he just is a nurturer and then the woman might be more in her masculine where she just kind of is a go getter from birth. How do you think that relates to the way that men and women can make money and in the way that money can be something they can trust in the family structure. Let's say that parents are married and they have a family of three kids and money becomes a stress point. What does that balance look like between the man and the woman? Kind of equally taking on the responsibility for money and creating that abundance for the family. In that situation where maybe the man might not be a provider and maybe the woman is.

Yeah, this is a fascinating question and I'm still a newer student to this and I don't have all of my ideas figured out. So what I'm happy about doing with you here and what I'm doing a lot lately is I'm playing with ideas. Not necessarily because I'm attached to them, but because I just think they need to be discussed. So what I would say to them is what's important for women is to realize that we have had impressed upon us by a society that we are valued when we are selfless, when we are giving. That makes it very hard for her to think about money because it feels like a selfish thing for the man. He has been told that he is going to be Successful when he has monetary success and when he is a provider. And so for him to be able to release some of that over to his wife and not feel like he's being emasculated is equally as challenging. We're in the very, very, very beginning phase of this. No one is happy about it, it seems. It's a very big shift for our psychologies, and it's hurting a lot of relationships. I am fortunately in a relationship with a man for about six years now, where our relationship is not tied up in who makes war and who doesn't. For most of our relationship, I've made more. For all of last year, he made more than me. And we, like, celebrate when the other one can pay for dinner, and we also celebrate when we don't have to pay for dinner. And it's a very. Our strength and our perseverance and our personal feelings of value and worth are not tied up with money. We don't depend on each other. It's weird. It's like a fluid. It's an evolution. We're not quite sure how to articulate it yet.

I love organically how we're just going here because the title of your book is worth it, and we're talking about worthiness and how we might show up to pay bills and whatnot. This is the last round of the show. This is seven questions I want to ask you. Seven in a row, and just tell me what comes up first. Are you ready?

Yep.

As a mom, as a business owner, an author, what has been the internal compass to allow you to rise above any overwhelm that you might share with us? What's the compass that guides you?

I know that a happy mom is happy kids. And as long as I can see that my kids feel that sense of rootedness and that they have an example of a mom who is thriving, that nothing else matters?

What does it look like for people to live below our means, which is what you talk about in the book, but also at the same time, enjoy a great quality of life, figure out.

What material goods are important to you. So, for example, I love eating out in restaurants, and travel is really important to me. I would like to live in a nicer house, but I haven't renovated. The house I live in is a rental, and it hasn't been renovated since 1985. But it's because I live in this very inexpensive, small house that other things are enabled. So make sure that you figure out the things that are really important to you and don't spend money on the other Stuff.

If I'm an interior decorator, I probably am not going to want to live in a house that has flower wallpaper from the 80s, though.

I know. I'm looking at the backsplash of my kitchen right now. It's cracked. I'm looking at the wooden paneling in my kitchen. It's like. I mean, it's dingy, you know, but I don't. It's not really making a difference in my life. Whereas my trips to Greece in the summer are.

What is an exercise that we can do to focus on what you call positive networks and not just increasing our income?

You can look at your retirement account now. Don't fall asleep on me here. I know this is gonna sound really boring, but I want you to look up your retirement account and find a ticker symbol in there, like veo, for example. You'll see these three letters. I want you to go to Morningstar and I want you to look it up, and I want you to start to figure out, what are you invested in? Just start to ask basic questions. What does expense ratio mean? What does passive versus active mean? What am I invested in? Know where your money is and how it's directed, because there's a lot of opportunity there.

What makes you laugh the most right now in life? What cracks you up?

What makes me laugh the most right now is the fact that my personal profile has been raised so much that I'm known by people, which allows me to get the attention of people I've been a fan of for years. And that freaks me out sometimes because people I've admired from afar are now like, I'm instant messaging with. And that just freaks out.

That is so fun. Who's someone you've admired that you've been messaging with?

You're gonna laugh. This is like the other side of Amanda Brain is there's a DJ at Burning man named Scum Frog. I know I've just lost, like, everyone on this podcast. For those of you who don't know what Burning man is, it's an arts festival in the desert in the summertime that I've been going to for, like, 15 years. And scum Frog has some of the most gorgeous rhythmic music I've ever heard that I've been listening to for 10 years. And he's now someone I talk to. And now when I hear his new tracks and I freak out. Out, I get to tell him that personally. And he talks to me.

That is so cool. Well, if there was a thing that someone was getting from you that is struggling With Money. They're listening to the show, they're like, you know what? Amanda's right. Like, I get to create this new story. What does that first or second or third step look like for them to actually write out this new story?

First of all, just know that it's not your fault the financial services company has been profiting on your confusion. So don't feel so bad. If you sign up at Daily Worth, you'll soon hear about Money Clarity. I'm doing a free seminar on it. And Lynne, the Soul of Money is a great book that had a huge impact on me at a young age. These are all transformational views of money that have it not be just this source of stress and anxiety in our lives. Barry Tesler is another one. I'm just naming some people here who I know. And Kate Northrop is another one. And Barbara Stani. Now you've got me on a roll. Barbara Stani, Kate Northrop and Barry Tesler are the ones who are doing a lot of the great profound emotional work around on Money.

We'll put those in the show notes today. And we're almost done with the round here because I want to know, when things get rough, is there a message or a mantra? You know, you're a fan of breathwork and that's something that you hold dear, that you practice. Do you tell yourself something like a mantra when times get hard?

Revenue solves all problems.

What does that mean to you?

It's, you know, especially in work, when you have cash flow, baby, it is not. Life is so much easier. So, you know, it's always been in my business where I run multiple businesses now and have lots of staff, and there are so many days where I don't even get to my email because I'm in meetings all day, and I go, oh, my God, what do I do Next? I've missed 10 deadlines. And then I think, you know what? Revenue solves all problems. So I look at how I can move the needle up in terms of revenue and then all the other stuff suddenly seems less important.

There is a book that I read in the past. It's called Conscious Capitalism and it was by John Mackey. He was the creator of Whole Foods. I'm curious, your view is on consciousness and wealth creation. Do you think it's possible with the new technology we're seeing and in your sphere to create financial abundance and also conscious business that can uplift the whole collective?

Absolutely. And I am working on a project. So my financial services company, Worth fm, which is an SEC registered investing platform. We have a partnership with a nonprofit called onelight Global which is doing refugee relief in Serbia right now. And the founder and I are working on how do we thread one's personal long term prosperity with the prosperity of those most in need. And we think it's going to take us about 10 years to figure out. But everything I see right now is they are not contradictory. They're actually tied up in one another and it's time for us to figure it out.

Gosh, that is such a powerful connection. And what I want to do is link a different episode we've had that completely uplifts the message you're putting out. And it was from Daniel Schmachtenberger. He is the co founder of the Neurohacker Collective here in Encinita. I had the pleasure of interviewing him on the show.

He's in my Burning man cabinet.

Well, this is a small world. I didn't know that. This is live on the show. We're figuring this out. But anyways, his message is in so much great alignment with yours. So thank you so much for what you do. This has been an incredible talk. We've done so many turns I did not expect. And my last question is for you. What is wellness? How would you define wellness in your life?

Wellness is living in perfect alignment with what I yearn for and everything. Your dreams can come true. You can live your dreams once you step into them and own them as okay. It happened to me a couple of years ago and it blows my mind every day since.

You have some great money saving tools that you've talked about on previous episodes. One of them is moneytype Me. This is where people can go, they can learn about what actually motivates their internal self to earn money. Tell us about themoneytype me.

Yeah, so when you read ads for other financial services companies, they often say you need to set goals and then you need to create a plan in order to reach those goals. And what I was watching was the financial services industry doing that, especially in the advertisements that they were buying on Daily Worth. And then I was watching women, because that's our subscribership, fall asleep on the other side and go, yeah, I know I have to, but I don't want to because this makes no sense to me. So what Money Type does is rather than presenting you just with plans or goals, you might love plans or goals, but there's four other motivators that will actually capture your interest. And so what Money Type does is it helps you understand what motivates you about money. Types so that you can put all of your focus on that in order to have more money as opposed to thinking that goal setting is the only way.

I'm actually going to take that. When we post the show notes@wellnessforce.com worthy we are going to make sure that I actually put my test results there because I want to be open with you guys. I've always been open since day one. This has been so much fun. Amanda, tell us where we can learn more about what you're up to for 2017 and the book.

Sure. Just go to DailyWorth.com and sign up for our newsletter. Or if you just want to want to talk to me Personally, go to amandasteinberg.net and you can find all my social links and everything else there.

Well, thank you for allowing us to find some new stories that actually correlate with us being worthy. Amanda, thank you so much for coming on the show.

My absolute pleasure.

You made it to the end of 1 04, but it doesn't mean we have to stop here. Just join me on the Facebook page, search Wellness Force Community on Facebook or just simply touch your show artwork on your iPhone, tap the button that says Join the Group. You can also head directly over to WellnessForce.com group because we have some really, really exciting things going on for the rest of March and into April 2017, including casting your vote on future guests and topics for the podcast. After all, this podcast exists because you're here spending time with me and our world class guests. So hop over to Facebook, type in Wellness Force Community. I want to personally invite you to our group. Okay, One of the most exciting things as well in 2017 that I'm creating is some new products based off of the hundred plus shows on this podcast and ten plus years of working with clients. I'd like to know. I'm curious, what do you need most? What guides and resources will support you the most this year and into next year to live life? Well cast your vote for those topics and guests and the community support you'll get in the Facebook group. We have some topics right now ranging from emotional intelligence to sleep science. A best of the best podcast where I mine the takeaways from each show. Also nootropics and sustained energy resources. But let us know in the Facebook group at WellnessForce Community show notes from today are@wellnessforce.com worthy the number one takeaway I got as a man listening to a woman's perspective, and a powerful one at that on this show was that at any moment in our life, no matter what age, what our story's been before. We all have the power within us to gather the resources and information we need to use some new ink and write a new story. You know, as I was finishing up the editing for this episode, I could not help but think I'll probably receive some emails with some very forceful opinions bunny ears. Because anytime we start diving into subjects like money, religion or politics, the opinions get much stronger. So I want to know what you think. Reach out to me, joshellnessforce.com, let me know if you had anything from this show that made an impact impact for you or that sparked you to want to learn more. I know for me, I'm now keeping a large glass mason jar right next to my workstation, filling it up with dollar bills and coins because I'm a saver just like you. So now with abundance, trust and purpose, you get to go out there and create an amazing day for yourself and the people you care about. And until I see you again real soon, I'm wishing you love and wellness.