The recipe is perfect: negative emotions + gaps in information about the world of money and our own minds x inequality = weirdness and problems.

Everything we experience gets poured in, shaken up and becomes our understanding of how the world works. Even the things that you choose not to believe will shape you. Everything is connected.

is why so much traditional financial advice from experts is so flawed. It’s surface level at best because it tends to only address skills and behaviors. It ignores the role of external and internal environments that shape and are shaped by our values, beliefs, identity and the painful conflict that all these factors create whenever there is

They taught me that if you want to know the whole story, you have to follow the money; that the most dangerous combination in a client (or in anyone, really) is ignorance and arrogance, and as professional investors, they’d choose having luck over skill any day of the week.

Of course, I look at money through the lens of economics, but I also look at money through the stories we tell ourselves in our personal and collective histories. I look at the role that our emotions play in making rational decisions.

Budgeting is rooted in lack. A spending plan is a very different perspective. It’s a way to reverse-engineer a desired outcome. It’s exploring the answers to an open-ended question.

A buffer is the cost of feeling secure and the amount you choose for your buffer will depend on what you feel comfortable with and what you can afford.

Every person will have a unique response to help them cope with feelings they struggle to reconcile.

There aren’t as many real reasons today to be so preoccupied with comparison or danger, but we often still feel ourselves dealing with these feelings. Today a preoccupation with danger can look like worry over money, fear of illness, or feeling scared about an uncertain future.