Podcast

Podcast Episode # 1: Our minds, our money and what matters the most

The WHY behind the Most Hated F-Word Podcast

Hi. I’m Shaun – I am a certified financial planner, and I obsessed with relationships… financial ones, that is. 

I like finances, and I like talking.  So, welcome to The Most-Hated F-Word podcast! 

Our mission is to focus on the intersection between our minds, our money, and what matters most. 

We will redefine the concept of retirement and find out what true financial independence really means.

On today’s episode I discuss WHY I started a podcast and explore the intersection between our minds, our money and what matters the most.

About:

As a trained and practicing Certified Financial Planner, Shaun believes the last thing we want to hear is “save more, pay off your credit cards, invest your money.” Instead, Shaun deeply believes the key to living a financially-free life is rooted in our money psychology. And by identifying our money stories and money scripts that unconsciously impact how we think, act and feel towards money – we can start to gain control over our money relationships. 

When we understand our money relationships, and what’s important, our entire money framework changes in a healthy manner where we can experience financial independence. 

Shaun is on a mission to educate and empower people so they can live their happiest and most fulfilled lives. For Shaun, financial literacy is not about becoming rich, it’s about living our most enriched lives.

Complete show transcript:

Going to walk down to Zwick’s  pretzels with my little kid going to New Orleans to see Bruce Springsteen focusing on energy creating things taking the time to do a podcast like this for me. Those are the Beautiful Moments that I want to focus on along the way and that’s why I trade my time for money. Welcome  to the most Hated  F-Word podcast where we focus on the intersection between our mind money and what matters most Just because maybe finances are not the sole purpose. Hi, I’m Shaun. I’m a certified financial planner  and I’m obsessed with money. Yes. That’s right. I’m obsessed with money. No, it’s not money by itself. It’s rather the convoluted money 

relationship that we all have that’s what fascinates me so here it I like money. I like talking welcome to the most hated F-word podcast .   my goal to focus on the intersection between our minds money and really what matters most in our lives because feel when we bring redefine the concept of money in our lives and examine our money relationships. We can take total control about how we feel towards money. On today’s episode. We’re going to talk about how this podcast will be structured what each episode will look like and what my intention is from the podcast. But first here’s a little bit about myself as a trained in practicing certified financial planner. I believe that the last thing we all really want to hear is save 

more pay off your credit cards invest more money. These are very important things but we hear them all the time and we all often find ourselves not doing these things and becoming frustrated with ourselves. So I feel that the key to living this financially free life is actually deeply rooted in our money. G and our money relationships and I feel like if we first start by identifying what are our money stories and typically these stories are unconsciously impacting how we think act and feel towards money when we actually take the time to examine them we can start to gain control of our money relationship and find out why we’re not making these seemingly simple decision to save more pay your credit card off in so forth. Earth And I really really do feel that 

when we understand our money relationships and then identify what’s really important to us in our life our entire money framework can change in a healthy Manner and that’s the intention of the most hated f word. Now I’m super excited to launch this podcast. It’s something that I’ve wanted to do for a long time as I feel like it’s a it’s an outlet for me to really express my views on money relationship. And also it’s an area for me and all the listeners to really grow and deepen our understanding of our money relationships. I’ll be interviewing guests and for the most part will have consistent questions that really dig into their money relationships and how they feel think and act 2 It’s money. I feel like by having real stories from real people. We all can relate in some capacity and maybe 

start to examine our own money relationships to make some tweaks by no means am I going to Proclaim that I’m an expert. I’m learning along the way with everybody else and I really feel by documenting these interviews. We can all learn together. I recently signed up for an incredible course out the u.s. Called. social ecology and behavior finance and the whole idea of the course is to look at how psychology and our money go hand-in-hand and why it’s so incredibly important to examine our money psychology now before I get into a little bit more about the details of The podcast I thought it would take some time to just talk about why I came up with the most hated f word which we know is financed, but why I want to start this. And to do this, 

I need a little purse participation. Now if you’re driving don’t actually close your eyes because I’m going to have you close your eyes away. But if you’re driving, please don’t do that because I would be dangerous and I actually don’t know what the liability is for me in that context. So please just Don’t Close Your Eyes. Okay for everyone who’s not driving? I want you to close your eyes. And think about the happiest moment in your life. think about where you were who you were with And think how you were feeling. Keep thinking. This is good. Okay. Now that 

we have this happy moment imprinted our minds we’re going to switch gears and we’re going to start talking about the most hated f word and as I’ve told you it’s finances some people might think it’s failure funeral often. Some people might even think it’s farting but no as we know its finances for me what I think makes finances. The most hated F-word is the fact that we can’t even talk about finances without clearing a room. As someone who makes it is a profession infinite arm. Sorry, let me restart as someone whose role is to talk about money all day long when I meet new people. I can’t count how many times they’re like, oh you’re in finance. You don’t want talk to you. We know it’s a taboo subject and even according to a study that looked 

at the most avoided conversations Finance was the clear winner with 44 percent of the responses. Seriously 44 percent of the responses. Rate Finance is the top conversation people want to avoid it ranked higher than religion politics in death. I mean this means that we would rather talk about certain politicians most outrageous tweets than our own personal finances. But for the most part I can understand why. Based on our upbringings. Our dealings with money financed in and itself is a gross word when we hear it. We feel that it reeks of paperwork of debt. In fact a recent study in Canada showed that 42% a Canadians report finances the top stressor in their lives. That means that maybe even half the people listening to this 

now, which hopefully it’s more than just to me on the first one which I’m sure it is. you would rank finances the biggest stressor in your lives and For me the part that I find disappointing are sad is that we tend to attach so much of our soaked Worth to her muddling money, and then we let those numbers to come to Define us. And as I started earning more money and getting a job, I started to realize that it seems like Society kind of has a script that goes like this we go to school then post-secondary. We graduate we get a job and even if it’s a job that we hate then it’s our job and duty to buy the biggest and best of everything and then at work with every promotion. We must Chase then we must upgrade our war. car housing 

everything inside of her house. So then we can do the best part which is posting Instagram worthy pictures so that everybody knows that we have made it. And sure I might be exaggerating but I feel like there’s a lot of Truth to those statements there. But then if you look at what happens, we see 42 percent of Canadians are stressed. We’re unhappy then we often tend to start living to work instead of working to live and why well, I think it’s because we’re hardwired were hardwired for the pursuit of money. And now on average Canadians are only spending a fraction of their disposable income. So disposable income is the money we have left over after all of our expenses. But we’re only spending a fraction of that money on things that actually make us happy are that 

we find worthwhile. And I see this quite often as someone who has a profession in financial planning. I’ve learned that it doesn’t really matter how much people make they have the same questions. More more so the same feelings. I feel like my money controls me and it stresses me out. There’s a well there’s several amazing studies that have shown that after a household meets a certain income. There’s no correlation between how much money they earn after after this income level and happiness levels. So when this study was done in 2009 by Daniel coloman, it was $75,000 household income so you Inflate that out to whatever would be in 2020, but essentially at that time $75,000 of household income after 

$75,000. Every additional dollar earned had no correlation between happiness levels, but yet we find ourselves trying to get more money sacrificing our finite time so often but the question is is why are we doing it if the research is clear that it’s not linked to happiness. Now that could be debated and there’s several people who think differently and to some degree. I think that other studies and other research have shown that when we use money as a certain ingredient to chase our do things that are fulfilling and passion projects. Then of course our fulfillment and happiness can increase but money by itself. It can’t do it. No, I had two stories are sorry. I have two stories that really influenced me starting the most hated F-word and they’ve all see Paul so profoundly 

changed how I look at money and the lens that I view it. So the first story was when my wife and I had this crazy idea in University. We quit and decided to travel around the world. Yep. One day. I walked up to my wife and said, hey we should just quit and go travel around the world. And the big motivating reason why we decided to do that was we’d loved food. And we thought wow, imagine what your good food we could eat around the world if we got actually travel around the world. So we did just that we set off with a one-way ticket to Vietnam with no real plans. It was simply amazing. I think we ended up going to 16 different countries. We ate so much delicious food and experience so many amazing moments we scoubidou about I think it was over. 50 times it was amazing. We 

ended up circumference team circumference in the entire Globe. We started in Vancouver and then ended in Halifax. Just we took the really long long way and it was through that time that we realize holy smokes. We are spending not that much money. In fact, we spent about thirty. Thousand dollars in a year traveling around the world and I remember a friend of mine bought a car for about twenty six thousand dollars. So roughly. I don’t know the math on that and I don’t have a calculator in front of me but not too far off $26,000 in $33,000. But yet we were able to travel around the entire world eat an amazing dishes. We slept in over 90 beds and we just enjoyed every moment of it but soon we were back home and we settled 

into our lives. We finished University. We found jobs. We bought a condo and we bought cars and we signed up for the most thrilling thing ever our utility bills. We certainly felt like we adulting at that time, but it was it was odd about how it was odd the amount of times my wife and I would sit back and think about that trip we whenever we would see an airplane going by we would say. Hey if you can go anywhere, where would you go and it was a fun little game we had and we just rented that helped us reminisce about her trip, but I remember one time specifically when we said yeah, we’d go to back to India. Been two months in India and we started reminiscing about this time that were taking a train from Varanasi to 

Delhi. And when we were in Varanasi, we just ate every food possible. We drink every Lassie possible and it was so so delicious. However, our stomachs didn’t really think it was so delicious on that long trade and to Delhi and me and my wife had a romantic six our date in the tin washrooms on that train fighting Delhi belly. Yes. yes, certainly romantic, but The interesting part of it all was as we were reminiscing about this. We looked at each other and said, ah, I wish I could go back to that moment now and that’s when it really hit me. I thought here we are. Making good money. They had a condo with a car. We’re doing all the things that seem to be successful. But 

yet we were thinking about wanting to go back to the situation that yes. This is very cheesy, but shitty situation despite all the good things that we had and it’s not saying that we didn’t like what we had but we were sitting there thinking about this time that cost substantially less and wanting to be there so then I’ve always heard about that study money about the $75,000 in Your money after can’t buy you happiness, and I’ve always heard about that. But then and there is and when it really sunk in to me that I realized that yes, in fact money can’t buy happiness. I 100% agree and then have a fortunate life where I don’t have to worry about my basic necessities be meant that under that $75,000 Mark 100% money 

does buy happiness because it helps us get shelter food safety, but after that $75,000 Mark or ever it is for our lives. It doesn’t buy happiness in this trip really really really pointed that out to me and what I realized is that This thing that we’re always chasing called money is just a piece of paper and it really just stores the value until we put it in use like going traveling around the world getting married or whatever that happy moment. We thought about at the top of this podcast. It’s not money that were chasing but yet we find ourselves chasing money so often thinking that when I get that money, I will be happy so that story really help me reframe on what am I chasing? And why and is it in fact the 

money that I’m chasing or is it the experience the byproduct and I have found when I refocus on what I’m doing why I’m doing this then I’m better able to make Decisions that are aligned with things that I want. My second story that really changed the lens on how I see money is an individual that I knew who worked out of town for about forty years to provide for his family then finally at age 65 or so. He retired him in is him and his wife were ready to live the good life the retirement life the thing that they’ve been chasing for so long. However, he was suddenly diagnosed with an illness and a few short months later he passed. two way and you see in life. We just don’t know what will happen and too often we find ourselves 

in this Rat Race trading are finite time for the pursuit of money. But in the end we have to ask ourselves, is it worth it? And that’s something that want to really focus on this podcast is interviewing people who are in the retirement and just asking them. Did you trade too much of your time for money? Did you not what lessons can we learn from you and in the end? Is it worth it? Because I personally really don’t think we should conform to this Rat Race until her 65 to live this dream life Instead. This is Where I find if we take control of our money relationships and get a financially free mindset then maybe we can live what the retirement dream is all along because lot of people that I talk to when they seek retirement are my there are people who I know who are in 

retirement. Things that they want is not to sit around and do nothing then what the freedom to control their schedules to control their morning to have a little more. Let’s say let’s say less hectic mornings and evenings, but if that’s all we really really want can we not obtain those throat her life sure. We got to work and we got to save but can we not get that feeling of control slowing my slow down Morning Slow Down evenings, and that’s really what this The boat is finding out if we take take control of our money relationship. Could we start to experience has experiencing those things that we want in retirement? Because if the trend is not to retire now are what I mean by that is people who are retiring tend to work more. Well, maybe we shouldn’t push things off all 

the way to retirement. I don’t know. That’s what we’re going to find out. But yeah, those two stories amongst many other are the ones that really really allowed me to have what I would say is like a big transformation in how I saw my money my life and where I want to put all my energy and time and as a result, I really started to hone into what I call my financial why essentially for me a financial why is why I make money every business has a mission statement. And I found it interesting is that as people we don’t have our personal mission statement and to identify why we traded our finite time for money. So for me my financial wise to experience life’s beautiful moment. Sorry. I mumbled a little bit there what I my financial why is to experience life’s Beautiful Moments 

and what that means to me is to have the freedom the flexibility to do things that are worthwhile. So whether that’s Going to walk down to zooks pretzels with my little kid going to New Orleans to see Bruce Springsteen focusing on energy creating things taking the time to do a podcast like this for me. Those are the Beautiful Moments that I want to focus on along the way and that’s why I trade my time for money now. I’ve also realized if I can do things that I really like to do. While I’m trading my time for money, it’s actually a win-win. so As someone who is really obsessed with money and our relationship with money. I’ve read thousands. Well, no, that’s a lie. I’m not read thousands. I don’t think so. I’ve read hundreds of personal finance books. 

I’ve listened to so many podcasts and personal finance. I’ve consumed so much information. But yet I’m human and I know information is not not power and has the potential for power. But all this information that I’ve been consuming. I still find myself. being a human and making silly Financial mistakes, and I often beat myself up on the are for those mistakes, which I know is not a good thing to do. But hey, I’m human and that’s what again led me to realize that. Maybe it’s this intersection between her mind and money. That is the important thing to master not necessarily how to save more of course that’s important. But if we can understand How this three-pound muscle in overheads called the brain thinks feels and acts towards money. Maybe we don’t need 

to consume all this information and maybe we can actually start to make decisions that we really want to around emotional driven things like money food Health all those things that we have a hard time really doing when we know that our when we know the answer is quite simple save more work work out more or you calories, but they’re all the same. We have a hard time understanding why our brain won’t do this. So that was the reason why I started the most hated F-word and I genuinely believe the most hated f word does not need to be finances for me. I think that it has such a taboo connotation to it for good reasons, but I think the more of us that start talking about it in a healthy way we can start to change that 

narrative and the most important thing. I think at first is we change the narrative for ourselves so that That we can then start making good decisions for ourselves and other people might see that to make so forth, but I do want to talk about something that find so fascinating about money. So after that trip that I had I came back the trip around the world. I came back fully inspired us like okay. I am not going to fall in this Rat Race I am gonna Just do things that are important to me and I feel good and so forth. Well, as I said earlier, I ended up buying a car condo and so forth. I also landed a corporate job, which in hindsight was one of the best things that happened to me for two reasons. It provided me with life lessons that helped me get to where am today and it helped me meet 

a mentor of mine, but nonetheless I landed this corporate job. And despite my motivation and desire not to fall into quote-unquote rat race. All of a sudden I realized that I was falling into that rat race five years flew by faster than I could think. I found myself working on emails till 9 p.m. Buying things that I really didn’t care about putting off personal passion projects putting off exercising and personal time so that I could be the best employee possible now, I’m not saying don’t be the best employee possible. I’m just saying the gravitational pull to the rat race is so intense that despite this motivation. had to never fall into their I certainly fell into that gravitational pull now, I don’t regret that at all because I am where I am today because of 

my past and I wouldn’t change that. But the point I’m saying is when we start to drift and not be just about our money decisions are what we want for ourselves. We can fall to that race so fast, so if Someone who’s trained as a certified financial planner and consume an enormous amount of financial information. And I fall victim to this so-called rat race are not doing things that are textbook in the financial world. I feel like so many of us can have that are fall into those areas and that’s why we get so frustrated with our finance. That’s why Canadians report 42 or 42 percent of us report finances the top stressor in my life. So this gets back to my intention behind this podcast. if we can really understand our money relationships, 

then I feel we can start making powerful decisions and taking control to some degree and it’s hard work, but we can start to take control and write the script that we actually want because I started to realize that my mind wasn’t actually aligned with My Soul what mean by that is my soul wanted something but my mind really wasn’t ready for it. And for me, what I realized is that I really wanted to be more creative. I wanted to focus on energy creating things and my mind wasn’t there yet, but my soul wanted it and that’s where when was back in that corporate job that I had that dilemma and I couldn’t figure it out. But then I started doing some research and came across an amazing individual named. Dr. Brad clients and through his research. He has examined money relationships and he’s come up with four different 

money scripts that he feels based on his research that we all fall into one of the four and often. These money scripts were formed in her formative years as a kid around 3 to 4 to 5 years old and Consciously these scripts now drive all our financial behaviors as adults and ultimately they create our money stories. That’s our money stories. We all have a money story money means and has a story to each of us and it’s deeply rooted into our upbringing whether we’re always told to save save your money for a rainy day. Can’t take all the money with you. Only the rich get rich whatever the money slogan was. These create and shape our money stories and that’s the lens that we actually use today. So 

the idea is when we can actually go back and find out why how these bunny stories were created. Can we change them going forward? So that’s what the podcast is about. I really hope that you decide to join me. It’s new. So I’ll be learning as I go. But I think it’s going to be a great journey. I think I’m going to go about for interviews. So for one-on-one interviews where we talk to individuals about their money stories their money relationship. And then on the fifth one, we’ll talk about some sort of contacts are Theory or tips based on blast for interview. Use, so if you feel like this is going to be valuable. Please head over to the most hated F word.com. That’s the most hated F word.com subscribe to our mailing list, and you’ll start to see the podcast 

Thanks so much for taking the time to listen and have a great day. 

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2 Comments

  • Reply
    Steve Schneider
    April 17, 2020 at 2:34 pm

    Great work Shaun! Absolutely love that you are starting a Podcast. This episode was awesome. I look forward to hearing more. Keep crushing it!

    • Reply
      maslyks1
      April 17, 2020 at 4:16 pm

      Steve! Hope you and the family are doing well! Appreciate you listening! I have some great interviews coming up!

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