Podcast Episode - Suze School: There Is No Greater Teacher In Life, Than Money

KT joins Suze for this edition of Suze School, for a conversation inspired by an email from a listener who was feeling guilty about her wealth.  They talk about why it’s important to be open and acknowledge what we earn and embrace what we have.

Listen to Podcast Episode:

Podcast Transcript:

Suze: October 27th, 2024. Welcome everybody to the Women and Money podcast. As well as everybody smart enough to listen, Suze O, here. And today is Suze School.

Now, when it comes to money, there are many, many things that we have to learn when it comes to money and it's not just about what to invest in, when to buy, when to sell. What about real estate? What about 529 plans? What about Roths? What about this? What about that?

It's also about emotional lessons, psychological lessons, all kinds of personal lessons that we need to learn about ourselves in relationship to our money because sometimes money can make your life easier. Sometimes it can make it harder. But as you well know, by now, I firmly believe that you and your money are one and that your money is there sometimes to teach you what you need to learn about yourself. There is no greater teacher in life than money.

And therefore when you think about it, if you and your money are one, there's no greater teacher in life about your own life rather than yourself. And so to that end today is going to be a different Suze School because not only is it going to be about what I'm just talking about now, but it's gonna be a discussion, a conversation with who?

KT: KT I'm here. Everybody, she invited me to join her. And I love coming to Sunday school.

Suze: Right. Because I think it's important because it is true that KT and I are one in so many ways, but we also have different experiences and different thoughts and different opinions. And this today, I think it's a Suze school. Actually, I know it's a Suzee school that requires thought and a conversation at least between me and KT. So I want KT to start by reading the email that we got that spurred this Suze School

KT: First, happy Sunday everybody. And Suze, thank you for asking me to join you because I really like this email a lot.

All right, it says, hi Suze and KT. It's wild how much my life has changed in the two and a half years since I wrote you. I truly feel like Suze has been an important part of my life journey and I thought I'd share an update. I finally got the courage to stand in my truth and acknowledge that I wasn't happy in my marriage. And I did the hardest thing I've ever done, which was to leave my husband.

My ex is a good person. I just knew that I deserve to be happy. And to have the kind of love that the two of you so obviously share. Is that sweet Suze? That's nice. I thought that was really touching. So there was a podcast episode that was especially influential. I wish I remember the specific one, but Suze seemed to have been speaking to me directly in her tough love, Suze voice.

So not only you, Anna, I get that voice all the time, the pep talk she gave was about the importance of standing in your own truth and reminding us that we are strong and can handle hard things. I'm fortunate that the divorce was very easy as far as splitting assets, et cetera. I had enough cash to buy my ex out of the home equity of our townhouse. And I'm so very grateful that he transferred the deed to me yet stayed on the mortgage so that I can keep our 2.65% rate. So she said he's a good person. She said that as far as divorces go, it went as smooth as possible and I'm so happy. It's behind me.

So Suze, Anna goes on now to say I need another Suze pep talk, Suze. I'd love to hear about your experience when you started to make a lot of money. Did you think you didn't deserve it? Did you feel guilty for having it when there are people who have such challenging jobs that make so little comparatively, we know teachers, nurses. So on, did it make you doubt yourself professionally? I'm in this situation and I'm really struggling with it due to a combination of being very good at my job and getting very lucky.

And then she says that she worked for a company that had a significant stock price growth and a lot of her pay is in stock. So she had a windfall. Obviously, she said I'll make about 1.4 million this year. And the thought of that is so absurd to me. I'm almost ashamed to admit it. I know people would see this question and roll their eyes at me, but I can't help but feeling guilty. Remember that.

Suze, I can't help but feeling guilty and under deserving of my income and the wealth that I'm building. I still think of the advice that you gave me two and a half years ago, which is that you never know what will happen to your income. I know that I probably won't keep this level of income forever, which is why I'm focused on saving and investing.

But how can I get out of this mindset while still staying humble and grateful? Yet also acknowledging to myself that I'm great at what I do. Thanks, Suze. I would really love to hear from you. So, so sweet. So what do you, what do you think about this?

Suze: The reason that I chose this email, KT and that I wanted to do this because the way that Anna is feeling is not uncommon. I have gotten Anna because now I'm talking directly to you and everybody that might feel this way, the number of emails and people I have met that feel this way or come into an inheritance and they hide the fact that they've inherited millions of dollars from their family yet nobody, not one of their friends has a clue. It's like they are embarrassed by money.

And so it's not just you, Anna, that feels that way. What would you say, KT? What do you want to say to her?

KT: I think that um one of the things I noticed after reading the email, Suze is that Anna does know she's really great at what she does. But Anna, the one thing you didn't say, I'm so proud of myself, like she didn't say she was proud of herself and acknowledging to herself or to anyone around her that she's so proud that she's been able to accomplish this, you know, great um windfall and acknowledgment of how good she is at her job. But she did. But wait, I have something else to say that you taught her the other thing that she acknowledged and, and she's smart because you, you told her, you said

Anna, you never know what can happen to your income. It's always a two way street.

Suze: Yeah, I think what KT is trying to say there, right? Is that your income can all of a sudden increase. But it's also true that something can happen in your life and you find yourself with no income, no money, all of that. But basically, Anna, here's what you will come to understand truthfully sooner than later.

It's not whether you deserved this or not. Just because somebody doesn't get money or doesn't have money, doesn't mean that they're not deserving of money. Simply. It means that you were in a position in the right place at the right time working for the right company. And it was almost as if it was just fate that this would come your way.

However, if you are not responsible with it, if you do not invest it carefully, if you do not do the right things with it.

Oh, trust me. The guilt that you're feeling right now about getting, it will be 10 times as worse as the guilt will be that you lost it or that something happened to it. How do you get over the fact of when I first got money? Because I didn't always have money.

You know, the truth is, remember everybody, I did not write my first book till I was 45 years of age and even though I was a financial advisor making maybe 100 or $200,000 a year after taxes, ok, whatever that would have been, it's not the same as when you get a check in one year or one month for a $1.5 million or $5 million. When all of a sudden those million dollar numbers start to come up. It's a very different feeling. Now, KT, I just have to say this, I'll never forget the first time that I got a check for $250,000 in one month from, you know, I had my own firm and that was the commission and everything, the fees that I had earned.

I let that check, sit on my kitchen counter for maybe two weeks every day because I couldn't believe it. The first time I got a check for $60,000 when I actually switched from Merrill Lynch to Prudential Based Securities. I took a picture of that check and I sent it to my mother and my mother said, she looked at that picture every single day for over a year because really amounts of money can be unbelievable no matter what.

So what would my advice be to you, Anna,  my advice to you would be this: fear, shame and anger are the three internal obstacles to wealth. And in your own words, you say, I'm almost ashamed to admit it with shame. Another word for shame could be guilt at times. They kind of go together on some level.

Therefore, you have to understand that you don't want to become an obstacle in your path to wealth. And when I say wealth, the true definition of wealth is that which can never diminish because the truth of the matter, Anna is money can come, money can go. But true wealth, how you feel about who you are, how you know who you are, your own self worth.

When it is grounded in the truth of who you are, it can't diminish and you already had the courage to stand in your truth once and to do what made you happy because you felt you deserved a life that made you happy. Why don't you feel that you deserve a life of wealth?

Why are you smiling KT?

KT: Because that's what she needs to do. Anna needs to acknowledge that she did get this incredible lucky windfall because she's good at her job. The company's succeeding because of her contribution.

And Anna... man, if it happened to me, I'd walk around with the biggest smile. So my friends say KT, why are you so happy? What happened? I and I would tell them I just came into like this mountain of money and I'm so excited because it's gonna give me security to pay off my mortgage or do this or do that.

I would actually tell people and when they share that, when you share it, you get it out there.

Suze: But bingo, KT because so good because do all of you remember when I tell you that you have debt and when you hide the fact that you have debt from others, it makes you feel less than. It's fear. It's shame and it's even anger at yourself for having created that debt. So what have I told you to do? Go and tell everybody how much debt you have.

Ana when you are afraid to tell people of this windfall to do it with pride, then the same will happen. Fear and shame are ruling you right now. And like I said, a little bit ago, when you come from that place, it is the main internal obstacle to wealth. So tell the people that you trust, tell the people that you love. Why wouldn't you think that they would be as happy for you as you need to be for yourself? Are you kidding me with this money? You now can either pay off the mortgage if you even had one on your home because remember you said in this that your husband... ex-husband was kind enough to remain on the mortgage but to give you the deed. So maybe you still have a mortgage and even if it's at the 2.65% rate, maybe you take this money, pay off the mortgage and free your husband give that gift back to your husband. So he's no longer on the mortgage.

So see this as a gift, not just for yourself but a gift for everybody. Yeah,

KT: Wait, I need to say something else.

Suze: Go.

KT: You, you need to go celebrate. Listen, if you get a handful of your best friends or a family dinner or whatever, go celebrate.

Say, hey, everybody I wanna celebrate because I just had this fabulous windfall. But you need to celebrate and be strong in all of the convictions that you make to yourself and to everyone around you.

Suze: So I just wanna say something as well.  If you do get into a situation. Right now, you've accepted the fact that you have this money

KT: And you deserve it

Suze: And you deserve it. You worked for it. You know, and I know we keep saying the word luck. I'm not so sure it was luck. You decided to stay in that corporation. You decided to invest in stock options. You made a lot of decisions in your life, Anna,

KT: And you're good at your job and you know it.

Suze: That led you to where you are, do not insult yourself like this. You know, for me, my speaking fees are very high and I could feel guilty that major classical musicians that have studied their whole life when they perform, maybe they get 25,000.

I could feel guilty about a whole lot of things, but I don't, I know what I'm worth. I stand by what I'm worth and I stand in that truth and because I stand in that truth, people pay it. They wait to be able to do that with me. Now, Anna, you need to stand in that truth because you don't know this isn't gonna happen again. You don't know that you're not gonna get another paycheck that's above what you think you're gonna get. You don't know, but you have to stay open to the probabilities of life and not think about anything other than what can be.

So that's basically what you have to do. Now, how do you do that? You are to create a new truth for yourself because you have to retrain your brain. You have to retrain your heart. You have to retrain every molecule in your being to feel like you deserve this. And once you have created that new truth, I want you to write it down every single day 25 times to sit down and write it 25 times, every single day. I want you to scream it out loud 25 times. Maybe you're in the car, maybe you're somewhere, just scream it.

And right before you go to bed at night, I want you to look in the mirror and I want you to say it silently to yourself as you're looking back at yourself at least 25 times. And I want you to do that every single day for at least six months. Every time your fear comes up, I want you to say it. You have got to quiet your fear and change how you think feel and act not only with money but yourself.

Suze: So what is the new truth?

KT: She actually wrote her truth in this email that the truth is I am humble, grateful and great at what I do. And that is why I now am a millionaire. Bam.

Suze: There you go.

KT: There's your new truth and you wrote it yourself. So you were up on the top of this email. She said she's ashamed, guilty. Um She's afraid, you know, of what people will say or think. And the only thing Anna is, I wish Suze and I knew how old you were because if we knew that we could probably really richen up this lesson in terms of having this money at what point in your life.

Suze: But I'm not sure. I don't think that's true, KT. I think this is a great lesson no matter what point you are in your life. I hope those of you who are listening can feel that as well because many of you might get a big inheritance from your parents.

Many of you may be in a position that you work for a technology company and you get a big windfall like Anna, maybe some of you have listened to some of the stocks that Keith Fitzgerald or even myself have said, think about buying like Palantair and you bought 10,000 shares at seven and now all of a sudden it is worth what, $400,000. So you just never know when or maybe you bought a house years ago and now it's worth a real fortune

KT: Or there's the lottery. Or there's

Suze: the lottery. That's true. So you never know in life. But I do know one thing you all have to keep your hands open, don't keep them closed. Everybody don't hold on to your thoughts and your fear and your shame and the little amount of money that you think you have with tightened closed hands. I know you have to open those hands.

Keep them open to receive that, which is meant to come your way because you can be the masters of your own financial destiny. You can have financial independence and financial freedom. You can have all of those things, but you have to not have shame, guilt, anger, you have to be grateful when that happens. You have to protect it when it happens and you have to make sure that you invest it and save it wisely.

What do you think, KT?

KT: I love that. I love that. I agree with you 100%. Invest it wisely and treat your friends to a little party or something. Celebrate. Money is something that again, it's the fabric of life. It's our currency of life, use it that way.

Suze: Also remember however, money will never define you. You have to define your money. KT will tell you it does not matter how wealthy I have become, it does not matter how famous I have become because what do I still think I am KT?

KT: A waitress. She still has the mentality of wanting to serve people and feeling her joy doesn't come from her windfalls and her great wealth. It has always, as long as I've known Suze, almost 25 years now, it comes from knowing she can help someone.

And I hear her on the phone and I see what she writes and I hear what she tells people that she haphazardly meets in the street. It's giving advice that, you know, is going to help them have a better financial life.

Suze: That is my true bank account that I will take with me no matter what that is true wealth. So I hope you enjoyed this Suze School for today.

And remember there's only one thing that matters when it comes to your money. And what is that? My sweet KT?

KT: It's always people first then money and then things

Suze: and if you do that and stay safe and healthy, I promise you you will be unstoppable.