Podcast Episode – How To Make Wise Financial Decisions

On this Suze School, we’ll learn how fear sometimes drives many of our financial decisions, especially for those in or near retirement.  Suze explains several steps we can take to overcome that fear and make better choices with our money.

Listen to Podcast Episode:

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Podcast Transcript:

Suze: January 18, 2026. Welcome everybody to the Women in Money podcast, and everybody’s smart enough to listen. And today is Suze School. That means you get me all to yourself.

I know a lot of you are saying, but I miss KT. She’s so sweet. She’s so cute.

And trust me, I know how adorable she is. If you think she’s adorable on the podcast, you should see her in real life. That vitality, that love, that spirit, I’m telling you, just shines through when she’s just doing everything that she really wants to do.

On Thursday’s podcast last Thursday, we opened up the podcast with KT reading an email from a man by the name of David, who said that last Sunday’s podcast, which was my market projection, was his favorite podcast out of 25 years, I think of him listening to me.

And KT just thought that was so great. And then I said, but those kinds of podcasts are not my favorite podcasts.

And the real reason is that I could give you the best stocks to buy. I can give you the best forecast, the best this, the best that. But there’s something that prevents you, not all of you, but many of you from doing that which I have told you to do.

That’s when I started to realize, that why is it that you don’t do what you know you should do and you would say I’m afraid I’m ashamed, I’m angry, whatever it is, the three internal obstacles to wealth.

But the one internal obstacle to wealth that I really want to focus on today is fear.

What will your fear do, and how does it show up in your finances? OK, everybody.

Now, that’s number one. Number two.

Many of you, and I mentioned this a little bit ago, wrote in and said, can you just do a podcast for us people who are in retirement, who are older and everything, and I kind of let you have it a little cause I was like, you know what, all the podcasts are for everybody. And then I started to realize, no, they’re right. I was wrong.

There’s a different element of fear involved when you are 60, 65, 70, even 80, or 90, than when you are 25, 35, 45, and even 50.

It is different.

Today’s podcast is especially for all of you who are 60, 65, 70, and 80. It is dedicated to you.

However, if you’re younger than that, this podcast can absolutely come to play in your life as well. So I ask you to listen with every molecule, atom, whatever else is in your body. So, I want you to listen to this with what I call elephant ears, as they say in India, listen carefully.

Here’s the scoop, everybody.

When you’re 60, 65, 70, 80, or 90, you have experienced and lived through multiple market crashes.

And you think at this time that you’re supposed to feel safe.

But the history of living through all those market crashes up, down, up, down the 70s, the 80s, all of it.

Here you are, you’re supposed to feel safe, and yet you don’t. And why is that most likely? It’s because you’re watching the markets move and as I’ve said, you’re gonna see the markets go up, the markets go down, it’s no longer gonna be straight up, really, like it was back in 2025, especially with the technology and the AI stocks.

You’re seeing stocks go up four points in one day, and the next day they’re down five, and it’s all over the place, so we feel like we’re not going anywhere.

You’re hearing all these headlines, the headlines that are out there, such as, are we gonna go to war with Greenland? How about with Iran? What’s happening in Minneapolis? What is going on in Venezuela? We are like all over the place and we are hearing and experiencing things that none of us, I don’t care what your political affiliation is. Let’s get real here, everybody.

Whether you agree with it or you don’t agree with it is not the point. All of us are experiencing things that we’re seeing on the news that we have never ever seen before, ever, or even heard about before, ever.

So when that happens, you then start to wonder.

Do I have enough?

Should I be doing something? What if I make the wrong move now?

And the reason that I know that’s what you’re thinking is cause you write me and you tell me that.

But I want all of you to listen to me really very carefully.

And I say this with all the love in my heart, which is a lot of love, everybody.

What you are feeling is not irrational.

And it’s not a sign that you’re bad with money, so stop thinking that. Believe it or not, it is your nervous system talking.

Now, I know about this, and I’ll tell you why in a second, but here’s what I want you to also understand when you are younger.

And my little niece Sophia said this to me as well as some friends who I watch their investments and things like that. Oh, Suze, it doesn’t matter. I’m in my twenties. I have years. I don’t personally care what the market does. I’m not even watching it. I’m OK. So when you are younger, market drops. They just kind of feel like they’re theoretical to you, not a big deal.

But when you are older they feel personal and why is that? The truth is because there’s less time to recover.

Why do you think I always say to you, money that is in the stock market is money that you do not need for at least five or 10 years or longer. Why do you think I say that? Because there’s less time to recover it if something goes wrong.

Many of you are probably living on a fixed income, and now you’re seeing interest rates go down, you’re not getting as much on your CDs or in your treasuries. You hear that it’s even gonna go down further. You felt safe because it was in a money market account, making 4, 4.5% interest, and now that’s all the way down to 3%. All of those things play on you not feeling safe.

Underline the word safe.

By the way, do all of you have out your Suze notebooks? ‘Cause there are things that I am probably gonna say in this podcast, ’cause I don’t know exactly what I’m gonna say yet, but that I have a feeling you’re gonna wanna know and remember, all right? And I know I always say, well, you can come back and listen to the podcast, but here’s the problem, you can’t remember what podcast it was. You don’t wanna do that, just read your notes, all right?

The next thing that is really personal to you right now are health care costs. Everybody, listen, I don’t care whether you’re older or younger, the cost of your insurance, the cost of your Medicare or Mediap insurance, whatever it is, it is skyrocketing on you if you are younger.

I was just with my niece Katie up when we went to Amelia Island. She lives in Jacksonville and oh my God, she was telling me how her family, early forties, three young children, I think it’s eight, six, and maybe one year right around there, $3500 a month for insurance for the five of them. I want you to just think about that, OK? That is a big deal for most people out there.

So, all of these things add to the fact that you feel like every decision that you make right now is final. It’s final.

And all of this creates a specific kind of fear, a fear that goes like this: If I mess this up now, I can’t fix it. Isn’t that true? Don’t you all think this? Oh my god, Suze, if I invest in this now and it doesn’t work, I don’t have time to fix it. I’m just gonna leave it safe. I’m coming out of the stock market because if it goes down, I can’t fix it.

And here is the bottom line.

When you feel this fear, right? It changes, underline this, everybody, it changes how the brain works. Do you hear me?

There is a biological system in your body that decides whether you feel calm or panicked long before logic kicks in.

Now, how do I know this to be true? Because I experienced it big time.

I experienced it starting five years ago in July of 2020, after I had that really complicated and life threatening, lifestyle altering surgery.

And after it was all over, and everybody told me how serious it was and how I would never recover 100%.

I started to panic at little things. Is my left leg going to collapse and all of a sudden I’m going to fall? And when I tell you I started to panic, I honest to God started to panic.

And it wasn’t even logical. The things I was panicking about wasn’t logical.

And that’s when I was talking to the doctors about it. It’s like, this can’t be. I’m Susie Orman. I’m strong. I’m this, and they said, Suze, you’ve been through a very traumatic event, so it is logical, but I want you to research something called the Polyvagal system.

And I said, the poly what? They said, Suze, we’re gonna give you information and you need to research it even more on your own, something called the Polyvagal system.

Which is based on the work that somebody by the name of Stefan or Steven Porges, I think it’s P O R G E S. I never did know how you pronounced his last name, what he created, cause this is what is happening to you.

And my main question when I was going through all of this, I had one question.

And my question was, am I safe?

Am I really safe?

And as time went on, right, I started to realize that if my body doesn’t feel safe, my brain cannot make wise decisions.

As time went on and I learned about this and I learned how to control it, by the way, everybody.

I realized, oh my God, this just doesn’t apply to my health. This applies to every single one of you, if you don’t feel safe with your money.

And even though for years I’ve been saying fear is the main internal obstacle to wealth.

I never actually knew why it was the main internal obstacle to wealth. I just had put that together out of all those years of seeing my clients not being able to do what they needed to do with money, even though they were brain surgeons at the time.

I’m going to make it all financial from this point on, OK, everybody.

But if your body does not feel safe, your brain cannot make wise financial decisions.

Now, how do I know that that’s true currently? I know because again you write me and you tell me this.

You tell me, Suze. I know I’m totally diversified, but I’m still panicking.

Suze, I know I don’t need to sell.

But yet I still feel desperate. I feel like I have to get out.

Or you write me and you say I know we have the perfect plan. I know it, but all of a sudden, Suze, I want to blow it up. I want to get out.

Why do you want to do those things? Because you don’t feel safe, do you hear me?

So this is not a weakness. This is not you being bad with your money. This is not you being financially capable. This is not you.

This is biology that is within you that is ruling what you are doing.

So, here’s what I can tell you.

That I have seriously learned and what I have taken from Steven Porges or Porges, or whatever his name is, let’s just call him Steven, right? This is what I have learned about the systems and how they work when it comes to your money, OK?

The first state is the calm state, because whenever I was calm.

I felt safe, and when I was safe, I didn’t panic. I didn’t feel like, oh my God, I’m gonna da da da da. I felt safe.

So when it comes to your finances, when you feel safe, you’re calm, and then what do you do? Well, you stick to your plan. You understand the risk that you’ve taken.

You ride out all the volatility of these stupid markets. You make thoughtful choices by when the markets go down, you continue to dollar cost average.

And when you are in the calm state, that means you’re safe, and this is where your wealth is protected. And why is it protected? It’s because your brain is functioning, and you are doing things that are intelligent.

Versus from fear.

The next state is called the fear state.

They call it actually fight or flight, and this is where you panic because when the markets start to go up and down, you don’t understand them.

You saw it happen everywhere in April when President Trump did what? He started to raise tariffs and I still never understood them, but that’s besides the point and everybody panicked.

So, this is when the markets go nuts and that triggers panic. So then what do you wanna do?

You want to sell everything. You wanna move everything to cash. You wanna do something immediately. You don’t wanna wait, you don’t wanna see what happens next week. You call up your financial advisor or your broker and you go, sell everything.

And you can’t stop watching the financial news. It’s like you’re attracted to it.

So again, you either fight it or flight, but this causes the fear state. And again, let me be clear, urgency.

You doing something immediately, you feeling like you have to act and you’ve never thought that way before, it is the number one enemy of wealth. Fear more than shame and anger really is the number one enemy of wealth.

You writing this all down?

Next, and this one makes me so sad, cause I saw it so much during my Oprah years when I would go into people’s houses and I would, it, it’s just, it made me so sad.

And it is called the shutdown state.

This is where you freeze. You just totally freeze.

And what happens, I’ll tell you, when you freeze, and you’re freezing cause you don’t feel safe, right? And then fear kicks in, you stop opening your statements.

You ignore your required minimum distributions that you need to make and then you have a penalty. You don’t call your adviser and ask about anything, and the truth of the matter is you just, you, you feel numb. You feel tired. You’re overwhelmed by everything, and I cannot tell you how many 35 and 40 year olds are stuck in this state.

There is a serious model who I love so much. She’s on cover. She is stunning, and I met her, and when I met her, she couldn’t look at her statements. She didn’t want to look at anything. She was making great money, but she was frozen.

And we worked through her fear, what she was afraid of all of that.

And now she is doing so fabulous with her money that she actually wrote me last night an email saying I was just with the financial advisor and I’m doing great. Everything’s going according to plan. I feel so safe and I have to tell you truthfully, when she said that and I read it, that’s kind of what really triggered this podcast today.

But when you are in that frozen state, the shutdown state.

Here’s what you tell yourself.

You say, I just can’t deal with this anymore. I just can’t do it.

But here’s what I want you to know, if this is you that I’m talking to. This is not giving up. This is your nervous system trying to protect you.

That’s right, it is your nervous system trying to protect you.

Now, why is it when we become older, we feel all of this so intensely, it’s not even funny.

And because of this, and I can talk about it because I am aging.

I am 75 in the next few months here whenever that comes in June, and I think about it. I think, oh my God, next I’m gonna be 80, then 85, and it’s intense, everybody, when you start to get older, whether you know it or not because our bodies are getting older, some of us, but I’m like a 20 year old inside. KT tells me I’m like a 2 year old, but that’s besides the point. All right, so the truth is.

As we age, our tolerance for uncertainty absolutely decreases. It’s like loss feels more threatening. Like, truthfully, I live in fear of possibly losing KT before I go, and it’s, I feel threatened by that because I love her so much.

And the body, I have to tell you, our stress response as we get older activates faster when we don’t feel safe. So when the markets do swing, your body, listen to me, actually reacts as if my survival is at risk.

That’s why volatility feels physical to you. That’s why you feel sick to your stomach, and that’s why yelling at yourself to stay calm doesn’t work or if your spouse says, just stay calm, it’s OK, it doesn’t work.

Now, I’m gonna get to something that I found did work. However, but that is why everyone, you should never make money decisions in fear.

So when you feel like you are afraid, when you feel like all of these emotions happening, you have to promise me you are not going to do anything.

So again, I’m gonna say this as clearly as I can, fear-based decisions destroy wealth.

And I know it for a fact because I have watched you sell at the bottom, lock in losses, miss recoveries, and regret it for the rest of your lives, not because you were stupid, but because you were scared.

I’m now going to give you three of my rules that I want you to write down and do.

Especially when the markets become really volatile, you are really afraid, and you’re afraid, why? Because you don’t feel safe. Here are three things that I want you to do.

Now, the first one, I’m telling you because this is what I was taught to do and believe it or not it works so this isn’t Suze Orman telling you to do this although I am right now. I’m telling you what I did to help me with my health when I was afraid and I didn’t feel safe and I learned this again from that gentleman, Steven, who created this system when I researched him, all right.

So the very first thing is, when you feel like you are just freaked out, before you make any financial move, I want you to take a breath through your nose.

Then I want you to take a small second sip of air.

Then I want you to exhale slowly through your mouth, and you need to do that three times.

When you do that, believe it or not, it tells your nervous system, I’m safe right now. Only then should you really think about touching your money, but only after you’ve done step two.

If you’re now asking yourself what should I do.

I want you to ask it differently. I want you to ask yourself the question, not what should I do now? I want you to ask, do I need this money in the next three to five years.

And if the answer to that question is no.

Then you don’t do anything. Then the volatility that’s out there is just noise, but it’s not danger.

And if you have really big fear, you’re really afraid.

Then I want you to do this when you say, but what if I lose everything?

What I want you to say, what is my next right step to take? Just what is your next step? Just one step, not 10, not five, just what is your next step? Can you just try those three things?

Now, before I end this podcast, I wanna talk to you about financial advisors, OK?

Because a lot of you think I hate financial advisors, and I don’t.

If you have a great financial advisor, they are worth their weight in gold, but you have to know that they have your best interests at heart versus their own so I wanna talk about advisors and trust right now.

If you are over 60 and you don’t trust your adviser enough. Listen to me.

You don’t trust them enough to call them when you are afraid you’re scared. Ask them the same question twice, three times, four times to admit to them that you are overwhelmed.

Then in my opinion you need a different adviser.

Because a good adviser regulates with you, and what do I mean by that? They calm you down when you are freaked out. They don’t rush you. They don’t shame you. They don’t pressure you. They regulate your fear because they’re not in a state of fear. They feel safe most likely with what they have recommended to you.

So they’re calm, so they need to be able to calm you down, all right?

If you’re older now, even if you’re younger, and you’re listening to me right now, I want you to hear this.

You have survived wars.

Recessions, market crashes, personal losses, health scares.

You are not fragile.

Old is gold. I heard somebody say that the other day on this webinar that I was watching. Brilliant.

She went on to say the sun is golden and look how old it is and look how it shines. So old is gold, so you are not fragile, you are experienced.

And the markets, oh, they will go up, they will go down, they always have, but panic for you to panic, that’s optional. Do you hear me?

So here’s my promise that I wanna make to you.

If you learn to calm your nervous system, you stop reacting to headlines.

You will trust your plan again. You will stop second guessing yourself. You will feel steady even in uncertainty. And if you ask me, that is real power.

And this is the last thing that I want you to remember, you are not your portfolio, you are not the market, you are not today’s headlines. You are your own greatest asset.

You really are your own greatest protector.

And you are also your own greatest rescuer.

So, until Thursday, when Ms. Travis, I can’t wait for her to hear this podcast, when Ms. Travis joins us again on Ask KT and Suze Anything, you always have time to go to my YouTube channel and subscribe, which is youtube.com/ Suze Orman.

There’s only one thing that I want you to remember, and it’s this: people first, then money, then things.

Now you’re gonna all understand why I end every podcast with the phrase, now you stay safe. Bye-bye now.