Podcast Episode - What Is A Life Worth?

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On this podcast, Suze remembers the 20th Anniversary of 9/11 and explores the questions of what our own lives are worth and if we are valuing ourselves enough.

Podcast Transcript:

Just a quick catch up before I begin this podcast. September 14th, do not forget the webinar “Ask Suze Anything”. It will be a live. I'll be able to hear your voice. So many people have already registered. I'm so sorry. We can't do zoom. So, I can't see you because you can only do that with 5,000 people. And we have far more than that. So, September 14 at 6:00 p. m. east coast time. Can you register for my webinar? Just go to suzeorman.com/webinar. It's free, and that is where I will be answering your questions live. Also, there has been a change on the Today show, it is now not on September 15th. It's on September 16th at 10 am, The “can I afford it segment?”, we're going to see if Jenna and Hoda can guess right as two am I going to approve or deny. So, that is something that you absolutely should tune into. And don't forget tomorrow, September 13th, guess what the Alliant Credit union sweepstakes officially begins. But I'll tell you more about that on Thursday. All right. So now let's start today’s podcast. September 12th, 2021. Well, today is an interesting day for this podcast because it is one day after September 11, that happened 20 years ago. Can you believe it? I always count things in days. I count things in hours. I count things in minutes and I count things in seconds for some reason. And so, I'm very aware that that was 7,306 days ago, or 175,344 hours ago, or 10,520,640 minutes ago, or 631,238,400,000 seconds ago. Depending on when you count from. But those are approximate. And the reason that I always count in days in hours and minutes and in seconds, is because when somebody has suffered a catastrophic event in their lives. Every second of their life, from that point on, has changed every minute in their life, from that point on has changed every hour, every day, every week, every month, every year, it has changed. But when you don't suffer those catastrophic events, we kind of tend to forget what 7,306 days ago, did to thousands of people's lives. So, it's so important that we never forget what happened on that day. For those of you again who were alive and maybe even saw it. You'll never forget it. I know, I'll never forget it. I'll never forget the smell of what it smelled like down there. I'll never forget the smoke and the steam and the ashes 4, 5, 6 inches, sometimes a foot of ash everywhere that you could look. I'll never forget begging Anne Curry who was on the Today show at that time. Don't go down there. There are chemicals down there, you're going to get sick. She said Suze, I have to go, I am a reporter. I will never forget walking into CNBC and everyone I saw, the financial analysts that anchors the people, everybody, the fund managers, all these people that are always so calm and cool and collective. The looks on their faces, they were all so pale, they looked so sick honestly, and rightfully so because they knew so many people that had just lost their lives. I'll never forget looking at Jim Kramer who always has kind of a serious look on his face but such power behind who he is, because he is a little powerhouse in my opinion. He, oh my God, it devastated him. Many of us knew people that were on the plane for myself. My major person was a man by the name of Alan Bevin, who was married to Kimmy Bevin, father of Sonali Bevin who was on Flight 93 going to San Francisco and Kimmy, his wife, it was their anniversary, it was their anniversary right then. And it was always so sweet because our anniversary was right around the same time. But Allen had to go back to San Francisco just for a day and then was going to return to Kimmy and of course he never did. But has Kimmy's life ever been the same since. No, not in my opinion. Has seen Sonali’s life ever been the same since. No, not in my opinion. And so, this is a day that we really have to remember and never forget. And if you weren't around then you really have to imagine what it was like. And if you're ever in New York, you owe it to all these people and yourself to go and visit that area and see. But it's quite a day, quite a day. So, for me it was important that somehow this podcast related to yesterday that there was something that tied it in because I just can't sit here and talk to you about Bitcoin and taxes on crypto and all these things that I really want to talk to you about. It's just not honoring those that gave up their lives in a terrorist attack. It's not honoring all those who lost their loved ones that day. It's not honoring those that went down to that scene to help everybody and now they're sick as well, or they've lost their lives because of what they contracted down there. So, I just can't do it. So, I decided that there was a way to talk about something today, that's really important in my opinion, for you to think about as well as honoring all those who did lose their lives or their loved ones. So, here is the question at hand and here is the title of today's podcast. What is a life worth? I want you all to think about this, let's say you're somebody who lost your spouse and that terrorist attack and now somebody gets to decide how much money you deserve, because they lost their life in this incident. How do you value that? How does somebody put a value on your life and what would you value somebody's life at? I obviously would value KT is priceless. There's not enough money in the world that it could ever compensate me for my loss. If something happened to KT, I would be devastated and all of you I know, know that. So, how do you decide that? And is a life of somebody who has a high paid executive worth more, just because they make more money than somebody who is working in the restaurant or washing dishes and they both lost their lives. What are those lives worth? Is one life worth more than the other? Now, the reason and I'm talking about this is that while it's interesting to ask, what is your life worth? What is a life worth as a hypothetical question, but 20 years ago, it was not a hypothetical question. It was a question that had to be answered. It had to be answered for approximately 7,000 people that we're going to be offered a settlement for the spouse, the friend, the life partner, whatever it is that they lost and the person that was in charge of that was a man by the name of Kenneth Feinberg. He was the one who had to decide, oh this person worked in this company so I should offer their spouse X amount of money, but this person only did this so they should get less money. And it was so fascinating and the reason that I find it fascinating is because of what ended up happening and so they have now just recently recapped this and released it on Netflix in a movie by the name of Worth. And I really think it's important that every single one of you watch it if you can, because you'll see what happened, how the government wanted lives to be valued, how people however wanted their lives valued and in the end what the decision was. But it's not just hypothetical in terms of the question I'm asking you today, but this question is one that I'm posing to you right here and right now. But in a little bit different way, the question at hand for you really is, what can you do to feel that your life is worth living? That you love who you are, you love what you're doing, you love that you have so much self-worth, you value who you are over what you do, you value who you are over the money that you have, you value who you are and you like who you are over anybody else's opinion about you because there right then and there, you then have valued yourself as priceless. I really feel like one of the biggest mistakes that we make in life, financially speaking, is we value other people's opinions more than our own. We value other people's criticisms more than we value what we know about ourselves. And we're constantly looking outside to find answers for somebody else to tell us what to do, for somebody else to guide us. Versus understanding that every single one of us has what it takes inside to guide us exactly to where we are meant to be. But we never sit with ourselves long enough to try to find the answers that are within, to see why we are doing without, why we are doing without happiness, why we are doing without love, why we are doing without money, why we are doing all of these things. So, that's really what I want to talk about today and all throughout the podcast from the very beginning, that's what I've always wanted to talk to you about. Because you cannot have more until you can be more. And when I say be more, what I mean by that is really understanding who you are. My life did not take off for me, financially speaking in a huge way, like it has over the past 25 years now, until I really had an understanding of who I was. Until I was able to say the following words, I know my own thoughts. Prior to that, really, everybody else's decision made so much more sense than mine. Everybody else's ideas were so much better than mine and no matter what I was doing, I always got off track because somebody else had an idea that I thought was better than mine and somehow wanted me to join forces with them. So, one failure after another failure after another failure. And finally, I got to the point in my life where I knew my own thoughts, I knew my own worth. I knew who I was and it was from that point on that everything in my life just changed so radically, it's not even funny. And that is why I am who I am today. So, many times people, when I do an interview, they ask me the question who is Suze Orman, how did Suze Orman get to be Suze Orman? And they're all looking for me to tell them while you have to do this, you have to do that, you have to go this way you have to, NO. And this was a question that I was asked actually a few days ago on a podcast, the answer to that question is very simple. Suze Orman became Suze Orman, because Suze Orman knew who she was. Suze Orman knew what she wanted. Suze Orman knew her worth, her worth, her value to herself and when you know that, then nothing can get in your way. You don't stay in a relationship that you know, you don't want to be in because you know you are worth more than that. You know that you should not be mistreated or financially abused or physically abused or verbally abused. You know that, but unless you really value who you are, you stay, you stay right there because you don't think you are worth more and I can go on and on with examples like that. But it is the question seriously that I want you to contemplate. So, if you got out a piece of paper right now and you were to rank yourself as to what is your life worth to you, to you. What ranking would you give it on a scale of 1-10? And I'm serious that if you haven't given it a 10, then something is radically wrong and you need to work on this and you need to understand yourself, why aren't you worth a 10? Why aren't you the most valuable thing in life? Yesterday I was feeling so incredible and so happy even though it was September 11th because I knew myself, I could feel the strength within me. I was riding in the car with KT and KT said, you seem so incredibly happy in the most silent way today, Suze and I said because I am KT, I'm exploding inside with gratitude. I'm exploding inside with power. I'm exploding inside with enjoying every single thing that my eyes are looking at, I'm exploding with joy in the fact that I'm just sitting next to you, then I'm moving, I'm doing these things, I'm so happy KT. And all I was doing was riding in a car next to KT. I want you to feel that way. Then I know that this is a financial show and I get that many of you when you listen to this go, what does this have to do with money? And I will come back again and always say to you, that you and your money are one, your money cannot do anything without you. So, if your money is in a financial chaotic mess, that means you are a chaotic mess. You're the one who's creating the financial problems in your life. I'm sure it's easy to play victim and say, well, the only reason I'm in this situation is because this happened and that happened. No, you can look at it that way and I absolutely understand that, given what's happened with the pandemic and everything, but you can't take that stance. You don't want to be a victim to your circumstances. You want to be the creator of them. So, you have to have a mentality that you are not a victim in any kind of way. You have to have the attitude where you are a warrior and you're not going to turn your back on this battlefield, because it is hard out there and it is not fair out there. There are many discrepancies and there are many things that I wish so that I could change in this world for all of you. But I can't, because this world is really if you think about it so screwed up, it's not even funny. However, even within that scenario, you have got to find a place where you know your worth. You know your value and you can find peace within yourself because you are not going to find it outside of yourself. You are not going to find it within another person. You are going to find it in the only place it really exists and that is within you. So, what is your life worth? It's not so much, what is it worth to others. The real question at hand is what is your life worth, to you?

Remember, if you want a chance to be on NBC’s Today with Hoda and Jenna on September 16, 2021 go here: https://www.today.com/money/can-you-can-afford-your-next-special-purchase-t219808 

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