458 | A Healthy State of Panic | Farnoosh Torabi

0:00Hello and welcome to Choose FI. Today on the show we have Farnoosh Tarabi host of the wonderful podcast So Money, with nearly 1 ,600 episodes and tens of millions of downloads. And she's the author of the new book, which just came out October 3rd, called A Healthy State of Panic. Follow your fears to build wealth, crush your career, and win at life. At first, honestly, I was a little unsure why a money expert was writing a book on panic and anxiety. But after I started to read it, I quickly realized how important a book this was, and I absolutely devoured it. Farnoosh reframes fear as a superpower and goes about proving that case in nine powerful chapters, each devoted to a different fear.

0:41I think you're going to really enjoy this one. And with that, welcome to Choose FI.

0:53Before we get into the episode with Farnoosh, I wanted to read the podcast review of the week. We'd love it if you would give us a five-star review and then send it in to me. So you can sign up for my newsletter at chooseify.com slash subscribe, and then just hit reply to any of those emails with a screenshot of your review. And I'm going to read one of those every single week. This one came in from Trevor. Trevor said, I've been an avid listener since the beginning, and I cannot be more enthusiastic about Chooseify. The absolute stars of the show, though, have to originally be the charisma of Brad and Jonathan, and more lately, Brad pulling the show by himself.

1:26I've seen a lot of podcasts run out of material or devolve into purely a list of interviews that consist of bland questions and answers without really expanding on the material or going to the next level. But I'm here to tell you that Brad is absolutely, has to be one of the most thoughtful and well-researched podcast hosts out there. The last episode, 455 with Nathan Barry, was an absolute masterpiece. At multiple times, Brad paused, reacted to something Nathan said, circled back and scratched a little deeper, which created one of the most genuine, thoughtful interactions on a podcast show that I've ever heard.

1:59My hats off to Brad, who has created an incredibly deep and nuanced version of financial independence and is the perfect standard bearer for our community. Trevor, thank you so very much for writing that in. Really appreciate the kind words. And with that, Farnoosh, thank you so much for being here. It is really wonderful to see you. And this book is genuinely fantastic. Like I said in the intro, I devoured every word of it. It's wonderful. It was as if it were written for me. Brad, what? Am I going to cry on Choose FI? It is a safe place to cry. Has a guest ever cried on your podcast? I think we've had one or two, yeah.

2:37Okay, this might be the third. Thank you. That's so nice of you to say, especially coming from you as someone I really admire and respect in the personal finance community. And I think, as you know, you read the book, it's about money, but it's about so much else. And that was a stretch for me, but also felt really natural. and important to go to these other pockets of our lives that money touches, like work and relationships and our mental and emotional well-being. So thank you. That means a lot. Yeah, you bet. And like you said, it is about so much more than money, truly. And that is what your book is about.

3:12You have really these nine chapters with a different fear and you go through the case for, like I said, why it is a superpower. And I think that's one of the most fascinating parts of the book. I'd love to just start from the top. I think you had a quote from the author of the anatomy of anxiety, Dr. Ellen Bora. And she said, it's the tone of modern Western culture, it being anxiety. And in her book, she said, sometimes anxiety is your body's way of telling you, please look at this. When you listen closely, this anxiety can point you in the direction of actions you need to take as well as the unique contributions you are here to make.

3:50and that to me really set the tone for the entire book. I'd love to hear your thoughts and why you picked that quote. Well, Dr. Vora, who was on my podcast and she wrote, as you said, The Anatomy of Anxiety, she approaches this work, of course, from a clinical standpoint and she really goes deep with anxiety, which I think is like a close cousin of fear and I do think that fear has all of those attributes that she describes with anxiety. I think fear is personal to us. And when fear shows up, it's an opportunity to examine what it is about our person that we want to learn or relearn, what it is that we want to protect.

4:30Fear usually shows up with a purpose. It is like a lot of other emotions that we experience. Sadness, anger, and fear are sometimes bundled as these bad, negative emotions. Don't waste your time. But I think, and I think we're all ready for a new way of approaching these emotions as, hey, these emotions are ours. They show up for a reason. They are valid. And of course, sometimes they can be irrational and sometimes we shouldn't immediately react to them, but I think they deserve some space because I think as Dr. Vora was saying, again, it's this internal compass. Your anxiety is like, it's so you, you know, maybe we don't want to even accept that, but it's true.

5:17You know, your anxiety shows up for very personal reasons, such as does fear and happiness. I'll go to the other side of the pendulum and say like, what makes you happy may not make me happy. It's personal. Does it mean that happiness is, you know, irrelevant? No, happiness is all we want. But to be happy, I think we have to also get comfortable in our skin and all that's involved and all that's felt, including fear. Yeah. I think so many of us feel that we're somehow broken because we have these fears. And like you said, they are ours. They are valid. I think where my mind went immediately is they are human.

5:55They're what makes us human. This is perfectly normal. You and I would not be here. This podcast would not exist. You, dear listener, would not be here, sorry to say, had it not been for fear. Thank you, fear. And okay, so maybe we are broken. Who is not broken? You know, again, we use these words as though they signal weakness, but when you're broken, it just means you've lived life. You've experienced things. Things have affected you. And I think that is all very special and all, it's the patchwork of who we become. And so to deny your fear is to deny yourself. Show me someone who pretends to be fearless.

6:34In other words, they don't care about risk. they do things with sort of this blind optimism, I will show you someone who does not actually know who they are. Yeah, I think you're right. And it's interesting. My mind immediately goes to when you're saying we would not be here, right? This podcast would not be here. What you're saying is on a long enough timeline, that would have been excised from the gene pool, obviously, right? Is this absurd risk-taking with saber-toothed tigers lurking around whatever bush. It is part and parcel of our humanity. And like you're saying, I kind of said in that very negative sense of so many of us feel we're broken, but it is part of our fundamental humanity.

7:14And I reject the word broken, but I think that is where people go without having read a book like this, without having any type of introspection about it, just, oh, why do I have all these fears? I think that's like a common lament. Yeah. Why do I have these fears? What does it say about me? What does it say about my capabilities, my intelligence, it hits where it hurts, our ego, our sense of self-worth, because so much in our culture, we equate fearlessness with courage, with having courage. And so we deduct that to mean that if we experience fear, well, we're not brave. We're not courageous.

7:54We're playing small. We're not being smart. We're not being strategic. I mean, listen, fear, there's an abundance of fear running through our veins. It is accessible to all of us. It shows up all the time. It is like the common denominator, right? Like, have you stepped outside? Are you reading the news? Like, it's a world of scary place. And so to say that you don't feel fear or that your fears are not valid, I think that is very disingenuous and it's not helpful. Agreed. And Furnish, at the end of the introduction, you did bring this back to money since obviously you are in the personal finance world and have been for decades now.

8:30And you said, understanding our financial trepidations as with other fundamental fears can take us on a journey deeper into our motivations, values, and how we protect ourselves financially and energetically. Soon, we're no longer talking about money. We're talking about life and our role in it. And that just jumped off the page to me because I think it is part and parcel of many of these spheres, right? Is money, how I guess I look at money is from the other side, right? From the financial independence side is it's, I call it like, it's the lead domino. When you have your money straight, everything else, A, gets easier, but also B, allows you the space to really reflect on what else is going on in your life.

9:17When you are living paycheck to paycheck and you're stressed all the time. You simply can't think about these many more important things. But when you have that little bit of space financially, it allows you that time for introspection. And I'm curious, A, your thoughts on that, but B, in the paragraph there, how you think that fear and money tie together so closely? I'll answer that one first. I think fear and money are like two peas in a pod. I think that if you fear money, you're human. Why? Because when we talk about money, we're talking about high stakes. We're talking about the tool that will help us make life easier, afford us options, afford us healthcare and childcare and rent and all these vitals that we need, not to mention the extra money that can help to design the life that we want, which ultimately can lead to more fulfillment and happiness.

10:13So yeah, money's important. And if you're afraid of money. What does that mean to be afraid of money? Because I talk about other emotional fears in the book. Money is not an emotion. Money is just a thing. So when you fear money, I often say it's like your relationship with money. There's something not right there that you want to explore because when we fear money, we're really fearing the relationship that we have with money. We're fearing all the associations that we place on this thing called money, all of the interpretations too of what money represents, what having money means, what not having money means.

10:46And so when we fear money, really when you just steal it, it's different for everybody. It could be like the fear of taking risks like investing. It could be the fear of talking about money with a loved one because that might feel uncomfortable. It's the fear of never having enough, having too much, which may sound crazy, but there is that fear of making too much because maybe you don't feel like you're deserving of that? What will people think when you become quote unquote rich if that's not something that your family is or your friends are? And so there is this concern and this fear of rejection.

11:25The fear of money in the book is central to the book. It's not the whole book, but it's central because it is, like you said, it connects to all these other fears. When we're talking about the fear of money, it's because there is a rumbling of another fear, which is usually like failure or uncertainty, rejection, all of it, FOMO. So it's very much at the nucleus of all these really, really big, big fears that we have because it is part of life. It's like the spine, it's the backbone to so much of like where life takes us. Yeah. Yeah. That certainly makes sense. And Furnish, I'm curious. So obviously you speak with people far and wide, both inside and outside the world of personal finance, financial independence, clearly, whereas I'm much more in this bubble, this five world bubble.

12:15And in our little bubble, we're trying to cut through the noise and make talking about money much more acceptable. And again, in this bubble, it seems as if that fear of talking about it is thawing. But I don't truly suspect that's the mainstream. but have you seen any movement in a positive direction over the last five or 10 years, or do you think it's kind of status quo? I've seen so much improvement on this topic of talking about money. I started in financial journalism. My job was to talk about money, so I did it. And it was difficult to get people to open up about their personal finances, their hopes and dreams, their struggles, even just as a journalist to get sources, to get real people to weigh in, to bring these stories to life about whatever I was writing about, inflation or recession.

13:09Fast forward, now we have so many avenues. Social media has completely changed the game where now we have, for the first time in our technological history, these platforms that allow you to get on there right away and share whatever you want. And it's been a journey. I don't think it was like this watershed moment. I think that it started with a few people and then more people got sort of comfortable with the idea. But these bloggers, bloggers were the first ones. And then it was like the influencers and all these others who would go on and share their budgets, their couponing, their debt journey, their starting of the business, all of that, being very transparent, creating community.

13:56And I think suddenly money just not only became something that was worthy of talking about, but it was cool and it was aspirational to want for money. That said, there's still a lot of work to be done. I think that depending on how you identify in the world of money, especially if you're a woman or woman of color, someone who's disabled, someone who's LGBTQ, you may not see yet the kinds of representation that then would make you feel comfortable to step in and talk about money and feel like this is even something that you can want for, that you can want for financial independence. But we have made so many strides in those ways as well.

14:36I think the diversity of voices that we are seeing, not just on social media, but also podcasts and video. So the internet has really changed the game, but especially this content era that we are in and this desire to share and desire to have community. It's exciting. And my last book came out nine years ago, which in the book world is basically 900 years ago. And then I thought I was very much at this forefront. I hadn't even started the podcast yet, but I had a lot of media connections and the book was called When She Makes More. It really did well and it's out there. But to publish a book today, it's a whole other set of training wheels for me.

15:18I'm like, forget being on the Today Show is nice and all, but you really want to be on the Choose FI podcast. You really want to be on the podcast because that's what's going to make the moves. And that's where the people are gathering to talk about money. It's not these quick fleeting platforms like segments on television, which is where it was at one point all that we had. It was like columns in magazines and segments on television. That was it. And a few books. Now you can listen to an hour long podcast about a specific thing about money and you're not the only one. And there's a community.

15:54And I think that's really special. Yeah. I love how you highlighted these little communities down to like the extreme couponers. Yeah. Like that's a perfect example of somebody who's adjacent to the personal finance or financial independence world. But clearly that's a community of people who are excited about something. They're normalizing talking about money. And like you said, there are hundreds of these types of communities that we're just normalizing some little aspect of talking about money. And I think in an intimate environment like this on a podcast where you really can get to know people, it does make a difference.

16:29And it feels like you have a friend in whomever, in Farnoosh, who is now, hey, it's okay to talk about money. And that just, it feels good. Yeah. All right, Farno. So like I said at the top, there are nine chapters and we could probably spend five plus hours talking about every single one with all the notes that I took, but not exactly possible in the confines of a generally one hour podcast. Even though this one didn't touch specifically on money, this to me was probably the most personal of the fears. And it was the very first one. It was the fear of rejection. And you had a quote here that I thought was really interesting.

17:05And you said, but when we confuse the fear of rejection with a desire to be liked, we end up living a big fat lie. We say things we don't mean. We lose connections. And in our efforts to avoid rejection, we live out a self-fulfilling prophecy. And man, that last part is like you think from just a strategic perspective, like, oh, goodness. Anytime you talk about self-fulfilling prophecy, it's like you were doing the exact opposite thing of what you're intending. and it's cutting you off at the knees. Yeah, and I say the biggest thing now you have to fear is that you're rejecting yourself. That is what you're doing actually.

17:44So the rejection never stops. It's actually always there because you're not at peace with this idea of, hey, maybe rejection is there, it's not happening to me, it's happening for me, which means that I need to get out. I need to go find another community or make a new community someplace else. It's not that I have to force this rejection into acceptance. It's not that I have to change who I am. It's not that I have to pretend to be somebody I'm not. Because in doing all of that, you're just self-rejecting the entire time. And that's what we're trying to avoid. So maybe you should just do the easier thing, which maybe not always seems the easiest in the moment.

18:25But in reflection, it's like, oh yeah, I could have just left. Could have just said, okay, thank you. Whenever a friend comes to me and says, you know, we broke up or he was cheating on me or whatever, I'm like, I know that's terrible and you should break up. But also there's a piece of me that's like thankful that that happened because this person is showing you who they are and they're doing it early on enough in the relationship or they're telling you straight up, I'm not into you. So please don't waste your time with me. And it's not about you. It's me, right? We always say that, but it isn't about you.

18:58It's about this isn't working. Whatever this is, it's just not working. It takes two. You need to move on. And again, it's hard to accept that in the moment. And it's still hard even now with many years of experience with rejection. But that is the truth. And that is the work that this fear wants us to commit to. It's to take pride in ourselves that our singularity is enough. Yeah. And you said in the book, sometimes in life, we must trust the rejections. Yes. Yes. That's exactly that. It's just that because not everyone's going to like you. You know that, right? Not everyone's going to like you.

19:36Not everyone's going to invite you to the thing. Not everyone's going to give you the job. Not everyone's going to promote you. Not everyone's going to give you the money. So what are you going to do? You're going to beg? You're going to pretend? You're going to try? You're going to feel bad about yourself? No, you're going to go, okay, that didn't work, but the world is abundant and this isn't getting into the woo-woo territory. This is just facts. there are a lot of options in this world. There are a lot of portals in this world, in this universe, and they don't just come arriving at your doorstep.

20:06You have to go seek them out. No, not woo-woo at all. If you're just talking sheer numbers, right? There's 8 billion people, quite literally. Exactly. And you said something also that you never looked at what this fear could teach me to accept me for me. I just thought that was so beautiful. Yeah. It's hard. I grew up the daughter of Iranian immigrants, and I grew up in Worcester, Massachusetts in the 80s, the era that gave us so many terrifying things. I think The Terminator came out that year, that decade. Also, it was the era of missing children on the backs of milk cartons. It was the D.A.R.E.

20:46program at school, and also waterbeds. Whose idea was that? Oh, goodness. I went over to a friend's house in the first grade and she had a waterbed. And I was like, this is a recipe for disaster. And so I grew up terrified. And fear was always like a sibling to me. I was an only child until I was 11. It was sort of like this silent sibling. And we hung out a lot. We played a lot. So I had a hard time accepting me for me because I'd go to school and I was usually the new girl. We moved a lot. And that was, you know, like you can only imagine. It's tough. It's tough being not only different in a school, but being the new girl and different with a different name, with a different look, with different parents in a community that was pretty homogenous and kind of ignorant.

21:36I will say not well-traveled. And the country was not that supportive of Iranians at the time. I mean, it was the 80s. It was the Iran-Contra. It was like the hostage situation. It was bad. Things were bad. Things were heated. So all that was my foray into self-acceptance, which is to say that it was not easy and it was really tough and I tried so much to reject myself. I wanted to assimilate so much. And of course, it was the child in me that did that. But we take that same framework into adulthood. We think like when rejection shows up and when we fear rejection, we need to assimilate because that's, Yeah, maybe in the short term, that does pay off.

22:18But in the long run, it never works out, rarely. Right. And it's not being true to yourself. And I think, obviously, in the book, you had a story about changing your name to fit in. Many times. Many times, Brad. I wanted to be, let's see, it started with Tina. Because Tina was this little girl that I went to kindergarten with who was super styling and popular. and when I moved, every time I would move to a new school or a new town, I felt like it was an opportunity to take on a new persona. And I would usually reflect back on like, who's the most popular girl at the other school? I'm going to be her at the new school.

22:59So then I go and I'm Tina and then I change schools and it would never stick. Like I would never stay Tina. It was like, it was like a 13 day exercise because here's the thing about trying to change your name after being called Brad your entire life, and now you're like, I'm going to be Steven. You don't actually respond to Steven because your impulse, your audio impulse is to wait for the Brad signal, not the Steve signal. And so it just got hard. It was metaphorically hard and actually hard to be someone I wasn't. And yet I kept trying. My parents gave me the runway too. They were like, listen, we know it's hard.

23:37My parents changed their names. They Americanized their names once they became citizens here. My dad, Farouk, became Adam. My mom, Shada, became Sheila. And when my brother was born 11 years after me, same parents, you're not going to believe what they named him. I think you know because you read the book. They named him Todd. Okay. So it was Adam, Sheila, Todd, and Farnoosh. And I tried Ashley. I tried Nikki. nothing stuck. And I do think that you become your name. There's this study in the book that I talk about, the Dorian Gray effect, which is the study that we have perceptions. If you just close your eyes and think of what does a Brad look like?

24:23You might envision a tall, dark, and handsome man. If you think of what does a Farnoosh look like, and you don't know me, you've never met a Farnoosh, where does your mind go? And I think that's what I was up against in school and in so many social circles where it's like, they didn't know how to place me. They didn't know what to think of me. Forget the fact that they couldn't put Iran on a map, but they also couldn't put my name in any sort of vision of like, oh, we know a Farnoosh. She was so sweet. There was no precedence for my name, for who I was. And that's terrifying as a kid. I think as an adult, that's kind of exciting.

25:01I have friends who love to move to new towns and cities. They love to take the table for one at the restaurant. I am that person now. I'm okay in my singleness, in my alone ventures. I'm married, but I love going to a bar and just having dinner. But when you're a little, it's really, really challenging. Yeah, it is. And it's interesting, as you grew up and you went to Penn State, and I actually want to tie two of the fears together here. So this is kind of transitioning out of fear of loneliness actually into FOMO, fear of missing out, which I think does tie in significantly to money. Yes. But let's just kind of bridge this, which is you said in the book you were secure in your loneliness, essentially, at Penn State or how I read it by not going to football games when every single other person essentially in that part of Pennsylvania was at that game or watching it.

25:54Right. Yeah. I'm in a school with 50 ,000 students, one of the biggest college campuses in the world. And I'm lonely? Yeah, because I didn't connect to the culture right away. I wasn't into football. I wasn't into Greek life. And so at the beginning, it was hard for me to feel connected, which is where the loneliness existed. It was this lacking of feeling a belonging to something bigger than me. But sometimes what I write is that the fear of loneliness is really the signal to get very comfortable in that aloneness with yourself, to find the strength in yourself in that loneliness. loneliness, it's not what we think sometimes when we fear loneliness, which is that, oh, I should just go find a group of friends immediately.