The Problem of Money, with Tim Malnick and Shabbar Kassam

0:00Shabbar Kassam: Hi folks and welcome to the Meaningful Money Podcast. This is session number 637 and no rog today, just me but me and two friends of mine, Shabbar Kassam, who is a fellow financial planner and a long-standing friend of mine and an organizational psychologist called Tim Malnick. um and shabar and tim they have a podcast called the problem of money 60 odd episodes in uh now and it's they're doing great work really digging into psychology around money and uh they're doing some fantastic work over there so i wanted to bring them on uh we ended up talking about i want to say all sorts but that's not strictly true really focusing on why money brings certain things out of us you know how it brings positive and negative emotions how it sort of seems to amplify lessons we learned early on in life it's a great conversation I sent the guys a list of questions in advance and we got to about three or four of them no great surprise because we dig into the conversation and obviously you've got in Shabba and myself very experienced long-standing financial planners and in Tim a deeply qualified and experienced psychologist who specializes in at least you know in the subject that we're talking about so it's a great conversation tim brings a level of kind of vocabulary and understanding to the subject that i'm just deeply in awe of um so i'm definitely going to get him back but for now here's my conversation with tim and shabba on the problem of money it's my pleasure to welcome shabba kassam and tim malnick the meaningful money gentlemen welcome to the show how are you doing today very good hi i'm good pete thank you we're sending good vibes to my sound card which just had a glitch so we're just hoping that we can get through this and if not we'll rearrange but shabba we've known each other for a bit you're uh how many years into lumos financial now so started uh 2021 so yeah five five and a five and a bit years and it has and i think we spoke quite early on in my journey sort of moving to moving to lumos yeah we did it on to mean for we did an episode didn't we yeah money and religion which was quite a quite a risky topic back then when we were discussing it um and not one that's often talked about now but yeah and then you got in touch what a couple of years now um because you guys have then it was very early days in your own podcast the problem of money but now you're 60 episodes in i think 63 amazing episodes in yeah so so tim do you want to just give us a little bit of your background sort of

2:38Tim Malnick: who you are what you do yes i professionally i'm an organization psychologist so training the psychology of people work organizations i work as a coach one-to-one and a facilitator of groups and teams and generally my work is about helping people go deep and often rethink business as usual So I often work with people who are looking at the state of the world, thinking, oh, it's not going that well, really, environmentally, socially, politically, and are trying through their work to do something about it. So I'm not a finance guy. But in the course of working with people trying to change things at a deep level, I came across some very interesting money work.

3:22Tim Malnick: And that's sort of, I think, what we'll discuss and how I've connected with Shabba. so 63 episodes in um going back to the start what kind of itch were you guys trying to scratch what was the trigger for starting this well i'll hand to shabba because actually the podcast exists because he suggested it and he invited the conversations yeah thanks tim okay well you

3:47Shabbar Kassam: know i'll try and give the sort of the shortened version but basically basically i've shall shall i say being troubled by the topic of money and my own behaviors interactions with money spanning decades I think it goes back to sort of my mid-teens when I kind of saw my dad try and fail at an entrepreneurial venture a lot of debt we ended up losing our family home and I spent a decade in this kind of, I would say, tense environment around money, had a massive impact on me going into my sort of 20s. I kind of just started shunning away from even talking about money, wanting to accumulate money. I would do just enough to sort of survive.

4:36And I just couldn't

4:38Shabbar Kassam: figure out what was going on. And then someone introduced me to Tim and said, I think it'd be really useful for you to go on one of his workshops so I did that and that suddenly opened up sort of Pandora's box for me where I suddenly started to see the sort of the unconscious behaviors and patterns that was that were prevalent in my life and all of the sort of unsaid things and I was like more and more I looked at it the more and more I realized that everyone's kind of got some sort of money dance or weird relationship with money and I just became fascinated at my inability to be able to shift but also quite sort of intrigued as to why this thing that we use every day has such a hold on us and so you know me and Tim kept in contact I was always a big fan of his work and then I think one day I just came to Tim and I said Tim I'd really love for us to sort of go on a journey together where I get to explore this in more detail with you alongside and we can just dive into to stuff that happens every day in my professional and personal life and the things that I see around me and would you be up for it and uh yeah Tim said yeah that sounds great but I think the reason why he agreed to it is probably at the crux of the work that we do and I'll let

6:08Tim Malnick: tim sort of explain why i was going to say exactly the same thing so i hope it's all right to share this about your previous podcast shabba can i share what you said to me yes um so shabba so shabba had come on one of my uh workshops where we go deep into the unconscious stuff around money and then we'd have some follow-up sessions and you're also part of a community i have as well for people who want to continue this work and then he came up with this uh yeah i want to do a podcast on this and he said two things that made me say yes. The first thing he said is I used to have a podcast but I realised I wasn't that excited about what we were talking about.

6:46Tim Malnick: I was doing it as a business thing. I was doing it as a marketing thing and in our work we kind of call that a money path move. You know we do all of this stuff in our lives not because it's our passion, not because it brings us alive, not because it's some kind of real creative thing but because we think we should or it's sensible we get the money but he said but actually I really want to talk about this stuff with you and in my work I'm often listening out for what I call that life path impulse and I don't really care what it is and I don't really care to start with whether it's going to make anyone any money I'm interested what I listen out for is does it bring this person alive to their eyes light up and if any move whether it's a new business or a change in life or changing career or in this case let's do a podcast if I feel like it's supporting a life path move if I possibly can I will say yes so it's been a pure life path move and and we're still enjoying it and we hope other people do too really well 63 episodes in it's a good job man I

7:50Shabbar Kassam: don't think you'd have carried on this long if you weren't enjoying it so the problem of money is the title of the podcast so let's kind of spin that around and ask why why is money so problematic Shabo, your sort of personal experience obviously speaks to this. But generally speaking, why is it such an issue?

8:07Tim Malnick: Well, maybe I can start and you can build from your experience. So the phrase, the problem of money, comes from a book, Money and the Meaning of Life, by an American philosopher called Jacob Needleman, who I know you know. And one of the things we say, and we mentioned this earlier in the podcast, is it's very important. There is no problem with money.

8:29Shabbar Kassam: Yeah, nice.

8:30Tim Malnick: Money is not a problem. There's no problem with money, whether I've got it or haven't got it or money is just a thing. If you like, it's a neutral technology that we made up, humans made up. But somehow most of us feel there is a problem. Right. And all our problems can be different, but kind of similar. And by the way, and you'll know this, Pete, and you'll know this Shabba as financial advisors. And I know this as a coach. People can have big problems with money, whether they've got loads of it, average or or not very much so it's not even just if I don't have money it's a problem I've worked with many people with lots of money for whom it's a tremendous problem in relationships emotions freedom so what's going on it seems in in the terminology of of what we explore money does something to our psychology and money gets wrapped up with some of our least conscious and most least developed parts.

9:32Tim Malnick: And therefore, in simple terms, when we've got a problem, when we have a problem with money, it's not money's problem. It's reflecting back some part of us that maybe we need to be more in touch with or more conscious of. And that's what we're really exploring. Shabba, do you want to build from your experience or your client's experience?

9:53Shabbar Kassam: yeah I mean you've sort of summarized it you know better than than I could yeah exactly and and that's what I find on on on the podcast I've just been sort of going on this journey to explore this stuff and I have a lot of thoughts feelings emotions around money and and Tim gets to like package them up within sometimes a framework or just give some terminology and insight into what's going on and helps raise my consciousness. And I think through doing that, the people that listen get to benefit from someone like myself who's on a journey alongside Tim, who's a bit more experienced. And I think Tim will still allude to the fact that he's, you know, like everyone still has his own money stuff that he has to battle with.

10:46Shabbar Kassam: But it's just a great dynamic that allows this stuff to become conscious just because I think it's one of the great taboos in society that we, we can talk about money, you know, we can talk about numbers, investments, you know, ISIS and pensions, but we very rarely talk about my money. Like what's going on with me and my money that becomes deeply personal and very uncomfortable. And I, I think that what I've managed to get comfortable with is talking about my money. and that allows the conversation to really flourish and I think the people that have reached out to us you know really enjoy that I kind of say the unsaid yeah there's something

11:31Tim Malnick: quite humble and honest and I just want to build a couple of things that we we do do some episodes where we dive in to Shabba's questions and stories often we don't even know we're going to he just comes up with something and we go deeper and he's actually very brave because he says it is a taboo and it always feels vulnerable to actually get below the surface with what's really going on here with money because if it's true that money and our money problems kind of reflect deeper stuff in us we'll always feel a bit vulnerable so Shabba does actually a very courageous job but we don't just do that so we'll also do episodes based on things we read in the news we did an episode on the difference between American and English golfers play you know the The American golfers wanted to be paid lots of money and the English guys did it for free.

12:20Tim Malnick: We'll look at current affairs, things in the news, budgets, tariffs, questions people write in. And also things, you know, obviously anonymously, but things from clients of both of ours. But one of the keys is always it can be quite a small, apparently small thing. a momentary news story a small difference a pay negotiation um a choice whether to buy some socks

12:46Shabbar Kassam: at reduced price it can be something quite small but as soon as you look at it and get curious

12:54Tim Malnick: and go this isn't about money this is about something that money's reflecting then it always opens up i think very rich territory you've used that word reflecting a couple of times

13:06Shabbar Kassam: so it's it's not a problem in and of itself it's what it reflects in us are there kind of other aspects of our lives yes where that we deal with where those reflections are evident as well that

13:19Tim Malnick: kind of bring things out of us that we might not even be aware of yes um um so this idea of reflecting things reflecting back is this kind of psychological idea it's widely understood in psychology and particularly someone who I've kind of studied fairly deeply is the work of Carl Jung who was a key figure and he and others would talk about this idea of projection and the basic idea of projection is often if I see in the world something or someone that seems to aggravate me trigger me activate you know I get all hot and bothered then very often that is mirroring back something in me so to answer your question on one level everything does that you know that's what the the Hindus and the Buddhists and people say the whole world is a reflection of your mind okay that's hard to work with but typically people who trigger us and things in the world that particularly if you like can trigger or make us hot and bothered so close relationships right if If you're having a round with your partner about X, Y and Z, often it doesn't mean they're not doing what you think they're doing.

14:30Tim Malnick: But your reaction is something about you. Famous figures, both the ones we put on pedestals and the ones that aggravate us. So we project onto Trump. We project onto heroes. Any time I have a highly charged response to someone or something in the world, it doesn't mean that isn't what's going on in the world. But when I have a response that kind of pulls me out of my normal adult conscious response, that's the mirror. And what we find is and this comes from the work of a guy called Peter Koenig, who taught me and I've studied with and he really originated this approach. Money is an amazing mirror because we do get activated by money.

15:16Tim Malnick: It is emotional. And so it's a brilliant mirror. And one of the funny things about money, which is part of the taboo, is people like to pretend it's this totally rational thing. So economists have a rational theory of money and budget people, and it's all about spreadsheets. So it's like we're all pretending that money is this just rational, analytical, numbers based thing. But there's all of this squishy, difficult, awkward, embarrassing emotion going on. And that's why money is such a great tool. With relationships, we don't even pretend it's rational. We know it brings stuff up. But money does it just the same.

15:58Shabbar Kassam: isn't that funny though i mean shabar you know this any good financial planner knows this is uh yeah you know we could talk about investing and you know well you invest it works fine if you're rational but of course that's therein lies the problem and we are just so squishy and irrational in many ways but i love this picture of it brings out in us it reflects in us something that is often unconscious um chabar this your experience obviously with your dad's business going under and losing your home i mean that's like a pretty major trauma for a young person how why does that shadow stretch so long you know what is it the the it has such a long and deep impact to be honest i don't know i don't know why it it just is i i think the reason well one of the reasons tim tim can sort of jump in um i think that when these sorts of things happen they they they create a very big imprint they may even shift your identity your perception your view of the world you maybe start to tell yourself like stories and you create narratives and those are really hard to shift and I think it's very similar to how if you if you grew up around the dinner table and and let's say you know mum or dad were always fighting about money Like the story that you take from that is that, you know, money creates some conflict, it's to be pushed away.

17:43Shabbar Kassam: And that can just be something that you've been brought up with. And that will just generally stay with you until until adulthood, and maybe until you die, unless unless you address it, and unless you become very conscious of it. And I think that that's what happens with the traumas, you know, and that we can have big traumas, little traumas, or it can just be kind of systemic. patterns that get played out and that's the reason why this stuff haunts us and we carry out these patterns and we will find in our work you know we will sit down with people that have got more than enough just you know the the models will tell you tell them that they've got more than enough everything stacks up yet that there is this inability to shift the way that they operate in the world and that could be you know for example I had I had a client who had more than enough and I was just trying to say look just do the things that you love they she wanted to go on holiday I was like you know do it like don't even think about it it's like a drop in the ocean if you decided to go and do this wonderful thing and she came from a Scottish um I think it was a mining town and her parents you know grew up and it was always you know very very prudent stringent around money was always tight and there was a there was a stoic kind of attitude towards money and she just couldn't shake that off because she kept telling herself you know who would i be if i decided to splurge out and start living so freely and frivolously on on these sort of holidays identity thing then it's it's an identity thing so you know that i mean those are my thoughts i don't know whether sort of tim you want to sort of add anything yeah i i can build i think pete

19:34Tim Malnick: you had exactly the word identity this stuff goes deep and again the kind of psychological mechanisms are quite well known i don't need to necessarily go into detail although if people are interested they can check out the pod what i would say is we did we did episodes specifically looking at influence of parents and also on our role as parents like what do we transmit um I think Shabba's right sometimes we have big money traumas like really obvious painful things that have happened or big emotively charged things and there we can see there's a big if you like emotional charge and then we've made a story out of it and simply put what often happens and by the way the charge could be very positive right they could be a very I work with someone who was a recovering gambler and one of their strong memories was as a child when dad won they would be asleep in bed and dad would come back really excited and just shove notes under the kid's door so often there's an emotional charge painful or exciting we don't understand it because even as adults we don't really understand what's going on and then we kind of construct an identity or a story related to the charge unconsciously and typically as Shabo and I discussed this we unconsciously do one of two things we either unconsciously go I will be like that I will be like dad or I will always you know dad had a big car and seemed to be successful whether he was or felt that way I don't know I must be like that.

21:11Tim Malnick: Or in some cases, if it's very painful or difficult or there was a conflict, I will never be like that. And it's an unconscious kind of choice or story. And what happens psychologically is then I split my identity. So, for example, I spend my whole life without realising it, always having to feel like a success and being terrified of failure or not being enough. And I don't know I'm doing it. And the key is that limits me, that restricts me. And if unconsciously, as just one example, I'm terrified of failure, actually, I won't be able to take risks. I won't be able to use my money to go for stuff.

21:56Tim Malnick: So I'll end up probably being more of a failure. So this is how it works. We make unconscious decisions and we split our identity. And I must always be like this. I must always be the sensible one, the responsible one, or I'm always the one who's no good with money and spends. And then the other way of being seems to become elusive or other people are unavailable and in the end we become much more restricted just to to move through

22:23Shabbar Kassam: life so you've used the word unconscious a few times there yeah you used the word you said awareness and then addressing these things so there clearly must be a point or there can be a point where we become aware and i know for me just sort of personal example if ever i asked my parents question about money you know like they changed the car i remember vividly asking how much was the car dad now he could have just told me right or put the number out of the air and i was fine i wasn't that interested but every single question how much do you earn dad how much the holiday cost or all that the answer was always the same that's none of your business yeah and for years i really struggled it was a battle to even raise finances as a as a conversation with my wife who i adore more than anyone in the world.

23:14Shabbar Kassam: And, you know, is the most forgiving and she loves me. And, you know, it ought to be easy, but it just wasn't because it was this real taboo. But I became aware of that at some point, sort of like lightning bolt moment. And so then you can start to say, well, this is an irrational, I can see why I feel like this, but it doesn't make sense for me as a functioning adult. So let's move on. So is there a point and is there a way we can almost kind of force this awareness or sort of begin the process of becoming aware of these things that are holding us back that might be one for you Tim I don't know well why don't I start

23:49Tim Malnick: and again Shabba you can build on your experience um yeah makes total sense so in your case apparently a small thing I just asked my dad what the car costs you get the mantra none of your business and some people actually have these almost like these phrases in their heads that they're living with but also you get the charge because my guess is when he says this I don't know and we won't dive into it but there might be defensiveness or a fear or so again there's this sort of emotional charge around it and when we're younger particularly that's what we pick up it's like oh what's going on here and that's how it becomes less conscious so yeah great for whatever you did you start to notice as hell i'm doing that with i'm doing the same thing with my wife so that's the awareness in the money work that we talk we call that detective work and sometimes it's obvious and if people are curious and really already doing their development they notice that sometimes we need to do a bit of detective work to go what weird things am i doing or not doing about money there could be a million things it's like what's my pattern that's about raising awareness and seeing clearly and then when i do that it sounds like you just took a deep breath and went for it and kind of went through the pain and was i'm assuming to start with it was awkward or your heart was beating the first time yeah yeah right but of course very quickly it's like

25:11Shabbar Kassam: actually this is not an issue this is something i've built up in my head yeah yeah isn't really an issue in this new dynamic so that's great whatever resource you had to let you do that

25:21Tim Malnick: that's not a small thing because a lot of people can't do that by themselves what i would say is you didn't just build up in your head right it was in your head but then actually when i first tell my wife about money that my heart's beating and i'm sweaty and my voice goes up a bit and that's a response in the body and when we talk about whether we call it trauma or just a physiological restriction or different language this stuff lives deep so awareness is a great step and if I become aware of a pattern and I can kind of calm myself down and my wife loves me and I'm only talking about this eventually and assuming your wife doesn't go what you know then then eventually your physiology will settle down and you will know in your body as well as you had it really is okay but sometimes we need some help and this is one of the things we explore I won't go into it now because it's kind of a psychological step but it moves from seeing what's going on in my head doesn't always shift that kind of anxiety in the body and there are ways we can really get the body to kind of relax and know here as well as here that it is okay to talk about money or I am safe or I am secure or it is okay to fail to really know that is often in the body as well as the thinking mind.

26:47Tim Malnick: Shab, I don't know if you've got examples or stories to build on.

26:52Shabbar Kassam: No, but I mean, for me, the detective work is, you know, kind of key and it's really important to try and make that step. And it's hard unless, you know, maybe you've got a coach or a mentor or someone who, you know, can help you. It can be done on your own, but a lot of the time, You know, you don't know what you don't know. And it and it takes it takes someone to just sort of, you know, question you and say, you know, you know, how helpful is that, you know, that you can't talk to your wife about money. And it might be someone who can talk to their wife about money that could spot it in you and say, Pete, that, you know, maybe you're missing out on something here because, you know, it would be great if you could have good communication, because ultimately, you know, in relationships, you know, that's one of the good things.

27:43But just on the detective work, for me, the most impactful thing has been looking at counter examples.

27:53Shabbar Kassam: So I was very, very ingrained in this idea. And we may have spoken to it on our podcast that, you know, with a lot of money or pursuing money, that's going to corrupt you. You know, there's a there's sort of almost like a moral quandary that now appears where if I do go after money, you know, I'm going to suddenly become irreligious in my example. And I can get very caught up in that. And I was very caught up in that for a long time. And then you will look for evidence naturally just to support your position and cement it. but it's when you start to look at the counter examples in this work that it really becomes quite eye-opening that actually you know that person is religious and and morally upstanding you know from what i can see and they've got a lot of money but i also see that there is a person who doesn't actually have a lot of money has has very little and they actually don't act you know that religiously in my in my view and so you start to see that it it's actually got nothing you know that religiosity that i'm looking for that quality that i'm sort of searching and yearning for actually isn't found in the amount of money that you've got because i've clearly seen two worldly examples of people one with one without and that goes for anything people that are generous people that are free you know all of the sort of human qualities that we kind of desire and we're searching for and we you know tim mentioned it we project onto money and we believe that okay with a certain amount of money i'll get to feel free or i'll be secure and i had so many of these and i still do i'm not like near to where i want to be but i start to just look at the counterexamples and I say okay well that person and with clients we we get a window you know into the lives of people and how much money they've got and the number of clients that we would have seen that have loads of money but they don't feel free so so that freedom that freedom can't be in the number because I actually travel to different parts of the world and I see people with very very little but they are so free so giving so joyful so hold on it might not be in the money and i start to ask myself that question and for me that then starts to open up the possibility of changing the

30:21Tim Malnick: narrative and looking at things differently yeah we we talk a lot about learning and detective work and observing and having good friends or mentors and counter examples they're all ways of disentangling something that we unconsciously squish together which is a money number and the human experience yeah right and they they don't need to go together but we often assume they do i'll just add one thing to shabba it's not just the stuff that we want it's also true for the sides of human experience that we think are undesirable so for example going back to success and failure. Very common, I think, with the right amount of money, it means I'm a success.

31:05Tim Malnick: I need to engage with the fact that even if I'm the richest man in the world, I'm still, I am a success and I'm a failure. So you look at Elon Musk, literally the richest man in the world. There are ways in which he's successful as a human, and there are ways in which he fails, maybe in relation, his work in the US government. And I don't say that with judgment. He's a human, So he gets to succeed and fail. And so am I. I have a bit less money than him. And I get to succeed and fail. And so does everyone, because that's what being alive means.

31:37Shabbar Kassam: Yeah.

31:38Tim Malnick: So we disentangle, if you like, what we think of as desirable and desirable. And we see this is just part of our humanity. And the more we're open and at ease with both sides, the more we can actually move through life and do what's needed for our own benefit and hopefully to benefit others as well.

31:57Shabbar Kassam: Do you think that because so much of the whole money thing is outside of our immediate control, so for example, we can't have any influence really on what central banks do, what Musk does, or Trump, or geopolitics in the Middle East, we as individuals, say, investors and people hoping maybe to retire one day, we can't do anything about that sort of stuff. that stuff kind of happens do you think that sort of exacerbates uh its impact on us emotionally and psychologically is there anything we can do about that are there any kind of sort of guard rails we can put up to to limit its impact given that we can't sort of control i'm sure there's a

32:42Tim Malnick: question in there but it's a great question short answer fundamentally it doesn't change what we're talking about right fundamentally we still have to work with whatever money brings up for us and if you like our path to wholeness and genuine freedom is to work with whether it's whether it's a partner having a go at us or you know feeling tense in the pub getting out our wallet or feeling nervous when trump does some crazy tariff thing actually the emotion is always arising in me and if I want to, I can investigate that. So fundamentally, however, we do live at a particularly bonkers time. So I think that the fundamental mechanism doesn't change.

33:29Tim Malnick: Humans have always had to deal with feelings of security and insecurity and freedom and restriction and triumph and disaster. That's human. What we have at the moment is this crazy 24-7 news, social media and certain figures. And we are living in very kind of crazy times. So I would say there's a particular charge around in the world around some of that stuff. And it's very likely that some of that amplified, slightly crazy energy will trigger what's already inside us. So one thing you could do is just turn the news off a bit more. Just leave it, turn it off. You'll still have plenty to work with just walking down your high street and chatting to your partner about holidays right or your kids about pocket money um and so um maybe to realize as humans it's always been true that we can't really control very much and i'm in control of what i can control so i think it's almost a little bit of a um we're almost a bit addicted to all of this craziness out there thinking i should be able to do something but then i feel powerless so better to just consciously be powerless and then maybe i'll relax and enjoy myself a bit conscious

34:41Shabbar Kassam: powerlessness there yeah i like that but the work is fun is yeah yeah it sounds freeing to me the work is so our work really needs to be on our self getting to know ourselves and understand our responses and maybe helping ourselves a little bit like that is it i mean is this like a life's work i presume nobody's ever kind of achieved ultimate self-awareness and that they're never moved by anything external certainly i feel like i'm not even getting started what do you reckon i think it is because i think you're you're constantly on a path of evolving and uncovering you know parts about you that you didn't know existed because you don't know who you're going to bump into that's going to going to trigger you um but i think i'll i'll give a i'll give a really good example from from the podcast early early on we had the whole sock episode right i you know got myself into a frenzy about like you know why did i buy like a five pound pair of socks when i didn't need socks right and we we sort of went into this and it was it was a really unconscious move i got you know carried away at this christmas sale that was taking place in my office and i all these sweaters and this that the other that were really like bargains and I was so elated and this purchase of these bloody socks like just deflate just deflated me there was so much judgment criticism like I didn't need them like what was I doing and so that was a very unconscious kind of pattern that I was sort of playing out you know we move a few weeks on and then there's this Amex voucher that I get given by American Express and I then get into a frenzy around how do I maximize the value in using this voucher and I spend like four evenings researching all the hotels that I could possibly use this voucher at and I'm sort of I'm getting quite sort of I would say stressed around making sure I don't leave any money on the table I mean it's just really bizarre i mean and and so that was sort of a year ago and then this year i'm sort of buying a mattress but this year when i'm buying the mattress something similar started to happen but i started to notice it a lot quicker right and i brought it in and we talked about it on the on the episode and it was it's not the same but it has a there's a charge around me buying stuff and wanting to get value for money and making sure that I'm being sensible and all of these sorts of things.

37:13Shabbar Kassam: Now, I've still got myself into a bit of a frenzy, but it was less of a frenzy than a year ago. And so I say, well, that's progress, right? You know, I haven't spent, you know, five nights of my life, you know, and Tim quite rightly put it, you know, if you looked at your sort of hourly rate that you would charge, like you've tried to save you know 20 or 30 quid on the voucher but you've probably spent five hours just getting your knickers in a in a twist kind of thing so go on well i just want to appreciate

37:46Tim Malnick: you because you do talk with great humility and humor and and and actually it's a model because what shabba's doing as well as he's genuinely interested he's actually modeling for people who listen that it really is okay to be honest and actually a bit humorous and light about these money things because they're all going on and we all do something we might not do the same as shabba but we all have our money quirks and so i want to appreciate the way you share about it shabba because it's important and it makes it more possible and also i do want to appreciate um it was different a year later you did notice a lot quicker you were lighter and i think there will be a point in the future where you might find one day you're doing it completely different and you just buy the mattress or book the holiday in a very free way so i didn't want to complete your story but i wanted you not just to stay humble and and self-examining no i agree

38:44Shabbar Kassam: i wanted to just i just wanted to say one thing about what pete was saying was like the outside world yes and and i know a lot of people that are listening you know probably listen to you because they take some financial guidance especially around retirement planning and people transitioning and all of that. You know, we went into this in a bit more depth in one of our episodes around sort of retirement, and this kind of existential threat that seems to be apparent or internalized that if, you know, if things go wrong in the outside world, and my number drops, somehow, very quickly I'm going to end up under a bridge right we we we spiral like 30 steps down the line so the stock market falls or there's a conflict or Trump does this and suddenly our world crumbles because of this what Tim was talking about like projection onto money that actually internally we don't feel safe and secure.

39:50Shabbar Kassam: And the retirement pot, the pension pot feels like it's our sort of saving grace, or that's the thing that's going to make sure that we're okay. And I think there's a lot of work to be done around that. And especially with us as sort of financial planners, and this is where I really want to bring this work more into sort of the mainstream sort of financial planning. and we talk about this quite a lot you know what else are you investing in other than your pension you know because actually the the things that are gonna probably give you most joy comfort and security sort of later on in life other you know investing in your health so that you've actually got the body to be able to live out retirement the relationships the community and the connection because as people get older and if you've had the privilege and the fortune to speak to people who are in later life they kind of never really regret the the car they didn't buy or the bigger house that they didn't but it was you know the time that they hadn't got to spend with their kids and and community and friendships and all of those things so these are little things that if you reflect on and you start to maybe look at they might not shift completely but i think you you will start to maybe move to a different way of looking at the world and especially how you relate to your money and your pension for example yeah i wonder if two little points here i mean you know i've essentially built a career on trying to help people organize their finances themselves and not have to see somebody like me or you shall and yet clearly and i think in a world of rising AI and all that sort of stuff.

41:35Shabbar Kassam: The benefit that a good financial planner can bring, certainly one with an awareness, not anything like Tim's level of expertise, but an awareness of these things and self-awareness in how we struggle with these things ourselves, that that is going to be a core part of the value that working with a professional adds. I just feel like we as a profession really need to tool up on this stuff, don't we? And really need to understand this stuff better the finance is easy for my you know for us this is what we do but good financial planning is deeply human um and we need to kind of upskill don't we would you would you agree with that and tim i'd love to hear what you think about that but shabar do you i sometimes feel woefully illiquid shall i say to help clients through this stuff and this is exactly why for me and we've been talking about this sort of recently you know the the work has started to feel a bit soulless because as I've gone on this journey and I'm seeing you know all of the ways that you know we get entangled and and and kind of messy with money and I'm I'm sort of reflecting back and I'm like I'm kind of doing a disservice if all we're doing is focusing on the number and I know and I know we help people with goals and and things like that but you know even even that just seems very superficial because a lot of the time I feel like the goals that people sort of talk about are just the things that they feel that they should talk about or what's expected of them to yeah yeah camper van holiday and it's like you know this whole journey of sort of money path life path and putting life at the center you know really is the thing that i feel i need to bring in more into my practice and then helping people realize that actually you know what it's okay if the if the number goes down like that's okay and helping a client to realize that you know maybe taking the sabbatical or maybe changing career or or doing something that isn't solely focused on growing the number is not stupid or silly or irresponsible because these are the judgments that you know often take place so yeah i don't know tim if you

43:50Tim Malnick: want to sort of yeah i i'm aware of our time so i'll try and sort of okay um yeah well on on that absolutely that's part of what i want and my mentor peter want this work to do is we don't necessarily think everyone needs to be running workshops or doing podcasts but we want if you like this new story about money and genuinely a new money consciousness to come out and that can come out in different ways and absolutely if people like you pete and shabba and financial advisors are attending to the numbers because that's important but not playing along with this sort of story that's not true that if the story we have in society many of us are socialized in is if you can get your numbers right everything's going to be okay you'll be happy you'll get the life you want you'll feel free you'll feel it's not true so what we need is people who are skillful are organizing the numbers and equally skillful at helping people invest in and build and maybe do the inner work so they actually have the life that they want and then the numbers then the numbers can support life and if your numbers go down you still have confidence that you can have a good and rich and genuinely wealthy life still yeah so so that's really important and that's why I love supporting Shabbat and anyone in any walk of life.

45:14Tim Malnick: I wanted to make one point about this inner work thing, because I think it links to this. The first step for what we're doing is absolutely it's inner, it's my consciousness, etc. It's maybe I don't listen so much to the news or Trump, but it's very important to me because my background is in activism and social environmental change. even though I'm a psychologist I personally have always been passionate there are things in the world that are unfair harmful not working well and I want those things to work better for everybody so it would be a mistake to think by doing my inner work I don't care about the world or I ignore systemic injustice or structural problems or abuse of power to me it's more interesting to think those things are in the world you know the money system is not fair politics is rigged lots is going on but how do we actually change things and my experience is we bring so much projection to the world and what's going on and money is a big part of that so what I found for people who want to I have lots of people come on the workshops you know mainly just regular normal people who just want to deal with their money.

46:28Tim Malnick: But I also have people who want to change the finance system or want to change things. And they realise that investigating money and doing their own work on their own feelings of power and powerlessness and success and failure and security and insecurity frees them up if they want to, to then be more powerful and creative in actually going out and changing the world so it's important for me that the inner work is not just navel gazing it's not or that people don't think that it's not just personal like we don't care about what's out there it's more that there are big problems out there and maybe untangling how we actually spend our lives and how we free ourselves up from not worrying about money to actually do whatever we're called to do in the world, whatever that is, that becomes a really important part of the pie of the puzzle.

47:23Shabbar Kassam: Yeah, I love that. Love that. I hear some of the things that I've said to clients, to my team in some of those things you just said there, Tim. So we're definitely of one mind on that. I know you are too, Shabba. I reckon that's a good point to wind up, I think. I mean, honestly, I could chat to you guys for hours and hours and hours, so I'd love to have you back. I would love to dig into money and happiness.

47:44Tim Malnick: Let's do it. We love talking about this. Anytime you have us back and your technology is working.

47:50Shabbar Kassam: Yeah, definitely. Well, do you know what? I realized only about five minutes ago what I think the issue was. And I know, so I relaxed about five minutes ago and I realized it wasn't going to be an issue anymore. So look, Tim, Shabar, thank you so much for joining me. Where can people find out what you guys are doing? Tim, tell me about these workshops and how people find out.

48:09Tim Malnick: So they can check out our podcast and all the platforms, The Problem of Money with our names. they can find me, Tim Malnick, on LinkedIn and also Shabba. And my website is timothymalnick.com. So all linked to my name. Shabba, do you want?

48:24Shabbar Kassam: Yeah, I'll make sure the links are in there, Shabba. Yeah, Tim's just mentioned the Problem of Money podcast, available on the usual places where you listen to your podcast. And if anyone wants to say hello or reach out and maybe share some money stories, I'm available on LinkedIn to have any kind of chats around money and life. That's my passion going forward. Absolutely. I'll make sure there's links all to that in the show notes. So, gentlemen, thank you so much for joining me. This will be the first of many, I hope. So, thank you. Super. Thank you to me. You're doing great work. Keep going.

49:03Tim Malnick: Cheers, Pete. Cheers. Thank you for your time. Bye. Okay.

49:07Shabbar Kassam: I hope you enjoyed that. Honestly, I could talk to those guys for hours. They seem to make it effortless. And obviously, they know their subject. And it's great to have somebody actually qualified in the psychology stuff in Tim. So I feel like it's a source of great interest to me. But I feel so often really kind of unqualified to talk about this stuff. Except for the fact that I've had lots of experience dealing with real people. But to really get under the skin and understand what's really going on. That's where I appreciate about Tim. So I hope you enjoyed that. They'll be coming back very soon.

49:43Shabbar Kassam: Next time we're back to Q &A, me and Rog again. So stay tuned for that. I've got all kinds of brilliant interviews coming up, actually. Seem to be a real spate of interesting stuff going on that people that I'm getting to talk to. So stay tuned for those over the coming weeks. But that's it for this week. Any questions or comments or links to the guys, that's all at the show notes, meaningfulmoney.tv slash session637. hope you enjoyed it though thank you so much for listening and watching if you're here on youtube then like and subscribe to the channel if you're not already if you're listening then you can always leave us a review or a rating on your podcast uh app of choice thank you so much in advance for that thanks for listening and all watching and i'll talk to you next time