A conversation with Manisha Thakor, founder of the financial wellbeing consultancy, MoneyZen. Manisha is a women's financial literacy advocate, author, educator and keynote speaker.
Manisha Thakor has worked in financial services for over 30 years with a focus on women’s economic empowerment. She has written two personal finance books for women in their 20s and 30s. Her latest book MoneyZen: The Secret to Finding Your “Enough,” will be released in early August, 2023.
Manisha shared that she was exposed to financial concepts at a very young age. Her father worked in the finance industry and taught her and her brother the power of compounding interest in a fun way. He showed them how to use his HP 12C financial calculator to calculate the dollars they would accumulate by saving rather than spending their babysitting and lawn mowing money. Her mother also taught her that money gives women voices and choices.
She was recruited into a two year investment banking training program after college, the traditional route for people interested in a finance career, and realized after 6 months that she detested it! Instead, she was drawn to investment management, finding that she had a deep passion for understanding the markets and understanding personal finance.
Though she enjoyed the work, Manisha became trapped in the "never enough" mindset. She had been an awkward, ridiculed, chubby kid in her early years, and, no matter how successful she was, she continued to be driven to receive more accolades in her career, and more outward symbols of material wealth and achievement.
“Shockingly, a large percentage of successful people or just driven people are driven by small "t" traumas to some extent, and on the surface, just like my experience, it can seem ridiculously small, but have a ridiculously huge impact in terms of how you live your adult life.” - Manisha Thakor
Key takeaways:
- Understand the multifaceted reasons behind your “never enough” mindset. So many of us have a sense of scarcity, around our money, or work, or accomplishments, or other areas of our lives. Manisha noted that, before we can fix it, we need to understand the root cause. In her case, she attributes the root cause to small “t” traumas of bullying and not fitting in that happened when she was very young yet continue to live on in her psyche.
- Learn to listen to the wisdom of your body. It took a physical wake up call from her body for Manisha to finally slow down. Her high stress levels combined with some other vulnerabilities sent her to the hospital, ultimately requiring her to take several months of bedrest and time off from work under doctor’s orders.
- Identify the equation you’ve been living your life by. For each of us, that equation may be different. In Manisha’s case, she realized she was believing that her self worth = her net worth. Once she recognized this, she was able to put practices in place to flip the equation to “financial health + emotional wealth = money zen.”
- Know that, when you implement change in your life, it will be three steps forward, one step back. Manisha found herself back in the “never enough” head as she began to market her new book, “Moneyzen: The Secret to Finding Your Enough”. Because you can always do one more podcast, one more interview, one more marketing activity. The key is to recognize when you’re falling back into old ways of being, don’t beat yourself up for it, but instead tap into the new equation you’ve chosen to live your life by.
About the guest:
Manisha Thakor has worked in financial services for over 30-years with a focus on women’s economic empowerment. A nationally recognized thought-leader around the issues of financial literacy and education, Manisha has been featured in national media such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Barron’s, CNN, and CNBC. She has written two personal finance books for women in their 20s and 30s. Her latest book MoneyZen: The Secret to Finding Your “Enough” comes out on August 8th 2023. Manisha earned her MBA from Harvard Business School, her BA from Wellesley College and holds the CFA and CFP designations.
Purchase Manisha's book, MoneyZen: The Secret to Finding Your "Enough"
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Email address: manisha@moneyzen.com
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Manisha Thakor: Shockingly, a large percentage of successful people or just driven people are driven by small t traumas to some extent, and on the surface, just like my experience, it can seem ridiculously small, but have a ridiculously huge impact. Um, in terms of how you live your adult life.
Welcome to making change with your money, a podcast that highlights the stories and strategies of women who experienced a big life transition and overcame challenges as they redefined financial success for themselves. Now, here's your host, certified financial planner, Laura Rotter.
Laura Rotter: I am so excited to have as my guest today, Manisha Thakor. Manisha has worked in financial services for over 30 years with a focus on women's economic empowerment. She's a nationally recognized thought leader around the issues of financial literacy and education. And she's been featured in national media such as the Wall Street Journal. The New York Times, Barron's, CNN, and CNBC.
She's written two personal finance books for women in their 20s and 30s, which I have gifted to my daughter and my nieces. And her latest book, Money's In, The Secret to Finding You’re Enough. Comes out on August 8th, 2023. So thank you, Manisha for being a guest on the making change with your money podcast.
Manisha Thakor: Laura, thank you so much for having me. You know, we get so many newsletters these days and when I get yours, I always open it and I always feel uplifted. So it's such a pleasure to get to talk to you.
Laura Rotter: I am going to ask you the question I start all my podcasts with, which you did address a bit in your book, which is, what was money like in your family growing up?
Manisha Thakor: So I feel blessed. This is one time. I'm glad that I was an oddball in the sense that growing up, my family was very, we dealt with money in a very healthy way. My dad, his whole career has been in finance. And so from a very young age, he taught my brother and I the power of compounding. And he did it in a fun way. I think it was around age 11. He showed me how to use his HP 12C financial calculator to calculate if I saved my babysitting and lawn mowing money. And if I got after inflation returns of 5, 6, 7%, how much I'd have at age 65. And when I saw that those dollars, I was like, I'm all in. And then my mom always taught me that money gives women voices and choices.
So I was really blessed. And that's part of the reason why I'm so passionate about financial literacy is I recognize how rare that is.
Laura Rotter: Yes, and also rare, you know, I've spoken to so many women where their brother received the education, but they didn't so kudos to your father to treat both of you equally when these conversations took place.
So, I, I love to start the journey, the relative beginning. You, I assume, took it for granted that you went to college, that was paid for by your parents, I assume?
Manisha Thakor: Yes, growing up in a mixed race family where my dad was from India and a very basic background, education was everything. And so we didn't live a fancy life growing up, but the gift I got in exchange was no student loans.
Laura Rotter: Yes. Which is a wonderful gift. And did you have any idea, I hadn't realized that your father was in finance. Did, was that just something you took for granted that you too, were gonna go into his, his field, if you will, and I know finance is quite a broad field.
Manisha Thakor: Yeah, no, Laura. Absolutely not. Um, Indian Indian kids are always encouraged to go be doctors.
Um,
Laura Rotter: Yes, like Jewish kids.
Manisha Thakor: That's true. So I went off to college premed and, uh.
Laura Rotter: And what, what shifted for you, Manisha?
Manisha Thakor: I had the opportunity to spend my junior year abroad at Oxford. And there I stumbled upon Virginia Woolf's book, A Room of One's Own. And I also wanted to make enough money that I knew if I ever wasn't, uh, emotionally painful situation like that, I could get out and it was very clear in the early nineties when I graduated from college that investment banking and so forth was a place to go if you wanted to make money. So that's where I headed
Laura Rotter: Makes sense, right? That has sort of changed over time. It morphed into computer engineering. Um, but finance is always if yeah. If you want to follow the money, that certainly in our formative years was the field to go into. So what was the major though? Because I know when I was in college, because I went to one of the seven sisters, you couldn't major in accounting or you had to, you know, the major would have to be economics.
I was an English literature major. So what did you major in and how did you follow that major?
Manisha Thakor: Well, so similar to you, I also am a Seven Sisters grad and my major was actually American Studies because it was as close as I could get to women's studies without pissing my parents off.
My senior thesis actually, so I majored in American Studies, I minored in economics. But my senior thesis was called Thin, Thinner, Thinnest. And it was an argument that you could have serious issues with food, even if you weren't clinically anorexic or bulimic, that you could be a compulsive eater and struggle with binge eating, and it could suck the life out of you and keep you from becoming and using your talents to your fullest. And just as slight tangent, but just five years, five, six years ago, the DSM, the Diagnostic Statistical Manual has added binge eating disorder as an official classification.
And I like to Burn that up from time to time, particularly when I'm talking to groups of women, because when you hear somebody who seems to have had this great career, you can often think, Oh, you know, it was all unicorns and rainbows. And so, you know, as I was making that decision in American studies. And in economics, I was struggling with with binge eating.
And that was another reason why I wanted to make money so that I could get help to stop having this issue.
Laura Rotter: Well, thank you for sharing that, Manisha. It speaks to the fact that you were grappling with the concept of what is enough early on, you know, with, with eating and I loved how you talked about childhood trauma in your book and its impact. Can you speak a little bit to that?.
Manisha Thakor: Absolutely Absolutely. So. For a number of years when I talked about the period between fourth grade and sixth grade, and to set the context, I lived in a small town in Indiana, and I was probably, besides my brother, the only other mixed race person in town, and I was chubby, and I had Coke bottle glasses, and, you know, I just, I didn't fit in, and the kids called me mean names, like Cowbutt and Thunder Thighs, and, And for years, almost until my 40s, I couldn't talk about that without bursting into tears, or at least having tears stream down my face. It was that painful. And I remember thinking, this is ridiculous. I am, you know, I can remember my early 40s thinking, I'm a 40 year old woman. Why am I feeling pain over something that happened in 4th, 5th, 6th grade? And the answer is that... Small T traumas, these things that happen to us as we're forming our identities, particularly prior to age 25, when our brains really are almost fully formed, can dig deep into our subconscious and our soul and shockingly, a large percentage of successful people, or just driven people are driven by small t traumas to some extent, and on the surface, just like my experience, it can seem ridiculously small, but have a ridiculously huge impact. Um, in terms of how you live your adult life.
Laura Rotter: That so resonates with me. I was the nerdy kid. I often think as I walk into rooms that hold a lot of people that there is my 10 year old self walking into that room and feel so, so uncomfortable and I never really thought about how that might have impacted the fact that you know, I too was very driven and continue to grapple with your subject of what is enough. So how did that affect you when you started your career? I'm assuming you graduated into some two year investment banking program or...
Manisha Thakor: Precisely, like that was the route back when you and I were getting out of school. You, you graduated, you went to an analyst program at an investment bank and then you tried to get into a good business school and... I immediately, uh, I've always been a little bit quirky or maybe a lot quirky, but I immediately deviated.
I spent six months in an investment banking training program and detested it. And when I went to leave, I thought that they were going to be so angry at me. And I was shocked. The senior managing director to whom I submitted my resignation Basically said to me, you know, good on you, Manisha, that, you know, get out of this before you get to a place of an earnings level where your entire family and lifestyle depend on it, and you can't do anything else.
And that was actually echoed by two other people before I, you know, during my two weeks before I left. And I have never forgotten that, that kind of get out. But while you can, unfortunately, while I didn't forget it, I didn't actually act on it. And I got stuck in it for the next 30 years.
Laura Rotter: So you left to do what when you left the training program?
Manisha Thakor: So back in those days, there Was no internet and there were no online job posting. So I opened up the New York Times to see what I could find. I interviewed to be a secretary at Morgan Stanley. They told me I was overqualified, and I went down the list and I saw this posting for something in an area called investment management.
And I wasn't quite sure what the difference was between investment banking and investment management. But as I dug into it, it seemed like a kinder, gentler form. And so I entered into that world and loved it and found that I had a deep passion for understanding the markets and also understanding personal finance.
And so when I went off to business school, I knew coming out that I wanted to make a career in investment management.
Laura Rotter: Very, very interesting and very different than investment banking as someone who just did investment management, though it sounds like you found a way to not have it be kinder and gentler.
In keeping perhaps with your personality to go, go, go and do, do, do. So I know you weren't in New York. You were in Houston?
Manisha Thakor: I was in Houston, but we had such a client base. And also, um, I wore two hats. I was a buy-side equity analyst and then a portfolio manager and continued my equity analyst duties. For a fair amount of time in that. So, you know, New York's the epicenter of at least at the time it was investor conferences. And ironically, 1 of the industries I followed was financial services. So I was up in New York all the time. I feel like I was up there probably four months out of every year. And I will tell you, uh, as a young person being in New York on an expense, um, you know, and when you're on a T and E expense is a very fun way to experience New York, but it also can make your eyes grow big in terms of what you want, what you think you want. And it exposes you to a level of luxury and entitlement, if you will, that can seep into your head and your soul.
Laura Rotter: It is so true. You know, when we're in a fishbowl, it's really hard to even realize we're in that fishbowl. If I think about my last position at Citigroup and the woman to my left had boxes and boxes of Louboutin's shoes under her desk.
She just collected and the purses, as you mentioned, and to pull yourself away from that life and that lifestyle and that value system takes a level of maturity that when we, you know, when we're starting out is, is hard to have an, and when you're part of it, it's, it can be giddy. You know, it's there's something exciting about it as you talked.
Manisha Thakor: Well, and that speaks that speaks to never enough ism in the sense that um, you know, one of the factors that can lead you to have a never enough mindset is Childhood trauma and feeling you have to keep earning more getting more accolades moving forward in your career But then once you move forward in your career and you're exposed to that fishbowl which for women so often, but for men too, you can be judged by the shoes you have, the bag you're carrying, the clothes you're wearing, the watch you have, and there's never enough of that either.
And so you're in a vicious cycle of, you know, wanting to keep up, have the latest, look the And it's not all irrational because people do treat you differently when you dress differently, when I was in my power suits and my four digit handbags, people treated me a certain way. Today, I split my time between Portland, Oregon and rural Maine.
Both towns are kitschy, and generally speaking, I wear Overalls, Carhartt overalls, which, you know, a lot of construction workers wear for nine months out of the year, and I can't tell you how many stores I've been in where I've been, where I've bent down to look at a certain object and people will come up to me and say, you know, where can I find this aisle or where can I find this product or are you, you know, they just, they make assumptions based on, you know, and one of the funniest stories, Laura, I was actually working on the book and I was in a coffeehouse and I was In a zone and they shot because it was 5 o'clock.
And so I went outside and it was starting to drizzle in Portland. And so I tucked myself under the awning of the coffee shop and I had my laptop down to my side, but I was scribbling some notes on to some scrap pieces of paper and a kind looking gentleman walked by and I had my carheartts on and a kind looking gentleman Walked by and tried to hand me a 5 bill.
And then when he saw Sitting next to me. He said I am so sorry. I thought you didn't have a place to live. And so, you know, it really speaks to how people we judge people In such superficial ways.
Laura Rotter: Yes, I mean, we are wired to put people in boxes, and the way you look is a very easy way to judge. And I just feel moved to share one of my funny stories towards the end of my career on Wall Street.
I had let my hair go wavy and curly, and I went into the office one day in harem pants. A knitted vest and a long flowing Eileen Fisher top and had completely forgotten that I had a meeting with Morgan Stanley. I was the client. We were discussing Puerto Rican distress bonds. And Manisha, when I showed up to that meeting, they treated me with like this chick must be good at what she does if she can I was dressed like this yoga teacher as I walked onto the training floor and Morgan Stanley. I was a little mortified, but again, I was really treated with respect. So it is very funny how people sort of judge. I was the client. This was how I was dressed.
Manisha Thakor: So exactly. I mean, you have to have a lot of power and status in wall street to buck the trend and get out of the armor and the uniform.
Laura Rotter: Exactly. So I still laugh about that one. Can you speak to another sort of insidious trend, if you will, not only consumerism, but the busy bee badge and the impact.
Manisha Thakor: Yeah, you know, busy ness when we, we meet people. These days, you know, people ask, how are you? It's not uncommon for people to answer busy, or so busy, or crazy busy! And it's like this badge of honor. I have so much to do, therefore I am important. The more I have to do, um, the better a human doing I am, and we judge people so much on what they do. I mean, you meet someone, and within one of the first couple of questions, indefinitely is, what do you do?
And then there's a judgment made about that. And so we're encouraged to consider time spent in play or contemplation or in community. Oftentimes. It has wasted time. And now that's not true for everyone, but you can get wrapped up when you have a never enough mindset into the belief that those things are not productive uses of your time, because they're not leading to more money, more accolades, more success, or you want to do those things, but you're afraid to not be busy.
And just to give an example, for years when I would be out doing large scale, perspective, uh, speaking events, as a portfolio manager, you know, I'd be in a hotel and there would be a conference full of potential high net worth clients or something, and they'd be having cocktails or hors d'oeuvres before the speaking part of the event, started and I would never socialize.
I would always go in the corner and pull out my laptop and, you know, stare and say, you know, I'm thinking about my talk because I was afraid to interact and socialize with people. And so, and you know, nobody ever questioned, why are you working on your speech now? If you're going to give it in three minutes, like, is that really what you're doing?
Laura Rotter: Yeah, it's
so true. We can hide behind our busyness. And I'm also aware, you know, when I read Buddhist treatises about non attachment, of course, again, the overall topic we're talking about of attached to things and, but certainly we don't have a belief. We're told at a young age we are how we do in school.
We are our friends. And the fact to just believe that we, that life itself is a gift, that just being is enough It sounds nice, but we don't actually think that's true. We think we have to be worthy. In some way, however we define it.
Manisha Thakor: And that's one of the things that propelled me to go on this journey and write this book because I myself woke up midlife to realize I had basically spent my entire adult life orking awt the expense of living, and I did so with a never enough mindset that evolved into this incredibly toxic relationship with, with money and work and success and accolades, I couldn't step away from it. And, you know, I recognized it. I knew I was a workaholic. I knew that I was missing key events.
And I love Buddhist teachings, you know, and like, give me some Thich Nhat Hanh, give me some Pema, you know, like, and, and I, I'd read this, I would, I would, you know, hear people say meditate, I would try, I would hear people say, you know, nature bathes, walk on grass in your bare feet, I tried this stuff, but it, it didn't fix me, and what I wanted to understand was Why couldn't those age old ancient practices that wouldn't still exist if they didn't work not work on me. It is incredibly different and, or excuse me, it's incredibly difficult to use these wonderful age-old mindful practices to soothe yourself. Because essentially what you're doing is you've got a bloody gaping wound and you're putting a Band-Aid on it and you need to fix the wound. And so that was for me, one of the really big eye opening pieces of this journey. I thought I was going to write a book of, you know, seven steps to... And what I ended up was realizing that naming the problem was 80% of the solution. Identifying how you got the problem was 80% of the solution. And then the remaining 20% was flipping your mindset in a variety of different ways.
And one of those would, of course, Potentially include using these mindful techniques that I know both you and I are very drawn to.
Laura Rotter: So a couple of things are coming up for me, Manisha. First of all, was there a particular catalyst? Because you and I know we could go for years recognizing there's a problem and not changing.
Many people do. Was there a particular catalyst that you're like, Okay, no more. I've got to get off this treadmill.
Manisha Thakor: Yes, there is a wonderful book called The Body Keeps Score, and oh my, I now am such a believer in the power of the body to, talk to you. My general modus operandi was to run as fast as I could, hit a brick wall in exhaustion, collapse, pick myself up again, and repeat.
And I had had one illness, I had contracted dengue fever on a, a trip into the jungle in Laos that I got quite ill from, but it, that wasn't enough for a wake up call even though I had some very severe side effects that left me with two hospital stays at one of which, um, the doctors literally thought there was a chance I could die and my family was called in. Um, a very rare a side effect of dengue fever can be organ failure and anyways, but it wasn't until I was almost turning 50 And I got So sick, I could barely stay awake I mean literally I could i'd be in the office I'd do a meeting and I’d have to go into the wellness room where Mothers were pumping and I’d crawl on the floor set an alarm sleep for two hours get up and go to the next meeting and then I started to develop these painful red welts all over my body.
And when I went to the doctor, she was very scared because now I was starting to have that accompanied by first 101-degree fever, and then it kept marching higher and higher. She finally sent me to the hospital to do this range of blood tests. And I remember the phlebotomist looking and being so stunned at how many tests were being run.
And he said. I wonder what's wrong with you? Among other things. It really shook me up because at this point my body shut down. It turned out I had a said rate is 1 marker of inflammation and just by reference the said rate of 1 to 20 is normal above 100 typically indicates tumor malignancy and mine was 95.
And so I had hyper inflammation, my body was attacking itself and I had acute Epstein Barr, Epstein Barr is to mono what shingles is to chicken pox and just said, we're going to shut you down because you clearly went to take four months of bed rest and time off from work under doctor's orders and it ended up being nine months.
It took me that long to be able to stay awake and function for, you know to be awake for 16 hours a day. That would be a big wake up call. Very much. And I also had a financial wake up call, but the physical wake up call I find that Interesting, because in retrospect, I'm hearing more and more people tell me stories of their bodies.
Just, things are happening to their bodies. And, if we don't listen, there's a message there, I believe. Um, in how we're feeling, and what's going on internally.
Laura Rotter: I, I've been using my word of the month is discern and in order to listen, you know, we need to be quiet. And sometimes we just don't know how to do that till our body is like, I'm going to get really loud. You can't ignore me anymore.
So. What practices for the women that are listening that this may very much resonate with like, you know, you're ready for change, but haven't been able to start to address. You're not enoughness and move away from it. What practices worked for you, Manisha?
Manisha Thakor: It is like a I would I'd liken it to a dimmer where you're starting on dark and the steps you take gradually bring you back into the light and the first step is the 1 we've talked about understanding the.
Personal small t traumas, the cultural and societal influences, or even some evolutionary biological influences that I talk about in in the book that can lead you to have a never enough mindset. But the 1st step is really understanding your unique. Combination of factors that drove you to this point and for many people, they can sit and reflect and look back and identify some kind of mental framework or rubric or equation that they've been living their life to optimize.
That's not working. And so, in my case, the first piece of the work was to come to understand I was living my life to optimize the equation, self worth equals net worth. We are not taught as a society to seek financial health. In the sense, the definition of health will vary. Widely for different people, but it's that place where you can meet your needs and you're happy and you are not stressed and then you can take your remaining energies and invest it at the same time.
It's not like you have to achieve financial health first to fill this other bucket, but you invest it in emotional wealth. And you give that bucket just as much, if not more, reverence and respect in terms of how you're making your daily decisions to take actions in your life near term and long term.
Laura Rotter: And I'm curious to take it to a real nitty gritty day to day level. How are you reminding yourself of that, because it's one thing to come up with this great equation. I love equations for my business. I wrote gratitude plus presence equals true abundance. And that did not stop me from getting up the same time in the morning when I started this business as I did on wall street and working till late at night and still being on a day to day on the same treadmill. So, how do you practice this equation?
Manisha Thakor: Any kind of major change is not linear. It's, you know, three steps forward, one step back. I can remember in the early days of writing the book, I was talking to various different researchers who specialized in workaholism and one of them encouraged me to go to a Workaholic's Anonymous group.
And I thought, well, what's the point of that? Because any true workaholic wouldn't have time to go to Workaholics Anonymous. And so that's where I started from. But what I found was change comes from a series of small, incremental Steps. So, you know, at first, it was allowing myself to go to a coffee house, do work, but take a 10 minute break to journal or read a book.
Like even that little amount away from work felt, you know, just decadent. And then it got bigger, you know, going to do things just, you know, telling myself I was not going to work on Sundays, which is sad. Um, that was the first step. And then it was, I'm not going to work on weekends. And then it was, I'm not going to work after seven. And then I'm not going to work after five. And, you know, so there are different things. And then in terms of the connection piece, it started with, you know, when I take business trips, my attitude has always been get in and get out. And so I started to say, wait a minute, If I'm in an area of the country, I live on the west coast. My family lives on the east coast. Well, I'm going to take a little bit of extra time and go visit my parents who are in their 80s or visit my brother and his three cute little munchkins who are still not old enough to, uh, want to, uh, avoid adults. And. And, you know, if I'm in an interesting city, I'm a huge fan of third wave, independent coffee houses.
I'll take a look at the best indie cafes, and I'll try and visit 1 or 2 around my meetings. So, it's adding in steps like. Like this and what it boils down to is identifying small things that make you happy, taking steps towards them and then what will happen is you'll suddenly sometimes make big changes.
So, for me. And being out with, you know, spending time with family. Um, my brother happens to have, uh, uh, he lives in DC as a lake house in Maine, and I came up to spend time with them and I thought, what the heck? I've got all this financial health. I found a really rustic 500 square foot, 1915, um, build a 1950 cabin five feet from the water.
And, um, I bought it. And now I spend, you know, a good chunk of the, uh, spring and summer and early fall, um, living in this very simple place. I would never have imagined taking a step like that. I mean, something that dramatic, but I want to emphasize to people that it is. Three steps for one step back, because when I turned in this book manuscript, I was in such a great place.
My family, the people around me could not believe, like, they're like, you look different, you look younger, you, you, you know, you've changed. And so you can fall off, but that framework helped me realize I depleted my financial wealth and my emotional wealth rather once again, and it's like guardrails that equation helped me get back a little closer to where I want to be. And I'll keep taking baby steps in that direction.
Laura Rotter: I love that. So we're not too hard of ourselves of expectations either way, that we're somehow going to let it all go and live in a state of bliss. We're just not wired that way.
Manisha Thakor: No, and what will happen is, and this is why I think it is so important to deeply understand the unique factors.
For you that led you into a never enough mindset, because then when you fall off the financial health plus emotional wealth framework for allocating your time and making decisions about how you want to live your life, you can look back and say, okay, which of those drivers has just. You know, grabbed a hold of me, which of, which of those forces, and it might be one, it might be all four of the factors.
And so that can be really powerful. And in my case, you know, I, I took a look back and said, okay, why am I doing this? And I realized the driver for me was that four to six year old.
Laura Rotter: I want to pick up on what you just said about the four to six year old voice, because something you did mention in the book, Manisha, is the ability to maybe bring in the adult and say, Oh, sweetheart, you know, you're taking, you're trying to take care of me.
It was, you know, it was a difficult time. And, you know, you survived. through relying on your accolades for other things, for being a teacher's pet, for doing well academically, for keeping yourself busy, and to recognize that that young voice is really trying to help us and say, I got it.
Manisha Thakor: Laura, you nailed it. I mean, when I look back at this book marketing period where I regressed into my old habits in a big way, I looked and I said, Okay, when I was in that 4th through 6th grade period, why did I dive into academics? It was to receive accolades for my professor to make me feel worthy since my peers ostracized me and and I felt unworthy and then as you move into the career world, you know accolades from grades shift to promotions and money and I stopped and I thought, why am I writing this book?
Why do I need to get accolades? Why am I pushing so hard? And everybody writes books for different reasons. And there are, you know, some people write books because I help monetize their career. And that's a great reason to write a book. I, I encourage people in my case, I genuinely just want this book to help people.
What I'm doing with the rest of my life does not have a lot to do with this message. And when I realized. Okay, I'm just trying to help people now go back and be kind to those urges from that young person in me and then lay that against the backdrop of my adult reality. Do I need those accolades to feel whole?
Why am I doing this? What's, you know, and so then I was able to, to start making some of these adjustments and it sounds simple, those steps, but you know, it took me a month to work through that before I got to the last two days where I started change.
Laura Rotter: Hey, thanks again for sharing that. I think it helps our listeners to normalize their experience.
I can't help myself. I want to ask, especially because you mentioned the 12 step program, what role, if any, did faith play in this change, however you define that word?
Manisha Thakor: The role that faith played was in my awareness. That there was almost none in my emotional wealth bucket, that as I had zoomed along in my career, that was one part of my being that was not nurtured.
At all, I consider myself to be an all purpose, generally spiritual person and part of that is because my dad studied Hindu. My mom was brought up Catholic and we were just encouraged and taught broader concepts rather than going to some type of formal organized church or temple and the recognition that that was missing and also in the research.
Seeing over and over how connection to something bigger than yourself plays a huge role and pulling yourself out of never enough. That's the role that I would say it's played and now I'm excited to bring more of that into my life.
Laura Rotter: I love that. So Manisha, is there anything as we come to our end that you'd like to share with our listeners? Any resources of other than your book or in addition to your book that you'd like to share?
Manisha Thakor: Absolutely. There are 2 that I would like to mention. Um, I have created a fun quiz. It's 7 questions. Some are lighthearted, some are deeper to help you identify whether you are. Grappling with never enough and if so, where are you on kind of the spectrum between financial health and emotional wealth and you can find that at moneyzenquiz.com and it's a lot of fun and then the other thing I would mention is that as moneyzen.com I, um, have a list of curated resources, and what I'm going to be doing is consistently updating the books, the best, I want to kind of keep a running list of the best 10 books, the best 10 articles, the best 10 podcasts that speak to this issue of never enough. I currently have all of that on my site relative to financial health, but I want to add that. And so stay tuned, um, because this journey has given me so many resources and that's where I will be sharing them going forward.
Laura Rotter: Thank you so much. This was a great conversation, Manisha. So happy to have you as my guest.
I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Manisha Thakor, author and founder of MoneyZen. I'd like to share some of the things I'm taking away from the conversation.
Understand the multifaceted reasons behind your never enough mindset. So many of us have a sense of scarcity around our money, our work, our accomplishments, or other areas of our lives. Manisha noted that before we can fix it, we need to understand the root cause. In her case, she attributes the root cause to small T traumas of bullying and not fitting in that happened when she was very young, yet continued to live on in her psyche.
Another takeaway is to listen to the wisdom of your body. It actually took a physical wake up call from her body for Manisha to finally slow down. Her high stress levels, combined with some other vulnerabilities, sent her to the hospital, ultimately requiring her to take several months of bed rest. and time off from work under doctor's orders.
Another takeaway, identify the equation you've been living your life by. For each of us, that equation may be different. In Manisha's case, she realized she was believing that her self worth equals her net worth. And once she recognized this, she was able to put practices in place to flip the equation to financial health plus emotional wealth equals moneyzen. And finally, know that when you implement change in your life, It will be three steps forward, one step back.
Manisha found herself back in the Never Enough head as she began to market her new book, Money Zen, The Secret to Finding Your Enough. Because you can always do one more podcast, one more interview, one more marketing activity. The key is to recognize when you're falling back into old ways of being. Don't beat yourself up for it.
But instead, tap into the new equation you've chosen to live your life by. Are you enjoying this podcast? Please share it with a friend. And don't forget to subscribe so you won't miss next week's episode. And I'd really appreciate it if you'd leave a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts. Thank you so much.
Thanks for listening to Making Change With Your Money. Certified financial planner, Laura Rotter, specializes in helping people just like you, organized, clarify, and invest their money in order to support a life of purpose and meaning. Go to www. trueabundanceadvisors. com forward slash workbook for a free resource to help you on your journey.
Disclaimer. Please remember that the information shared by this podcast does not constitute accounting, legal, tax, investment, or financial advice. It's for information purposes only. You should seek appropriate professional advice for your specific information.