#73 Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth with Dr Brad Klontz

“Your ability to make the world a better place goes up exponentially when you’re in better financial shape.” – Brad Klontz

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About Dr Brad Klontz

My guest in today’s episode 73 of Meaningful Work Meaningful Life podcast, Dr. Brad Klontz is a Founder of the Financial Psychology Institute® and an Associate Professor of Practice in Financial Psychology at Creighton University Heider College of Business.

Dr Brad Klontz started out as a clinical psychologist and very quickly learned that money is the number one stressor in people’s lives, regardless of a current pandemic or market downturn. He has dedicated his career to trying to understand why we are so crazy when it comes to money, why we self-destruct, and why we are programmed to do everything wrong when it comes to money.
Listen to this insightful and thought-provoking episode to find out how you can reframe your perspective and attitude towards money and wealth.

Our Conversation

How do you view your financial status and your ability to achieve wealth stability?

Listen to this insightful and thought-provoking episode to find out how you can reframe your perspective and attitude towards money and wealth.

Key moments in this episode

Dr Brad Klontz shares:

What he currently does
His purpose in life
Surprising fact about him
His personal, negative, experiences with financial wellbeing

He dives into the painful and embarrassing feelings and associations with money and financial stability.

Digging through our beliefs about money to break the cycle of financial instability

Brad shares about the importance of making financial mistakes in order to grow and succeed:

Avoiding the shame associated with money
What the average millionaire experiences

He discusses the secrets of wealthy people.

Realizing the misconceptions of wealth

He shares how we can release the shame around money by acknowledging the problems and working to correct them.

How we can recognize our locus of control, internal v. external::

The mindset of the wealthy
What millionaires do

Dr Brad discusses the importance of tribe mentality and how that can harm our financial well being.

The pressure to stay poor in the tribe
Get rid of the money or get rid of the friends
The tribal brain

He also explains the gradual climb to wealth and its importance.

Brad shares about the gravitation towards negative money association over the positive impacts of financial stability.

Fire Questions and Answers

Do you choose your flight based on the cheapest one or the duration?

“I kind of go for the duration. I try to balance the two but, at this point, I don’t want a six-hour layover if I can do a one-and-a-half-hour layover.”

If I give you a hundred dollars today and a laptop, how would you use it to make money?

“I mean, quite simply, what I would do is I would use it to run ads for some of my courses.”

So what would you say is financial freedom for you?

“Financial freedom for me equals time. That’s really what it is. So, you know, what, to me? What is wealth? It’s only your time. It’s not stuff.”

What is your definition of meaningful work and meaningful life.

“It goes back to my mission statement, which is to help bring hope and healing to the world. And so the fabulous thing about that mission statement for me is I’m fearless. Because I’m trying to live that mission, so I don’t really care what you think about me so much. I’m not so worried about my own ego and all of that, because I’m very focused on the mission.”

What’s your last piece of guidance to our listeners to do more meaningful work and live a meaningful life?

“I would say that if I could just repeat myself a little bit around the where’s the opportunity? I feel like this mindset will radically transform your life. Because there is suffering; so much of our suffering is self-made. We make it ourselves; you know because we’re thinking oh, I wish things were different and There are things that are out of our control. There are things that are absolutely out of our control. So where’s the opportunity?

Where is the opportunity, ask yourself that 10 times a day, because you’re going to see it. And if you are not looking for it, you’re not going to see it.”

Quotes by Dr Brad Klontz

“My mission on earth is to help bring hope and healing to the world.”
“In terms of socioeconomic status, what we have found is poor people, middle-class people have a very different view of reality.”
“People don’t start to figure things out until they’ve already blown it and until they made some big mistake, or they found himself in some really bad situation.”
“If you’ve made terrible financial mistakes, that’s what I would expect.”
“Very often, to get optimal success around money, you very often have to have some big mistakes.”
“Wealthy people have an internal locus of control. They take ownership of their mistakes and don’t blame the external world.”
“There’s so much beauty all around us, even in the midst of a crisis, and it’s your mindset, you have to reset yourself all the time.”
“Shame says you’re a mistake, and you are not!”
“We’re all crazy when it comes to money. I mean, we are wired to just do the wrong thing. It’s our tribal brain.”
“We’re not wired to save, we’re wired to consume as much as possible. You have to overcome your natural wiring.”
“The average millionaire has had three major financial catastrophes before they got there. The average non-millionaire has had one or less than one.”

Action points

What is your key takeaway from this episode? What are you committed to doing today to find more meaning in your work and live a more meaningful life? Share your thoughts on my Facebook page.

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