195 | Growing Your Capacity to Have Money

Learning to have money is critical to making progress on your financial goals. Many lawyers are used to not having money, so keeping money feels hard at first. But when you get this down, you can create stability in your finances, pay down debt, and save more.

In this episode, let’s talk about why it’s so hard for many lawyers to HAVE money, some real-life examples of how this shows up, and some suggestions for how to fix it.

• • how your brain views your typical financial situation and attempts to change it
  • when having money feels wrong
  • how not having the capacity to have money shows up for lottery winners and pro athletes
  • how not having the capacity to have money showed up for a real-life lawyer
  • how to grow your capacity to have money
  • the result of growing the capacity to have money

You’re listening to Wealthyesq. We are a community of lawyers who believe that true wealth is having control of our time. I’m Rho Thomas, and as a busy wife, mom, and former Biglaw associate, I know all too well the tension between the culture of the legal profession and pretty much everything else you want to do in life. That’s why each week, I’m bringing you the information and tools you need to improve your money mindset and manage your money to create true wealth. Because ultimately, it’s not about the money. It’s about the freedom and flexibility the money affords.

Hey friend. Welcome back to the show. I hope you’re doing well and having an amazing day so far. Today we are talking about growing your capacity to have money. When our brains get used to a particular situation or a particular way of things being that becomes our norm, the brain finds safety in that situation and it feels dangerous when things change. For many lawyers, the norm is not having money. And it’s not that we’re not making money, like we make good money. We’re just spending it all and so we’re used to our bank accounts being empty or pretty close to it, or maybe we’ve got a bunch of payments or something like that, right? When your brain is used to a particular situation, then changes to that situation feels dangerous. It’s strange. It’s not how things are supposed to be. And so your brain will try to get you back to the situation that you’re used to. It’s a subconscious thing, but if you’re used to not having money, if you’re used to the struggle, you’re used to sweating bullets before payday because you’re running out of money. That’s the norm and that’s what feels safe for your brain. And one thing that can happen when you start getting your finances in order is it feels wrong to have money. There’s this saying that my family used to say all the time and maybe you’ve heard it but it’s your money is burning a hole in your pocket. And it means that you get money and you can’t wait to spend it. You’re looking for something to spend it on. You just can’t have the money. You need to do something with it. And I see it happen with my clients all the time. They are starting to get their finances in order. They are building their savings. They got a checking account buffer, whatever it is, right? They have more money than they’re used to having and so they want to spend it. The issue with that though, is if you don’t grow the capacity to have money, you will never get out of the paycheck to paycheck cycle. You’ll never pay off debt. You’ll never build your savings. You’ll never build your investments. And as soon as you get some money in your account, if you’re getting rid of it because you’re not used to having money then you’d never improve your finances. There are statistics that talk about the large percentage of people who win the lottery and go broke or the large number of pro athletes who go broke right after they get out of the league. And it’s because they never grew their capacity to have money. They never became the person who could have money. So when the lottery winner all of a sudden gets a bunch of money, they don’t know how to handle it. They don’t know how to manage it and they end up going broke. Within just a few years. On the pro athlete side they have so much money coming in while they’re playing on whatever intervals that it’s coming in at that to kind of mask the problem, but they never get used to having the money so they’re spending it out just as quickly as it’s coming in. Which is why when they’re finished and leave, and they’ve made more money in a few years than most people ever see in their lifetime, they end up going broke. They never grew their capacity to have money. I was just telling one of my clients about this like that she needs to get used to being a person who has money. She has built up her checking account buffer, she’s got her savings, she’s paying off debt, you know, doing all these things, and her account is looking a lot fuller than she’s used to. It’s a lot fuller than it usually is. And so her thought was that she was going to use that money because she’s got all this extra money in there. But the thing is the reason that her checking account is so full is she has created a buffer for herself so that money is there for a reason. It’s not there to be spent. The balance in her checking account feels really high for her because she’s not used to having money. So she’s used to her account dipping into the $100 range or overdrafting or you know, stuff like that right before payday. Or having to put money on or put charges on a credit card because she ran out of money before her next check, right? So that higher balance feels weird to her. But that higher balance is the minimum now. That’s before we were training her brain to see that as the norm. And the thing that we were talking about is how if she were to use that money and then something comes up during the month. Now she’s back in the same cycle that she’s trying to get out of right. She wants to break free from that cycle this like really high high when the paycheck comes in, and really low lows and stress and all of that as she gets near the end of the pay period waiting for that next check. So if she’s going to break free from that cycle, she can’t be making the same kinds of decisions she was making before. She can’t be looking at her money in the same way she has to grow her capacity to have money. So let’s talk about how to do that. How do you grow your capacity to have money? The first suggestion is to create a purpose for your money. When you don’t have a purpose for it. It’s like oh, there’s money in this account. I can spend I can go out to eat or go shopping or I can get drinks or whatever because there’s money but that’s not the case. Right? So for example, we just talked about the extra money right cool extra money and my clients checking account, but it’s actually her checking account buffer. That’s the purpose for the money. It wasn’t money that she could just spend because it was there. Same for if you think about like money that you put in your savings account. It’s not money that’s just there you decide what that money is for like this much is my emergency fund, or I’m saving this for vacation or this for a house. When you know what the money is for. It’s a lot easier to see that it’s not just extra money that you can spend however you want to which makes it easier to hold on to it. The next tip is to create a plan for your money. And this kind of goes along with the first one right? Because if you create a plan for your money, you’re deciding ahead of time what that money is for. If you don’t have a plan, you don’t think about what the money is for and what things you have coming up and all of that and often you end up not having money available when things inevitably come up. So creating a plan for how you’re going to use your money helps you to grow your capacity to have money again because you know that just because the money is in your account, it doesn’t mean that it’s available to spend however you want to you’re able to let that money just be there because you know that you have a plan for it. When you have that plan. If you’re looking at using the money for anything other than what’s in the plan, you can check yourself and decide like No, I’m not gonna do that. And as you create those plans for your money and you stick to your plans, you get used to seeing money in your account. You get used to sending money to savings or to your investments or paying off debt and watching your net worth grow and that becomes the norm for you. So we talked about having a purpose for your money. We talked about creating a plan for your money. The final tip is to change the way you see yourself. You want to start identifying as a person who has money rather than a person who doesn’t have money or who’s used to struggling with their money. So how do you do that? If you think about a person who is used to having money, like that’s the norm for them, and you think about like what does that person think about themselves? What does that person think about money? How does that person behave with their money, and then you model those things. I am reminded of an example from James clear who wrote the book atomic habits, he talked about two people who both decided to quit smoking and later they’re both offered cigarettes. One person says nothing compared to quit, but the other one says No, thanks. I’m not a smoker. Which one of those people do you think is more likely to successfully quit smoking? The one who identifies as a nonsmoker, right like if I’m just trying to quit it means there’s a desire there and I’m trying to fight against it. Versus if I’m not a smoker, there is no desire there is no realm where I’m taking that cigarette, I don’t smoke. So the way that you identify is critical in changing your habits. And in this case, what we’re talking about is growing your capacity to have money. So start identify as a person who has money because you are and when you do those three things. You create a purpose for your money, you create a plan for your money, you start identifying as a person who has money, that having money stops being such a weird thing for your brain, it stops feeling like a dangerous situation that you have to change and subconsciously, self sabotage yourself to get back to not having money again. You are gonna pay off your debt, you’re gonna build your savings, you’re gonna build your investments, you’re going to be wealthy, but you can’t get there. If you’re always spending all your money. If you’re always getting rid of money as soon as you get it. So create that purpose for your money. Create a plan for it. Change your identity so that you can use your money in the best way possible to move yourself forward financially. All right, that is it for this week’s episode. If you haven’t done so already, please go ahead, subscribe to the show and leave a review. Both of those things help us to get the show in front of more people so that we can get this information in the hands of more lawyers. Thank you in advance for your support. As we close out friends, I pray that you take the information you learn here, apply it in your life and open up to the realization that wealth is available to you. As you do that consistently. Week after week. You’ll continue to take steps to regain control of your time, build wealth and live a life of freedom and choice you deserve. Talk to you later.